SW10/WWW: Powernaut 1962 #12 and #13: THEN YOU SHALL MEET THEIR FATE

Scott Eiler seiler at eilertech.com
Sun Apr 21 09:32:09 PDT 2013


DOUBLE EPISODE to end the 1962 series!

http://www.eilertech.com//stories/powernaut/1962b.htm#12

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Bonus Section:  Commentary from Online! Powernaut and the Power Patrol 
(comic strip)

 From the Encyclopedia Galactica, free information for the universe.

See also: Powernaut and the Power Patrol (social group).

Editor's Note: This article may contain wording that presents the 
subject in a subjective manner.

Powernaut and the Power Patrol was a comic strip published in 1962. More 
than any other comic series, it capitalized on team-building and 
pro-American sentiment within the United States.

The main character was the Powernaut - the same one as in 1941 and 1954, 
realistically aged and acting as a leader. The adventures of PowerTEEN 
from 1955 to 1960 were ignored.

Also appearing was Paula Power. Oddly, she'd gotten her Powernaut-like 
powers alongside PowerTEEN in Powernaut 1955 comics. Her possession of 
such powers outside of PowerTEEN continuity was never explained.

Rounding out the team were S.O.S. and Stonewater Smith, literal space 
cadets - with massive military experience. S.O.S. had appeared in 
Powernaut 1944 comics. It was later revealed that he'd become a U.S. 
secret agent and fought Russian agents in Greece in 1947. There was a 
real-life war veteran Stephen Oliver Samuels who claimed to have had 
these adventures; he died in 2006. 
(http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2006/yesterday.htm)

The presence of Stonewater Smith in this strip is harder to explain. He 
is portrayed as a Negro, which was controversial in 1962. The Power 
Comic Company editor Scott Eiler was asked about this, and responded 
simply, "That's what color he *is*." Like S.O.S., a real-life war 
veteran Matthew "Stonewater" Smith has claimed these adventures. Mr. 
Smith was recruited from St. Louis, Missouri into the Tuskegee airmen of 
the U.S. Army, toward the end of World War 2. "Stonewater" Smith had 
been reported dead - but he appeared at a conference in 2010 in East 
Nashville, Tennessee. 
(http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2010/cauldron4.htm) Someone had 
claimed to be him at a ceremony in Cut Bank, Montana earlier that year, 
but that person was much younger. 
(http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2010/predecessors.htm)

The comic went farther than any other in portraying the space race 
between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1961 it portrayed an 
American rocket landing on the Moon; 1962 portrayed a space race to 
Mars. The strip shows a basic misunderstanding of politics and rocketry, 
but science may have been sacrificed for the sake of entertainment. And 
politics might have yielded to the political sentiment that Cuba could 
yet be swayed from the Communists.

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Author's Notes:
heh. The name of the Powernaut's editor of 1955 is Scott Eiler. That is 
how I fit into the Powernaut's universe.

The Power Patrol will have significant adventures with the Powernaut in 
future, and also with his universe. S.O.S. survived nearly to the 
present day; his final story may well show up in a Powernaut comic. 
Stonewater Smith is still around - though he skipped some years! There 
is considerable story to be told there. They are both in canon for 
Superhuman World stories, currently waiting to surge forward from 
2011... Paula Power is not so involved. And there's probably a story 
there too.

This is only the second year of Powernaut comics, but the Powernaut has 
now turned eight years old! He was born on the afternoon of Easter 
Saturday 2005. www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/powernaut.htm ... Yeah, it 
was a slow start for him, but the big guy was running the series by 
August of that year. I've got plans to retell those stories as Powernaut 
2005 comics, wherein there will be great drama and amusement. But for 
now there's www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/powerpatrol1.htm .




-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

When you *are* the leader... whatever goes wrong... whether you did it
or not... *you* are held responsible. - Barack Obama

I know. - Archie Andrews

- from Archie #617, March 2011, scripted by Alex Simmons.


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