Yes, that's what the newspapers started to call them.... The MLJ ....The "Mighty" LEGION OF JUSTICE.
I witnessed a number of key events that I'll try to re-tell. Some might change from time to time... but so be it. Memory betrays even the best of us. I write this down in my own private diary because I don't want to betray those who confided in me and I don't want the public to know everything. Secret identities and actual events may shed some light on the historical events to come.
I need to get this down before I "go". You know, into "that good night."
...."Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."....Yes, I guess I'm raging "against the dying of the light" and I want to get this story down. This story that I know and others can only imagine. Maybe 50 years from now, someone will read this and it will have some historical meaning.... have some existential meaning that maybe even I can't imagine.
(And, yes, I know, Perry Chase is the Press Guardian. I am Perry Chase.)
Yes, that's me. A gun in each hand, ... ready to fight for Press Freedom.
'One in the same.'
And yes, my father owned the newspaper that I work for; The Daily Express. It's a good newspaper.
Anyway....
The first I think I became aware of them was when THE SHIELD made his debut appearance around January of 1940.
At the time, I was nothing but a cub reporter hungry for a good story. My father was hoping I'd turn into a 'good newspaper man'.!! For a while, none of my stories were working out for me. Finally, after a few brief successes,
I was able to make some "contacts" inside the office of the F.B.I. and I found out that Bureau Chief Hoover had some kind of connection to this new 'mystery man' known as THE SHIELD.
AND through some digging around and pure luck I found out a significant Government secret.
... that Joe Higgins was The Shield.
Then I found out that J. Edgar Hoover sent Joe Higgins, "G-Man Extraordinary", THE SHIELD, on a special assignment to stop the sabotage of America's war arsenals and attacks on our Merchant Marine ships.
Hoover, then serving as the head of the new department called The Federal Bureau of Investigation(the F.B.I.), had known Higgins' father and there was some kind of special relationship between Joe Higgins and the "Director."
Although the Hotel Braganza was rocked by a terrific explosion and fire,The Shield made quite a splash in the newspapers for busting up a German spy ring and bringing a Nazi master spy, Klotz, to justice.
Before the smoke cleared, The Shield had disappeared into the night, leaving his calling card: four stars on a shield, one star each for what The Shield stood for: Truth, Justice, Patriotism, and Courage. It's very hard to find people like that in the world today.
The Shield was called AMERICA'S 1ST PATRIOTIC HERO, and rightly so. He was the first to put on and wear the colors of the red, white, and blue. He was one of the Greatest Heroes, 'Mystery Men', America had and we were all glad to be Americans because of him. He was a Patriotic Hero who we were proud of and he never let us down. He encompassed the great American ideals and he was America's symbol of everything good about our Country.
He is really chemist Joe Higgins, the son of Lieutenant Tom Higgins who was slain by German saboteur, Hans Fritz in the Black Tom explosion, for which Tom was blamed while working on a chemical formula for super-strength which the Nazis were after. After his death, Joe continued to work on it while continuing his studies of chemistry. Joe finally figured out the solution, which meant applying the chemicals to certain parts of his anatomy: Sacrum, Heart, Innervation, Eyes, Lungs, Derma, and using x-rays to give him super strength, being able to make great leaps, and invulnerability.
The initials also gave him his name. The SHIELD. His white costume becomes the familiar colors of the red, white, and blue under the process.
He became an FBI agent (whose secret identity is known only to FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover) after clearing his father's name, and fought foreign agents and other threats to the U.S.
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The Shield wasn't the first of these costumed heroes to appear....but he was the most colorful.
Another crime-fighting hero and patriot that appear on the scene before The Shield was ....THE WIZARD.
THE WIZARD was one Blane Whitney, the Great-Great-Grandson of General Steven Whitney who was General George Washington's Chief Aide during the Revolutionary War. Blane was, like Higgins, a great and true patriotic American.
Blane Whitney, or if you will, THE WIZARD ...was THE MAN WITH THE SUPER-BRAIN. Blane had a number of mental powers that I'm not sure I completely understand but he certainly was blessed with a "super-brain."
I think Blane had the power of precognition, and premonition - - kind of a perception of events before they happen. I know he could hypnotize people. I saw him do it once.
He also seemed to be able to conjure up pictures in his mind of things taking place a great distance away. Remote viewing - I think they called it. A gathering of information at a distance. Don't ask me how.!!?
Blane had accumulated a good deal of money and hired some really quality help. One mechanic he hired was called "Hot-Shot"... something or other. I could never find out his true name. Another was someone they called "the Architect." Together, the three of them built fast cars, planes, and even a mystery submarine for Blane to use when he was The Wizard.
Blane, as The Wizard, in his early appearances, wore a tuxedo and cape. At first, his cape and mask were white, but they were soon switched to a more striking red with a blue suit.
During the Russian Invasion crossover storyline (which featured the Shield) where he was briefly blinded by an enemy attack, he developed a bullet-proof, explosion-resistant costume that consisted of blue tights with red trunks, cape, and mask. He wore this costume ...."super-hero garb"...from then on.
Usually, after each adventure, Blane would leave a note from the Wizard that read: "Our country / right or wrong / our country / The Wizard." Yes, Blane was a true patriotic American. He believed in this Country and the freedom and liberty it gave its people. From Valley Forge until today, Blane thought America was the greatest Country forge by God and man in history. I always agreed with him on that.
Blane Whitney also had a girlfriend named Jane Barlowe who was a reporter at the Daily Citizen, a newspaper Blane had inherited from a murdered friend. (And yes, I knew Jane and I had sometimes worked with her. A beautiful young lady but definitely "upper crust" ....if you know what I mean.) And Blane tried to cover his work as THE WIZARD by playing the "idle rich boy". A ploy that wasn't always successful.
This is what she looked like in "real life".
Now Blane Whitney had "friends in high places", so to speak. He had a brother, Grover Whitney, who was the Chief of the Naval Intelligence Service. Anytime Naval Intel had big problems, Grover contacted Blane and THE WIZARD was on the case.
Grover encoded his message to Blane. Decoded: "information had been received of a Japanese plot to blow up the American Carrier base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (Blane, this looks like a job for THE WIZARD.) Investigate immediately".
Soon after, The Wizard added a partner: Roy, the Super-boy.!!
Together, they were a formidable team in the battle of Evil and Injustice.
The time was a strange one. The American public well remembered the horrible carnage of the First World War and almost nobody wanted any part of the dark clouds on the horizon. There was WAR stirring in Europe
....a madman named Adolf Hitler was beginning to "annex" land and was laying the groundwork of war.
Hitler had surrounded himself with people like Himmler, Goering, Goebbels and the S.S. to aid him in his totalitarian rule and his attempt to conquer the World.
In 1938, after Hitler annexed Austria, he then did the same to Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.
Mussolini, the leader of Italy's National Fascist Party, had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state.
Things began to look even worse as Italy's dictator, Mussolini, too, began to prepare for war and forge a partnership with Hitler.
In Asia, Japan had invaded China and a War in the East was raging.
Hideki Tōjō was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), the leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan during most of World War II, from October 17, 1941 to July 22, 1944. As Prime Minister, he was directly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, which initiated war between Japan and the United States. In the summer of 1940, Tojo became Minister of War in the government and he saw that Japan's future lay with the European dictators - especially Hitler - who were much admired in Japan. While the European dictators were admired and respected in Japan, the opposite was true for America. The people of America were thought of as decadent, lazy and without scruples compared to the disciplined workforce of Japan that worshipped their emperor, Hirohito.
As Minister of War, Tojo made it clear that Japan should push south in the Far East and take land owned by European nations.
The U.S. President Roosevelt, in the midst of his 1936 presidential campaign, had declared: "We shun political commitments which might entangle us in foreign wars... We seek to isolate ourselves completely from war."
In early 1939, FDR tried to redirect U.S. foreign policy toward greater involvement in the European crisis with growing concern for England and France but he was acutely aware that U.S. public opinion did not support him.
On September 1, 1939, German armed forces invaded Poland and henceforth Hitler's main energies were devoted to the conduct of a war he had unleashed to dominate Europe and secure Germany's "living space."
The first phase of World War II was dominated by German Blitzkrieg tactics: sudden shock attacks against airfields, communications, military installations, using fast mobile armor and infantry to follow up on the first wave of bomber and fighter aircraft. Poland was overrun in less than one month, Denmark and Norway in two months, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and France in six weeks. After the fall of France in June 1940 only Great Britain stood firm. And for a time, only one man stood alone in the defense of Western Civilization.
Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain.
In the United States, The America First Committee (AFC) was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 paid members in 450 chapters, it was one of the largest anti-war organizations in American history. Started on September 4, 1940, it was dissolved on December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the war to America.
The AFC was established on September 4, 1940, by Yale Law School student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr. (heir to the Quaker Oats fortune), along with other students, including future President Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart.[3] At its peak, America First claimed 800,000 dues-paying members in 450 chapters, located mostly in a 300-mile radius of Chicago.
The AFC gained much of its early strength by merging with the more left-wing Keep America Out of War Committee, whose leaders had included such mainstays of America First as Norman Thomas and John T. Flynn.
It claimed 135,000 members in 60 chapters in Illinois, its strongest state.[4] Fundraising drives produced about $370,000 from some 25,000 contributors. Nearly half came from a few millionaires such as William H. Regnery, H. Smith Richardson of the Vick Chemical Company, General Robert E. Wood of Sears-Roebuck, Sterling Morton of Morton Salt Company, publisher Joseph M. Patterson (New York Daily News) and his cousin, publisher Robert R. McCormick (Chicago Tribune).
The AFC was never able to get funding for its own public opinion poll. The New York chapter received slightly more than $190,000, most of it from its 47,000 contributors. Since it never had a national membership form or national dues, and local chapters were quite autonomous, historians suggest that the organization's leaders had no idea how many "members" it had.
Serious organizing of the America First Committee took place in Chicago not long after the September 1940 establishment. Chicago was to remain the national headquarters of the committee. To preside over their committee, America First chose General Robert E. Wood, the 61 year-old chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Co.. While Wood would accept only an interim position, he remained at the head of the committee until it was disbanded in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The America First Committee had its share of prominent businessmen as well as the sympathies of political figures including Democratic Senators Burton K. Wheeler of Montana and David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Republican Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, and Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas.
Other celebrities supporting America First were novelist Sinclair Lewis, poet E. E. Cummings, Washington socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, film producer Walt Disney, and actress Lillian Gish. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright attempted to join, but he was rejected when the local board decided that he had a "reputation for immorality". The many student chapters included future celebrities, such as author Gore Vidal (as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy), and the future President Gerald Ford, at Yale Law School with its most prominent spokesman being aviator Charles A. Lindbergh.
No one, it seemed, wanted to get into another bloody war in Europe.
During 1941, Franklin Roosevelt pushed to have the United States' factories become an "arsenal of democracy" for the Allies—France, Britain, and Russia. As Americans learned more about the war's atrocities, isolationist sentiment diminished.
President Roosevelt took advantage, standing firm against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Bipartisan support in Congress expanded the Army and Navy and increased the flow of supplies to the Allies. Hopes of keeping the United States out of war ended with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Roosevelt was very concerned about internal subversion and German saboteurs so I suppose he had turned to Hoover at the FBI to do what he could. I think J. Edgar Hoover was only too glad when Joe Higgins appeared in his office one day to offer his assistance as ...THE SHIELD.
Joe Higgins goes to work for the F.B.I. as a Secret Agent with only its Director, J. Edgar Hoover, aware of his secret identity. Joe, as THE SHIELD, catches "Hans Fritz and the whole spy ring gets rounded up.
Then, a quite AMAZING thing happened!!
It was fated to happen that THE SHIELD, working for the FBI, and THE WIZARD, working for naval intelligence, would meet.
They did have one adventure together against The Wizard's villain: The Master-Mind... but it ended well:
Although The Shield and The Wizard's first meetings were brief, they did, finally, become a team.
And, soon after the teaming of The Shield and The Wizard...
The Shield took on a young partner... Dusty, the Boy Detective....
The Shield-Wizard team was soon joined by their young partners:
The Shield's DUSTY, the Boy Detective
and The Wizard's Roy, the Super-Boy.!!
(Sometime later, the boys, Dusty and Roy, teamed-up as The Boy Buddies and fought crime and saboteurs.)
Together, THE SHIELD and Dusty, the Boy Detective and THE WIZARD and Roy, the Super-Boy became a very effective, action-packed foursome.
The four of them hadn't been together very long...
....and they were joined in an adventure that brought together The Shield, Dusty, The Wizard, Roy and ....
Kardak, The Mystic Magician
Mr. Justice
(both very strange, mysterious guys),
...and Kalthar, the Giant Man-- King of the Jungle.
That's when the newspapers started to call those seven " The World's Greatest Heroes"
That's when the Press gave them a name:
THE MIGHTY LEGION OF JUSTICE... And THE MLJ Legacy was born....
... The MLJ had been unleashed on the enemy Axis Powers and unchained on the criminal element in the United States, ....and nothing would be the same again.
OVER the years, the roll call of The Legion changed from time to time--- but their purpose never wavered.
They fought for Freedom, Liberty, and Justice ....for AMERICA ... and All Mankind.
(On the Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 2014)
and then were suddenly gone again.
