When Whiz Comics #15 (March 1941) hit newsstands, America’s involvement in The Second World War is just about a year away. But the cover art still strikes an early note in the growing movement towards helping out our country’s allies overseas.

And as we will see in a minute, this isn’t the first cover to Whiz Comics that seemed to be on the side of intervention!

With a two month difference between cover date and the date a book actually appears on newsstands, Whiz Comics #15, with a cover date of March 1941, appeared across America in January, 1941.

Given a lead time of anywhere from three to six months for the creative team, editorial, printing and distribution, that means the book was assembled shortly after June, 1940. Which is the same month that Germany, using airfields in recently conquered France as a take-off point, began bombing the southern region of Great Britain.

Thanks to an expert use of perspective C.C. Beck’s cover art actually allows us to feel as if we are flying with Captain Marvel! His figure is placed in the foreground, something as simple as his right hand appearing in front of the crashing plane makes our eyes see him as the dominant image.

The speed lines, an idea that Beck never oversells, are in proportion to the place of their origin. The thin one that emanates from the right hand is balanced by a thicker, double set of lines that flows from the left side of his body.

The disparity in width of the lines gives the image an odd sense of weight, as if he is really flying in from off-screen. You can almost feel his bulk suspended in the air.

This is off-set by the lightness found in the speed lines flowing off the back of his cape almost seem as if they are made of glass. Their full, yet shimmering nature providing a counter-balance to the heaviness of his body. They also reinforce the urgency of the image by obscuring the title block that sits across the top third of the book.

With the figure of Captain Marvel in the foreground, we follow his flight downward until our eyes slip off of the edge of his fingers only to find the massive plume of dark, filthy smoke emanating from the end of the aircraft.

For some reason the growing conflux of smoke, thin at the bottom and expanding wider as it rises, brings our visual scan up to the end of the smoke. For most of us our eyes then come back down to where we find the plane itself. It is an odd kind of see-saw effect!

When we do move down to the bottom of the cover we discover not just the plane itself, but a yellow-suited man standing atop the plane at the back of the cockpit.

While he appears to be defying gravity, our logical minds accept the situation because for just one or two seconds we have all felt suspended in a precarious position. Whether it is hanging from a tree we climbed too fast or waiting to drop from the top of a fence we were straddling across the top edge.

While many who look at the cover will follow the smoke upwards only to come back down and find the plane, not everyone who looks at this cover for the first time may actually follow that smoke into the sky.

There is also a tendency to follow the tip of Captain Marvel’s fingers downward, as if we are joined to him, nearly parallel to his approach. Following that alternative line we find that the Big Red Cheese is exactly over the head of a man in danger.

However you discover him, we immediately sympathize with this man in such deadly peril. The overwhelming force of the flames are mere seconds from engulfing him. They are fiery hot in their mindless fury as they advance straight towards him.

Captain Marvel has no more than two seconds to act.

The field of perspective on this cover is so deep that it isn’t until we have taken in all of the larger images that we discover something –  the shadowy image of a dark, menacing plane over on the left.

This ill-defined plane, so lacking in detail as to be a near-silhouette, is racing away from what is happening in the foreground. While it may be a part of the regular formation, the blackness and the way it seems to be racing past the action creates a greater sense of criminality about its presence. Could it possibly be a single-propeller German Messerschmitt, just like the ones that bombed Britain..?

There are no intrusive word balloons or screaming proclamations of impending doom that clutter what we see. Instead there is a dignified declaration that “With the British Plane Streaking To a Fiery Doom CAPTAIN MARVEL Dives To the Rescue!”

Over in the left corner is a small American Shield. Complete with red and white stripes with a strip of blue across the top that features stars, the patriotism of the image is reinforced with a banner that holds a simple command “Be An American”. The shield would appear on the next year’s worth of issues.

The patriotism found on the cover is not unusual for Fawcett or Captain Marvel. It was there a year earlier on the second cover of the magazine. Whiz Comics #3 (March 1940) showcases Captain Marvel tearing through a group of soldiers as they flee in terror. The twisted gun on the tank tells us that the soldiers aren’t the first thing he took care of when he arrived.

It is a simple, uncomplicated image. A perfect example of how Beck could fill a cover with relative minimalism and still create a great deal of excitement.

Whiz Comics #5 (June 1940) is another early war-themed cover as Captain Marvel is seen towing a submarine to shore using a massive chain. Once again there is no explosion of words to fill in the details. But the small red “X” at the top of the sub says more than any packed word balloon ever could.

Whiz Comics #15 is brilliantly colored, maybe the best one of the early run. It also holds an unusual element of realism that we often fail to associate with Captain Marvel. It is less “cartoony” and a bit more defined that the work that Beck usually created.

As America began the inevitable march to War comic books did their part in the effort to build enthusiasm and create an understanding for what was about to happen across the planet. Few spread the message better than C.C. Beck. And in the process he also created some beautiful art.