Team-Up Tuesdays: Shield and Dusty vs the Fang! Part Two

And now we conclude the *ahem* epic battle between Team Shield and the Fang. How will our colorful crusader fair against this mammoth menace? Will he get any closer to solving the mystery of his missing superpowers? Let's take a look under the cover...of Pep Comics #29

Okay, that was cheating! Dusty's patented hop-on-the-neck move distracted the Fang long enough to cause the Shield to out maneuver his foe! Well at least the threat was taken care of... for now... but that is not the end of the Fang. Nor of the Shield, who persists in his attempts to restore his phenomenal physique. Will his uber-science finally work? Continue to watch these pages for further golden age exploits of Joe Higgins and Dusty Simmons.

And just to show that Shield's cross-dimensional contemporary didn't have things easy, this bad guy was adept at sneaking up on sidekicks.

Of course, Charlton had a golden age villain names Yellow Fang that bothered that era's Blue Beetle on a couple occasions. But not big like Mountain Storm. In fact, he was Judo-G.I.'s most persistent adversary as he matched muscle for muscle (though not much mental might, having to be directed by Japanese supervisors on how to corner a diminutive foe).

Tiger found himself alongside his mentor with the upper hand against their obese opponent. During his initial trial by fire, he showed that pure grit and determination made up for lack of mass. Something that Storm and Fang would've done well to consider during their campaigns of chaos.

Team-Up Tuesdays: Shield and Dusty vs the Fang! Part One

The Shield had a modestly numbered but colorful rogues gallery, and this week we focus in on one vicious villain... The Fang! An agent from Japan, his impressive physique is more than a match for a fully powered Shield... so what happens when Joe Higgins discovers that his powers are waning? In what was one of the innovative features of MLJ's golden age comics, we see a character arc continuing through several issues whereby Joe must learn how to reacquire his powers.

So sit back on enjoy part one of our featured presentation:

You may remember that Charlton's colorfully clad super-soldier, Judomaster, also had a crisis involving loss of his vision... and hence an inability to fight well. As in the Shield's case, it was up to Rip Dagger's sidekick Tiger to kick start his mentor back onto the road of heroics:

Part two will be posted later today with the stunning conclusion!

Colorful Crusaders of World War II

The Shield was introduced in Pep Comics #1 in 1940, while his counterpart was introduced in 1965 yet existing fictionally in the 1940's. One was G-Man Joe Higgins, an aspiring scientist seeking to avenge the death of his father and discovering a process that gave him super-strength and an invulnerable costume. The other was G.I Rip Jagger, an aspiring ninja seeking to avenge his comrades whom he saw die and discovering a secret society of ninjas on a Pacific Island, gaining super-human skills and a special costume. While looking like walking posters for America and Japan, their costumes gained their color scheme due to a special chemical process (in the Shield's case) and the style-sense of the ninja society (in the Judomaster's case). Both picked up kids sidekicks, Dusty and Tiger.

Due to sabotage on the part of an adversary,  Shield lost his powers for the duration of the war yet continued to fight against evil agents from overseas, while Judomaster himself had to struggle to overcome a handicap of his own imposed on him by a foe, blindness. Both persisted in their heroic careers, thanks to proddings from the boys' own courage.

They faced rogues galleries which challenged their physical dexterity.  The Hun, the Strangler and the Fang plagued Shield; while the Smiling Skull, the Acrobat, and Mountain Storm. None matched the heroes in battle!

 

Each also had other assisting them. For Judomaster, it was Sensei, Bushiri, and his beloved Suzikawa. For the Shield, it was the Wizard, Steel Sterling, Hangman, Black Hood, Captain Flag, Sgt Boyle and Shield's wife Ellie.

Both of our red-haired heroes found themselves lost in time during the 40's, arriving in the 1980's to find individuals clad like them. Both obviously had different reactions given how they were reintroduced into the modern age. Each man stands as a paragon of power in comics.