Hit Comics #9
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeHit Comics #9 (March 1941) is a fine cross-section of Quality Comics at full anthology stride, packing seven distinct features into a single 68-page package at the height of the Golden Age. Its cover — part of an unbroken run by Lou Fine that peers such as Will Eisner and Joe Simon considered among the finest draftsmanship in the medium — makes the issue an art-historical touchstone for the entire Hit Comics line. The issue's Betty Bates story, drawn by the young Nick Cardy in one of his earliest professional assignments, places it near the start of two careers that would each go on to shape American comics for decades. As a snapshot of how Quality stacked talent across genres — superhero, adventure, nautical comedy, and legal thriller — the issue illustrates why Hit Comics survived a full ten years and sixty-five issues.
"In the Asylum" marks a pivotal moment in the early career of Corbet, a man caught between past and present, as he returns to the French Foreign Legion under a veil of secrecy. Written by S. M. Iger and brought to life with sharp, expressive art by Alex Blum, the story unfolds with quiet tension as Corbet, believed dead, must navigate his return without exposing his identity. The cover, a striking piece by Lou Fine, captures the mood of mystery and danger that permeates this wartime tale.
In "All Quiet at Gibraltar," Corbet slips back into the French Foreign Legion under a veil of secrecy, his return a quiet mystery to comrades who thought him dead. With a low profile to avoid desertion charges, he uncovers and thwarts a dangerous Axis tunneling scheme beneath the Strait of Gibraltar.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Hit Comics launched in July 1940 from Quality Comics, the house built around the Eisner-Iger studio's talent pipeline, and ran monthly until July 1950 for sixty-five issues total. The title was conceived as a broad anthology anchoring several ongoing characters simultaneously, with Lou Fine brought in to provide prestige cover paintings throughout the early run; Fine had studied at the Grand Central Art School and Pratt Institute and joined the Eisner-Iger shop in 1938, making Quality's books his primary canvas from 1939 to 1943. Issue #9 was produced squarely within that fertile period, with the Hercules lead story drawn by John Celardo, the Betty Bates backup drawn by the up-and-coming Nick Cardy (then working under his birth name Nicholas Viscardi through the Eisner-Iger pipeline), and the Strange Twins story scripted by S. M. Iger himself. When DC Comics acquired Quality in 1956, the Hit Comics characters and their publishing history passed into the DC library.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published March 1941 by Quality Comics as issue #9 of the Hit Comics anthology series, which ran 65 issues from July 1940 to July 1950.
- Cover art by Lou Fine, part of his celebrated early-issue run on the title; Fine is credited with nearly 90 Golden Age covers and was praised by Will Eisner as 'the epitome of the honest draftsman' and by Joe Simon as Jack Kirby's favorite artist.
- Lead story 'In the Asylum' (art: John Celardo) features Joe Hercules — Quality's super-strong everyman character — being committed to an insane asylum and introduces the villain Mug Mullin.
- Betty Bates, Lady-at-Law backup story ('Case of the Reluctant Robber') is drawn by Nick Cardy, near the very start of his comics career via the Eisner-Iger shop; Cardy would later define DC's Silver Age on Aquaman, Teen Titans, and Bat Lash.
- Betty Bates herself (debuted Hit Comics #4, October 1940) was one of the only female attorney protagonists in 1940s comics; her feature outlasted every other Hit Comics cover star — Red Bee, Neon the Unknown, Hercules, and Kid Eternity — running all the way through issue #65.
- The Red Bee story — 'Sabotage on the High Seas,' art by Clark Williams — continues the adventures of Rick Raleigh, the Oregon assistant district attorney who debuted in Hit Comics #1 (July 1940) and weaponizes trained bees from a special belt buckle.
- Additional features include the Strange Twins (script: S. M. Iger; art: Alex Blum), Lion Boy (art: Henry Kiefer), Bob and Swab (script/art: Klaus Nordling), and Blaze Barton (art: Maurice Gutwirth), representing the full range of Quality's Golden Age anthology formula.
- All Quality Comics characters, including those appearing in this issue, were acquired by DC Comics in 1956 and have since been integrated into various DC continuity events, including All-Star Squadron and the 2022–2023 Dark Crisis crossover.
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Golden Age of Comic Books #[nn] (1977), Ace Comics Presents #4 (1987), Gwandanaland Comics #157 (2017)
Key issues in Hit Comics
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