Thanks to the Steranko History of Comics Airboy became one of my favorite Golden Age characters long before I ever got the chance to read his comics. It’s easy to understand why kids in the 40′s felt the same way; he was a teenager who did what most of them desperately wanted to do; fly a super cool plane and get into the fighting. A creation of Charles Biro, he made his first appearance in the second issue of Air Fighter Comics, a comic dedicated to independent contractor WW II airplane drivers who flew gimmick planes. But Airboy broke out of a herd of also-rans like Iron Ace and Sky Wolf thanks in large part to Birdie, a sort of alive plane that flew by flapping it’s wings.

And, speaking of things that 40′s kids wanted to do, there was Airboy’s frenemy femme fatale Valkyrie (a.k.a. The Girl Who Had Trouble Keeping Her Blouse Buttoned; I had no idea 1940′s breast management technology was so advanced). Man, Airboy got a lot of action, especially for a fourteen year old in the 1940′s.

With the 23rd issue it became Airboy and the comics only other regular feature was a back-up featuring The Heap, a supporting player swamp monster from the old Air Fighter Comics days.

Things got pretty weird for Airboy after the war. Oh, sure there was some crime fighting but for the most part when he wasn’t trying to straighten out spoiled rich kids (and you be surprised just how often something so far out of his job description came up) he faced an oddball assortment of would-be world conquerors, monsters, aliens and supernatural menaces. I place into evidence this issue of Airboy Vol. 7, #8.

When The Heap was revived in the 1980′s he was colored moss green, pretty much the color scheme we’ve come to expect a swamp monster to sport from years of seeing Swamp Thing and Man-Thing. But as you can see in the 50′s he was depicted as being Abominable Snowman white. Frankly, I kind of prefer him this way.