Leading Comics No. 3

Leading Comics No. 3 was published by DC Comics in the summer of 1942 and sold for ten cents. The cover art by Mort Meskin features a lighthouse whose beams illuminate inset portraits of superheroes. Clockwise from the top, the heroes are Vigilante, Green Arrow and Speedy, The Crimson Avenger, Shining Knight, and Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy. These heroes formed a team, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, which notably included two sidekicks—Green Arrow’s Speedy and the Star-Spangled Kid’s Stripesy.

This issue of Leading Comics introduced the antagonist Dr. Doome (not to be confused with Marvel’s more popular Dr. Victor von Doom) who invented a time machine to bring history’s greatest conquerors —Alexander the Great, Nero, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and Napoleon Bonaparte—to the present. In each chapter of the issue, a hero defeats a villain. The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy take out Napoleon, Green Arrow and Speedy deal with Alexander the Great, Shining Knight defeats Genghis Khan, Vigilante deals with Attila the Hun, and Crimson Avenger stops Nero, before they all team up together to vanquish Dr. Doome.

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