Around the "World" in a Freight Plane!

Back in 1944, after working on some strips written by others, a famous-to-be young man called Frank Robbins came up with his own comic strip, Johnny Hazard!

For me Johnny Hazard and the Phantom went hand in hand from 1966 to about 10 years later. Why? Because of the choice of supporting character the publisher in Norway made for their new Phantom (Fantomet) comic book!

When I had looked through one of the earliest issues, and after reading the Phantom story, I noticed the "supporting" story. At first I found it to be somewhat darker, both in tune and the use of black. To put it simply, Frank Robbins used another style than Wilson McCoy did in his Phantom story.

Well, as always I did not give a good comic a pass, and soon found Johnny Hazard to be a comic well worth reading!
What stories did we get then? From memory I pick "Dead or Missing", a Sunday story from 1954, and that brings me to the most powerful period in Robbins' storytelling about his pilot hero!

War in the Far East - 1944
That was when it all started, about a year before the WW2 came to an end, when Johnny Hazard and some friends escaped from a POW camp in Germany. Robbins was sure the war would end very soon and sent his hero to the part of the world where the war would most likely be prolonged: the Far East.

End of the War, and Then What?
Well, the war ended and so did the "jobs" for Johnny and his friends, now back home without money and out of work. But there was never a dull moment; the world was full of dishonest people, and Johnny Hazard seemed to find them very easy, if they didn't find him first!

During the first five years of his storytelling in the dailies, Robbins wrote extremely long, action-packed stories filled with gangsters of all kinds and of ever more disturbing dispositions, and mostly the action took place in the Far East and by plane.

Goodbye Far East, Hello Europe
Then something happened in the stories. We got shorter and perhaps more interesting stories, the supporting cast appeared a bit more human and we got to know a lot of interesting people. Also, Johnny Hazard did not run around as much as he did in the earlier stories. Gone was some of the flying. We knew he was a pilot, of course, but the planes were now used to transport parties from place to place and country to country.

Sadie the System, Diamonds and Africa!
First out was "Sadie the System" (1950-10-23 to 1951-1-15), a story about diamond smuggling, where a plane was still in heavy use, but this time more as a means for transportation. In the next story Johnny met an old enemy, "The Orchid", and also made some new friends. Johnny found a new job shipping diamonds around the world, in a hurry – it is good to be a jet pilot then!
The first assignment brought him to the diamond market in Algiers, and then the real 50s action started!

New Country and New Crimes!
These are the stories from my childhood "Fantomet"! Who doesn't remember the "Frogman" (1951-4-23 to 1951-9-22) and the following story "When the Time Stood Still" (1951-9-24 to 1951-24-11), both of which took place in Africa, but now to Europe!
It is handy being a pilot, but sometimes not so good when the criminals get the wind of it and want to use your service to bring them and their stolen goods to a certain destination: fly or die!!

Johnny and his new friend Wee Dorrie found themselves in the Middle East, from where they boarded a plane to Paris. Wee Dorrie were to meet his girlfriend, but not without some dramatic action in "With This Ringer I Thee Wed" (1951-11-26 to 1952-3-29)!

We were now in France, and what could possibly happen during "a relaxing day", as an optimistic Johnny were thinking in his hotel room. The art in these strips from the early to mid 50s is in my opinion the best Frank Robbins produced.

But don't relax just yet, because the action went on.

Next, the story "The Yankee Dollar" (1952-3-31 to 1952-8-9) took Johnny to Berlin. We all remember the action when Johnny and his old girlfriend Paradise ran around there with "Herr Umlaut" high on their heels! The action peaked when they all ended up in a "spinning-barrel", where Herr Umlaut experienced the spin of his life!

From Deadly Skiing to Tightrope Walks!
If death in the fairground wasn't exciting enough, we soon got "Death on Skis" (1952-8-11 to 1952-1-11), in which the action took us to the Swiss Alps! I would think that skiing in the Alps would be exiting enough without bombs or any such dangerous equipment to heat up the action, but bombs we got!

Of course with a hero as Johnny Hazard it was not such a dangerous thing after all, and especially not with a good looking girl involved! But then again he had yet to meet "The most Beautiful Woman alive" (1952-11-3 to 1953-1-31). On account of a desperate looking fellow he was soon to be introduced to her and barely live to tell the story. This action took place near Monte Carlo.

Well, everything went well in the end, and the desperate fellow turned out to be an English gentleman, and believe it or not the next place of action was London – just in time for Queen Elizabeth's coronation in "London Bridge is Falling Down" (1953-2-2 to 1953-6-6).

It can't have been easy to be an American hero in foggy London and wake up one morning to see a man suspended in mid-air – and if not that was enough, not to be believed! The queen's coronation was certainly in danger, and Johnny Hazard had yet again to reach up to the skies, but this time without his plane! But good help is easy to get in comics, and he soon found two American high-wire artists who agreed to help him catch the criminal with a habit of wandering along on top of high bridges in foggy London!

The next drama should have been easy enough to settle peacefully, but that is just what Johnny Hazard thought. The victim of a brat like Myles Standish Alden III's pea-shooting antics didn't find the situation even remotely amusing. At that point we were off to France again in "Watch the Birdie"(1953-6-8 to 1953-9-12).

It cannot be easy to be a criminal having to earn your own living robbing banks. The police tend to pop up at the most rewarding moments and spoil a man's hard work, and then you have to run, hide your loot and hope for the best. Well, this time the worst happened: the criminal was caught by the police and had to spend a lot of years behind bars. In such a case one probably gets on with it and looks forward to the day of freedom, glory and richness after digging up the hidden reward from a bank robbery. But here the criminal found out that the hiding place was in the cellar of the local police station! A lot of things can happen during fifteen years and a war.

To make a long story short, the criminal had an accomplice and was most unwilling to share: they killed each other in the end!

Pearls, Art Forgery and Coliseum!
Again we found our hero in the peaceful Paris, where even a hero has to eat. It was the season for oysters, but the ones Johnny Hazard perused in "On the Half Shell" (1953-9-14 to 1953-12-12) had pearls in them, without exception! How could that be right? Who doesn't remember the funny moment when Hazard was "casting pearls before swine"?

Pearls in shells are one thing, but when a very rich Texan decided he wanted to invest in art it certainly was good to have Johnny Hazard as a friend in "In the Art" (1953-12-14 to 1954-3-13)! Naturally the forgeries were discovered and the persons responsible were taken care of, and then it was time for the rich Texan to visit his bride-to-be, unless of course her local "friend" found her first.

In "Roman Circus" (1954-3-15 to 1954-5-7) we were introduced to a frightened girl running away from the mad "lover" who had promised to kill her rather than letting her marrying another man. We saw clowns and other fun stuff at a circus, and even Coliseum (Rome) came to life again with real lions and killing, just like in the old days!

Lost identities are hard to live with. "What's my name" (1954-6-21 to 1954-9-18) took Johnny Hazard to yet another destination in Europe, namely Venice. The canals were not a good place to spend an evening in, but if you were hit on your head you most likely didn't remember much of it in the morning, perhaps not even your own name, and definitely not the one in your passport! But where there are heroes in distress there are also beautiful girls, and vice versa, always ready to help each other, so even in this story, and Johnny Hazard lived on!

But I think it now is time to leave our hero and wish him good luck on his journey around Europe; it will not last long. The ends of the "happy days" soon came to an end and Johnny found himself "working" again. We saw more of Johnny piloting jet planes, and the action speed up again! The stories were good enough, but I did find the years just reviewed to be the best.

Later we also found Johnny working for Wing, a company dealing with spies and dramatic goings-on during the cold war, but that is another story!

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