Lotta Hitlers in this one.
Adolf Hitler:
Thalga, supreme dictator of Govania, is a clear Hitler analog. (Smash Comics 006, 1940)
This unnamed Hitler-with-a-goatee comes with a bonus, very tired-looking, FDR! (Smash Comics 006, 1940)
Hitler look-alike Rudolph Hitz acts as political representative and spy chief for Hitler act-alike dictator Holtz in a plot to rob the US gold reserve at Fort Knox-alike Fort Adam, only to meet defeat at the cold metal hands of Bozo the Iron Man. (Smash Comics 007, 1940)
Hitlin is a Hitler stand-in who we never actually see and who acts as a motivation for the villains of the piece in their struggle to defeat Hugh Hazzard and his Iron Man, Bozo. Almost charmingly, Hitlin's followers are called the Batzis or the Batzi Tribe. (Smash Comics 008, 1940)
There's a lot of competition for the title of "most unflattering on-the-nose Hitler analog," but Motler here might just take it. He's top five, if nothing else - just an absolute bad'un. Like Hitlin and Holtz before him, Motler is thwarted by Bozo the Iron Man. Unlike them, he then falls off of a cliff and dies. (Smash Comics 009, 1940)
Franklin D Roosevelt:
Briefed on the approach of the Metallic Army by intelligence agent Wings Wendall (Smash Comics 012, 1940)
Gill Fox:
Golden Age comics man Gill Fox might not be the coworker most often inserted in stories as a gag but he sure is the one I notice the most. Here he is as a college track star. (Smash Comics 012, 1940)
Hollywood Crowd:
Quality Comics comedy character King Archie O'Toole ends up in Hollywood and attends the usual star-studded party, featuring lightly parodic versions of Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, WC Fields, Clark Gable, the Marx Brothers, Hedy Lamarr, Greta Garbo and possibly Joe E. Brown, Laurel and Hardy and Edward G Robinson, plus a guy who looks very specific and who I could probably figure out if I knew the right things to look for. (Smash Comics 011, 1940)
Joseph Stalin:
Stalin is in the upper right panel here ordering the invasion of Finland, but I include the rest of the page for a history repeats itself kind of view vis-a-vis the invasion of Ukraine. (Smash Comics 010, 1940)
Unknown:
This right here is the kind of thing that preys on my mind: a character with a roughly equal chance of being completely made up or being a reference to a real person who I might know immediately if I were reading the news regularly in 1940, but who would take no small amount of research to identify now without stumbling upon a Wikipedia page titled List of Deposed German Intelligence Officials. (Smash Comics 008, 1940)
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