(National Comics 001, 1940)
Once Jock Kellog decides to turn his back on his playboy ways and put his inherited magic cloak to use as Merlin the Magician, he really goes for it. He hits the battlefields of WWII to aid the beleaguered soldiers of the front and ultimately rises into the realm of the gods to confront Mars, God of War and Destruction himself.
Mars turns out to be a huge jerk bully who is inciting nations to fight for his own amusement - a bit more Ares than Mars to be honest but I'll let it go.
Eventually, Merlin and Mars engage in Thrilling Hand to Hand Combat with the continuation of the war as the stakes, and after some back and forth that is cleverly mirrored in the progress of some armistice talks, Merlin wins! World War Two is over! As usual, this kind of "war can and will be avoided" story is very depressing in hindsight.
But wait, there's more! As in any story involving gods, demons and so forth, there is a high chance of some of my favourites the anthropomorphic personifications showing up, and show up they do! First off, Merlin encounters the embodiment of Peace chained to a bunch of weaponry like something out of a political cartoon and pledges to free her.
Merlin also has to battle Mars' henchmen Hunger and Poverty before he can get to the main event, and while there is a certain logic to the two of them making a person more susceptible to being either the perpetrator or victim of war I am sad that they don't have a bit more allegorical oomph. Why couldn't Hunger use those big fangs of his to sap Merlin's life force or something? Still, even a bargain basement anthropomorphic personification is an anthropomorphic personification and I love me some anthropomorphic personifications. Hunger and Poverty can stay. The guys, not the things that they stand for. Those suck.
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