Set in the early 1940s, the Newsboy Legion is the first of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's very successful "kid gang" comics, featuring a group of scrappy pre-teen boys who work together to stop crime in their home of Suicide Slum. Watched over by adult hero The Guardian - a.k.a. policeman Jim Harper - The Newsboy Legion battle crime through their own newspaper reporting, taking on crooked politicians, slum lords, fifth column agents and much more.
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One of the most popular 1940s comic-book types focused on the kid gang—a half-dozen or so ragamuffins banded together for adventures and high jinks. Clearly inspired by the Dead End Kids and other movie gangs, the comic-book versions were generally mentored by an adult authority figure, frequently a superhero. The team of Simon and Kirby created the most popular comic-book kid gangs, including the Newsboy Legion—Tommy, Big Words, Gabby, and Scrapper—who peddled papers in Suicide Slum under the watchful eye of policeman Jim Harper, who also fought crime as the costumed Guardian. Their exploits, from tangling with gangsters to publishing their own newspaper, were hugely appealing to comic-book readers of an age with the quartet, and they exude nostalgic charm today, in no small measure because of Kirby’s energetic artwork, which sets the template for dynamic superhero illustration that’s still in place today. By the time the later stories here were created, much of the work had been turned over to assistants; the overall quality suffers, but the Kirby touch remains evident. --Gordon Flagg
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great Material - Poor Packaging,
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This review is from: The Newsboy Legion Vol. 1 Featuring Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (Hardcover)
Simon and Kirby created Captain America, then jumped over to DC to work their magic. The art is awesome in this book, and the reproduction is very well done for a scanned book - far superior to DC's Simon and Kirby Sandman.
Both of these DC Simon and Kirby reprints suffer by not reproducing the comics at their orginal size, instead jamming the contents into today's smaller format. Unfortunatly, there are lots of panels and detail on these pages - neither of which are served by a smaller size. Fans may be irritated by the gigantic blank gutter at the bottom of every page, while trying to force the book open wide enough to see the art lost in the binding. The comic business prides itself on it creativity - its too bad it doesn't cross over into the production department.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
4 Characters in Search of a Guardian (It's a bad joke but somebody had to do it...),
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This review is from: The Newsboy Legion Vol. 1 Featuring Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (Hardcover)
Quite possibly the best of Simon & Kirby's pre-war DC creations The Newsboy Legion is fun from cover to cover.
It blends so many of the elements of their best work. The gritty urban slums with which they were both intimately familiar; a gang of tough street kids who could have been their neighbors; the physically fit and morally upright hero who's greatest power wasn't flight, laser beams from his eyes or even his good right hook but his courage and decency. The streets of Suicide Slum are as much of a star of the strip as the Guardian or the four newsboys. And if Gabby, Scrapper, Tommy and Big Words are something of one-note characters, it's still one more note than many of their contemporaries displayed. The strip is less outrageously plotted than the Sandman, more believable in concept than the Boy Commandos, warmer and more accessible than Manhunter. And if the Guardian isn't as inherently unforgettable as Simon & Kirby's other shield slinger it's more a function of costume and name than any inherent weakness in the character. Personally, I find Jim Harper to be much more well rounded and fully-realized than Steve Rogers. (Though perhaps Jack & Joe had a hard time keeping them straight; on page 5 of the origin story they slip and call our hero Steve.) There is, unfortunately, a noticeable slip in quality as the volume goes on, likely a by-product of the rush to stockpile as much material as possible before Uncle Sam came a-calling for our creators, but the series never loses its charm. The last couple stories in the volume are illustrated by a young Gil Kane. Though not the artist he would later become, and certainly not at Jack's level this early in the game, it's interesting enough and far from the worst work I've seen from the era. The downside, as in DC's other recent golden-age reprints, is production. Though it's not nearly as bad as in the recent Sandman volume, color is at times washed out or muddy. More damaging is the reduction in printed page size to fit the format of the volume; the cramping does not serve the artwork well. Too bad they did not see fit to give this and the Sandman the same loving care that the older DC Archive volumes received. Obviously the market for this older material is limited and I believe most of those who are interested enough to buy it would happily pay an extra few bucks to see it done right.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very entertaining,
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This review is from: The Newsboy Legion Vol. 1 Featuring Joe Simon & Jack Kirby (Hardcover)
It was interesting to read in the introduction Joe Simon's claim that this book was at one point the biggest selling comic book in the world. I can actually believe it because the book is very well written and drawn for its time.
In fact, I feel that it reads more like a Silver Age book than one from the Golden Age, when art when amateurish art was typically more accepted. The lines are very tight, in many ways "tighter" than the linework from Jack Kirby's Marvel Age work. I don't know if this has anything to do with his changing style, his trying to meet tougher deadlines at Marvel, the use of more assistants during the Golden Age, or Joe Simon's input, but that is how it is if you compare the two side by side. The art also has a more "grotesque" feel, especially when it comes to the drawings of the gangsters, which gives the book a unique "mood". I also found the stories to be a lot of fun. Sure, there is a formula, which can typically be described as: The Newsboys start some new venture or job but get in trouble with the mob. The Guardian comes to the rescue but he himself finds himself in danger. The Newsboys help him out of the jam and then together they punch everyone's lights out. Finally, the Newsboys try to prove that the Guardian is really Jim Harper, but he eludes them in some humorous way. Despite the formula, it is much easier to read than a lot of other Golden Age books (and even Silver Age ones) where the plot either seems to take forever to complete or where they try to "trick" the reader in some kind of illogical way (typical of Silver Age Superman). Here the stories are quite straightforward and to the point. While there is very little in the way of true character development, the Guardian and each of the newsboys have unique personalities which are interwoven into the plots cleverly. Scrapper picks fights, Gabby talks too much, Big Words is intellectual and Tommy is the straight man (and clearly least interesting character, although probably essential as a foil to the others). This leads to some genuinely laugh out loud funny moments. Although the book is obviously a product of its time, being based on kids that the authors knew during the Depression era, there is very little that stands out as something that modern audiences either cnanot understand or which may offend modern sensibilities. Other than the fact that these children are basically left to fend for themselves and get into fights with gangsters despite Jim Harper being their supposed legal guardian, the only things that I can think of are one panel depicting a Chinese laundromat and the occasonal scene or cover which seemingly condone violence against the axis powers, such as one cover where the Newsboys are signing a (nuclear?) missle addressed to "Adolf". Overall, very impressive stuff which stands up well more than 60 yeaars later! A final world on the binding/reproduction. Being a scan, the colours are not very vibrant, but I don't think they will hurt the overall enjoyment of the story that much for most people. Consider the fact that this book would probably not have been reprinted in any other way. The binding is glued but perfectly well done. I disagree with the other reviewer who claims that artwork is "lost". It curves in the middle as any glued book does, but it is all intact.
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