Number 1577: Samson, tearin' down the house

Samson is the Old Testament hero, done here in a non-biblical style for Fox Features’ Fantastic Comics #1, 1939. We are only reminded of the Samson of the Bible by his long hair, and that he has a tendency to tear down buildings. This is the first Samson story. without an origin. It just drops him into the modern-day action of a would-be world conqueror plot.

The character was updated by the Eisner-Iger Studio, which provided the ready-made contents for publisher Victor Fox. The page style with large, open panels, and minimal dialogue, also has those annoying captions — which sit at the bottom of the panels and describe to us what we have just seen in the picture — the plague (non-biblical)  of many early Golden Age comics.

The story is credited to “Alec Boon,” a pseudonym for artist Alex Blum.

My favorite panel is on the last page, where Samson, dressed only in furry shorts and sandals, fights off a bunch of guys in futuristic costumes with antennae coming out of their headgear. Samson challenges them with, “Come on you barbarians!”

My scans come from a reprinting of the story in Samson #1 (1940):