The Shield and Hangman vs. Hell Itself on Pep Comics #20, at Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: MLJ

One of the most potent symbolic war comic book covers of the WWII era, Irv Novic’s Pep Comics #20 is a visceral gut-punch of Golden Age superheroics.

Irv Novick‘s cover of Pep Comics #20 is a visceral gut-punch of Golden Age superheroics, a combination of ultimate horror and wartime sentiment that has made it one of the most iconic and sought-after war-themed comic books of the Golden Age. Inside, this issue delivers on the cover’s promise with an onslaught of stories from the pre-Archie MLJ era, featuring two of its top heroes, The Shield and The Hangman in a pair of rather wild superhero tales, a dose of supernatural horror with the spectacularly underrated Madam Satan, a story with the little-known superhero Fireball threatening to villains alive, and the flames of purgatory in the crime drama Bentley of Scotland Yard. An issue bursting with creative energy from the likes of Harry Shorten, Harry Lucey, Bob Montana and Irv Novick and a key of rising importance among serious Golden Age collectors, there’s a very nice Pep Comics #20 (MLJ, 1941) CGC VG/FN 5.0 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase Auction at Heritage Auctions.

This cover captures a very specific moment in time in American history. Hitting newsstands in August 1941, four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pep Comics #20 was released as the contentious national debate between isolationists and interventionists was beginning to tip towards its inevitable conclusion.  Around the time that this issue was likely being developed, 68% of Americans favored entering the war, and this cover seizes on that rising sentiment.  Artist Irv Novick didn’t create a simple battle or fight here, he visualized a moral crusade. The swastika is depicted not as a mere symbol, but as the physical pit of damnation itself, a literal gateway to hell from which shackled, tormented souls reach in agony. Even the use of these particular heroes side by side seems to be calculated.  The cover places America’s first patriotic hero, The Shield, alongside the dark, pulp-inspired avenger The Hangman, to make a sophisticated statement: defeating this ultimate evil would require both righteous idealism and ruthless force.

Notably, it’s also a prior and more potent echo of the famous cover of Pep Comics #22, where Novick has The Shield preventing the spiked boot of fascism from crushing the world. Of course, a feature introduced in issue #22 would change everything for MLJ. That story would introduce a teenager named Archie Andrews, whose runaway popularity would soon cause the company to pivot towards teen humor and even rename itself Archie Comics. In that context, Pep Comics #20 represents a peak superhero moment for MLJ and perhaps their brightest, most brilliant blast of wartime superheroics.  A comic book that’s in rising demand for all those reasons and more, there’s a Pep Comics #20 (MLJ, 1941) CGC VG/FN 5.0 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase Auction at Heritage Auctions. If you’ve never bid at Heritage Auctions before, you can get further information by checking out their FAQ on the bidding process and related matters.

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