JEEP COMICS #1 (WINTER 1944)

Here's a little known title from R. B. Leffingwell & Co., a minor publisher who also put out one  issue of Pop-Pop Comics around 1945.  Jeep Comics lasted only two quarterly issues, vanishing into the mist with the Spring 1945 issue, only to reemerge three years later with issue #3, from Spotlight Publishers (another low-budget minor house) in March-April 1948.

Ah, but there was another totally unrelated Jeep Comics, a weekly compilation of such characters as The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Blondie, Tarzan, Red Ryder, Jungle Jim, The Katzenjammer Twins, and more.  This thin (usually 16 pages) comic book was a giveaway comic for the US armed services and was never available to the general public.  Since this is not the Jeep Comics I'm talking about, just ignore this entire paragraph.

Jeep. a recently discharged hero of the Battle of France, was given an old jeep in lieu of discharge pay.  Working in his garage, he invented a rocket attachment for the vehicle, which enabled the jeep to fly.  (Presumably, Jeep has also worked out a way to control his flying jeep. because it can do all sorts of flying stuff.)  (Also, did I mention that Jeep wears a large red cape with a black circle inside two white circles on it?  I didn't?  Well, he does, although I have no idea why.)  So Jeep goes on his maiden flight on his jeep. taking along his young pal, Peep.  The sight of Jeep and Peep in a flying jeep astonishes the town -- but not so as the trees in the town becoming animated, "robbing banks, jewelry stores and citizens."  Jeep immediately comes to the only logical conclusion -- the trees are reacting to chemical rays of some kind...an they must be controlled by a large plane flying overhead!  Jeep flies out to investigate.  We now go inside the plane to hear the criminal mastermind Dr. van Duyvil gloat, The chlorophyll atomic animator is working perfectly!  those trees will soon be clutching everything they can get their branches on...then our men down there will collect and meet us at our secret air field!"  The bad guys send out an atomic chemical field to balk Jeep, who falls down into the branches of an animated tree.  But let's not forget Peep!  The plucky young lad uses a two-handed lumber saw by himself to cut down the tree and save Jeep.  Jeep then borrows a new electronic de-atomizer from the Army and goes after the baddies once more.  Fear not, kiddies!  Jeep and Peep and jeep win the day and even save a shipment of gold destined for the governments in liberated Europe!

This issue also has stories featuring Superstitious Al-O-Ysius (the pixie-like son of the goddess Fortuna), Toto (the little boy from Mars),  Chriss Cross (the master lock-picker), Captain Power (Ernioe Power, that is, an Army Ranger), and "Solid" Jackson (a.k.a. Professor Xerxes Herakles Jackson, scientific crime fighter).

All in all, a solid mix of stories for both younger and older readers.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=76384&b=i