Well, here's my list of favorite comics from the Golden Age:
1. The stories Lou Fine, Reed Crandall, and Paul Gustavson did for Quality during the 1940's. In an era where practically everyone was trying to copy such comic strip artists as Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff, and Hal Foster; what was coming from Messrs. Fine, Crandall, and Gustavson was astounding to say the least. They were showing that it was very possible to mix action with realistic illustration in a lively manner. To show what I mean, just look at what Lou Fine did on such strips as Doll-Man, The Ray, The Black Condor, and Uncle Sam among others. For Reed Crandall, just look at his work on such strips as Samar, Hercules, and Doll-Man among others. Or better yet, look at Crandall's classic work on Blackhawk to see how he took them a step further. For Paul Gustavson, you could look no further than his work on The Jester and his early Human Bomb stories. They set the bar for such later Quality school artists as John Cassone, Al Bryant, and George Tuska to name a few and paved the way for such artists as John Buscema, Neal Adams, and Murphy Anderson to draw comics in a way that mixed fast paced action with realistic illustration.
2. The Hangman; Although the Hangman himself chose not to kill in his crime-busting crusade, it didn't stop his strip from becoming MLJ's most brutal feature (particularly after Harry P. Lucey and later Bob Fujitani took over the feature). There were frequent hangings, stabbings, strangulations, shootings, impalings, and even a decapitation or two (A favorite method of murder among Hangman artists was having someone get impaled in the throat). And criminals in these stories had the bad habit of inadvertedly meeting premature -and often gruesome - demises during their encounters with the Hangman. If one wants to get an idea what pre-code superhero stories were like - and how brutal they could get - during the Golden Age, read any of the Hangman's adventures.
3. Dick Sprang's Batman work: If one wants to get an idea of how lively and fun the Batman stories were during the 1940's, I would suggest you should read any of Dick Sprang's Batman stories. His lively art style - which mixed Caniff styled illustration with a lively cartoony look - when combined with top-notch scripts by Bill Finger, Don Cammeron, and Joe Samachson among others made his Batman work fun to read and helped create that sense of enjoyment one gets by reading the DC comics of the 1940's.
4. The Justice Society of America: When DC/All-American decided to bring eight of their superheroes - Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, the Spectre, the Atom, Hour-Man, and the Sandman - together in one story published in All-Star Comics #3 (Winter, 1940-1941), they created another milestone in comics, the super-hero team. With 17 superheroes appearing as members at one time or another during the strip's decade long run, the feature was impressive enough. But mix that with stories by Gardner Fox, Robert Kaningher, and John Broome plus artwork by such Golden Age greats as Irwin Hasen, Bernard Baily, Carmine Infantino, Joe Kubert, and Jack Kirby among many others; you have a feature that is a must-read among anyone who considers himself/herself a Golden Age comics fan.
5. The Seven Soldiers of Victory: DC's second super-team and one of only two superhero teams (the other being Timely's All-Winners Squad) to appear more than once in comics (if you don't count Fawcett's Marvel Family which basically were ditto copies of the same hero). The scripts of Mort Weisinger, Bill Finger, Jerry Siegel, and Joe Samachson along with the artwork of such notables as Mort Meskin, George Papp, Arturo Cazeneuve, and Ed Dobroka among others ensured that the stories of the team -which consisted of the Vigilante, the Shining Knight, the Green Arrow and Speedy, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, and the Crimson Avenger - were on the level of those of the Justice Society of America.
6. Irv Novick's MLJ art: I became familiar with Irv Novick through his work on both Batman and The Flash during the 1970's. It was in recent years I've gotten a chance to really look at Novick's early MLJ work and how it eventually allowed him to evolve into one of the major exponents of the Caniff/Sickles school of comic book/comic strip art. Looking at his early work on both Bob Phantom and The Shield showed that he had a loose style that owed a little bit to Noel Sickles but used a backup strip like Shanghai Sheridan in the pages of Top-Notch Comics to experiment with Sickles influenced penciling and inking approaches. Then looking at his1941-early 1942 work on The Shield and Steel Sterling showed how much his fellow MLJ staffer Mort Meskin was influencing his style as it began to get livelier. And looking at much of MLJ work from 1942-1946 showed how much Jack Kirby was influencing him as his work began to look like a cross between Meskin's and Kirby's. And his later period at MLJ/Archie showed his style evolving into a rougher version of the art style that would grace his later DC work.
7. Timely's superhero comics: When Joe Simon referred to his work on Captain America as work on a horror strip, he knew what he was talking about. Timely's superhero features very much reflected their pulp origins and were proud of every gory bit. Heroes such as Captain America, the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, the Destroyer, the Vision, and Miss America among others fought against some extremely scary villains with claw-like hands, fangs, gruesome looks, and the like. And these bad guys did such things as commit extremely gruesome murders, try to commit mass destruction, and even threaten America with national crisis (especially if the villains were Nazis or Japs). And in battles with these heroes, these super fiends met with premature - and often grisly - demises which were cheered on by the readers in some ultra lively stories. And Alex Schomberg's covers for such titles as Marvel Mystery Comics,All-Winners Comics, All-Select Comics, and U.S.A. Comics among other books with their everything-happening-at-once look captured the very essence of what comics in World War II were like. You can also add the artwork of such people as Jack Kirby, Joe Simon , Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, Al Avison, and Syd Shores among others.
8. Jack Cole's Plastic Man: A classic strip by a classic artist. 'Nuff said!
9. Lily Renee's work on Senorita Rio: When Lily Renee took over the Senorita Rio feature in Fiction House's Fight Comics #34 (October, 1944), she began starring actress turned counterspy Rita Farrar aka Senorita Rio in a series of well written and well illustrated pieces of comics-noir. Like what Will Eisner was doing on The Spirit, Lily Renee was using the elements of German Expressionist films and its American offshoot Film-Noir in a comic book setting. And the fact that she - like fellow female cartoonists Tarpe Mills and Dale Messick - paid very close attention to the fashions her female characters wore led to her having Rita Farrar go through an average of three costume changes per story.
10. The work of Mort Meskin: I was aware of the work of Mort Meskin through reprints of his work on the Johnny Quick and Vigilante features. But after getting the chance to see more of his work, I began to appreciate his comic book work even more. Not only do I enjoy his work on both The Vigilante and Johnny Quick. I've become very fond of his Black Terror and Fighting Yank stories - not to mention his earlier MLJ work -as well.
Honorable mentions: Klaus Nordling's Lady Luck and The Barker; Al Bryant's Doll-Man, Joe Kubert's Golden Age Hawkman work; Lee Elias' work on The Black Cat and The Flash; Gil Kane's early work on such strips as The Sandman and Wildcat among other great stuff that is too numerous to mention.
