A Punch With a Purpose

That cover was a deliberate provocation. While politicians argued over whether America should enter the war, Simon and Kirby put a clear answer on every newsstand: the enemy already had a face, and it was Hitler's.

Comics could say what official policy could not. They reached millions of kids and soldiers in plain pictures, with heroes who never hesitated about right and wrong.

That made them powerful — and dangerous. A medium dismissed as cheap entertainment was quietly shaping how a generation pictured the enemy.