Golden Age Young Allies Masterworks Vol. 1 Regular Edition Cover

Vol. 121: Golden Age Young Allies Masterworks Variant Edition Cover

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On Sale: MASTERWORKS LIST

PREVIEW IMAGES

YA #1: Page 7
YA #1: Page 8
YA #1: Page 10
YA #1: Page 31
YA #2: Page 9
YA #2: Page 24
YA #2: Page 32-33
YA #3: Page 2
YA #3: Page 9
YA #3: Page 36
YA #3: Page 62
YA #4: Page 3
YA #4: Page 9
YA #4: Page 33
YA #4: Page 36

GOLDEN AGE SUPER-TEAM ACTION!

The Young Allies, comics' very first boy-adventure team, leap into four-color action once more with their debut Marvel Masterworks volume! Super-hero sidekicks unite when Captain America's pal, Bucky and his Sentinels of Liberty team up with the Human Torch’s protégé, Toro, to take on the Axis!

And they won't waste a second getting down to business. Right from issue #1 they take the fight straight to Berlin and, rest assured, the Red Skull and even Hitler himself won't be walking out of this fight without a bloody nose. Next up, it's the Black Talon returning from the pages of Captain America Comics to terrorize the Young Allies, or maybe that should be the other way around?

There are 5th Columnists, Nazis, Imperial generals, spies, and action galore in each of these Timely classics. The Golden Age of Comics packed in cover-to-cover adventure, but there are few that can compare to the massive, 60-pages plus, issue-length adventures of the Young Allies!

Collecting YOUNG ALLIES #1-4

(From official Marvel solicit)

EXCERPTS FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL USLAN

"...before Joe Simon hatched "The Young Allies," he began with Captain America’s "Sentinels of Liberty." Here was a group of heroic kids in the great American historic tradition of the Sons of Liberty who, among many other brave and rebellious acts, tossed one whole hell of a lot of tea off a British ship docked in Boston Harbor one night in 1773. With World War II about to explode on American soil, Timely/Marvel Comics Editor Joe Simon assigned the idea to an enthusiastic teen in the Timely office who had been itching to write. This would be his second two page text piece and would appear in the fourth issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS, June 1941. It would be a story about Cap’s sidekick, Bucky Barnes, and his kid group known as The Sentinels of Liberty. Stanley Lieber, now writing for comic books under such pen names as Neel Nats, Stan Martin, and Stan Lee, gave it his all and it clicked with the readers. Publisher Martin Goodman, in cahoots with Joe Simon, then hatched the idea of a real club for their comic book readers under the leadership of Bucky. This club would promote patriotism and have its young members keep watchful eyes out for any possible sneak attacks, fifth columnist sabotage, Nazi bund propaganda, or spying by the Axis of evil. For only ten cents, joining kids would receive a real membership badge and card. Watch out Axis, here come the youth of America!

Naturally, Editor Simon gave young Stan the go-ahead for a second two page text to run in CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS #8 (November 1941). By this time, however, reflecting on his childhood favorite, "The Boy Allies," Joe told Stan to call the group, "The Young Allies." It now featured an established roster of characters created by Simon and Kirby as written by Lee in the text piece. But before introducing these fellows, an important historical footnote is necessary. Taken from a perspective of America today, these characters repeat some of what we now perceive to be some of the worst stereotypes of the day as portrayed in minstrel shows, vaudeville, dime novels, pulps, and…well… in American society of that time. If there’s anything comic books are besides an indigenous American art form and our true modern day mythology, they are, for better or for worse, reflectors of a changing American culture. They have always been published week by week since the 1930’s and are a mirror of our society, warts and all, reflecting our fads, slang, mores, as well as our biases and prejudices. We cannot hide our past and pretend it never happened. To do that dooms us to repeat the mistakes of the past in the present and future. Thus, this collection of the early 1940’s adventures of The Young Allies as originally published must be read as historical works of that specific period the same way some seventy years from now, scholars and fans of the genre will be looking back at today’s adventures of Marvel’s diverse slate of heroes and villains and supporting cast representing different countries, cultures, races, religions, creeds, sexual preferences, and gender. With this in mind, in the pages that follow, you will meet Bucky’s pals, Knuckles (Percival Aloysius O’Toole), Jeff (Jefferson Worthington Sandervilt), Tubby (Henry Tinkle), and Whitewash Jones, the last being in the mold of cinema’s Stepin Fetchit character.

Knowing they were on to something big and with the fast growing ranks of readers sending in their dimes to join The Sentinels of Liberty club, Goodman authorized a new comic book title for The Young Allies. But Simon and Kirby had one big change to make in it if the book was to make the biggest possible splash on the marketplace. Approximately a year earlier, DC Comics broke landmark ground with the introduction of The Justice Society of America, the first group of super-heroes, in the pages of ALL-STAR COMICS #3 (Winter 1940-41). It was suddenly clear that all the different DC super-heroes who appeared in a wide range of comic book titles inhabited the same "universe." Well, it had already been established over at Timely Comics that the same could be said at least for The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner, who not only shared slots in MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS each month, but actually faced off against each other in a classic battle of fire and water beginning back in MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #8 in June 1940. Even more importantly, an earth-shaking event took place on the cover of Timely’s new comic book, ALL-WINNERS COMICS #1 in Summer 1941… about the same time YOUNG ALLIES was about to appear. On that cover was one scene depicting all together at the same time and the same place, Captain America, The Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, The Angel, Black Marvel, plus Bucky and Toro. "Yes, Virginia, there IS a Marvel Universe!" And so, it was clearly possible for Simon & Kirby’s Bucky and Carl Burgos’ Toro to have adventures together and become the two kid super-hero sidekicks leading the new Young Allies!"

Issues Reprinted
Young Allies #1-4

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