Comic Strip Review: Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon 1948 by Milton Caniff
Prior to World War Two, Milton Caniff’s primary claim to fame had been his popular adventure comic strip, Terry and the Pirates. Due to recurring phlebitis, Mr. Caniff was rejected from military service, and while having his characters joint the war effort, he also created the morale-boosting comic strip Male Call. Extremely popular, it convinced him that he could do better for himself if he had a strip that wasn’t directly owned by the syndicate. So Milton Caniff created Steve Canyon.
Beginning in 1947, the Steve Canyon strip featured a World War Two veteran of the Army Air Corps who’d parlayed his piloting skills, back pay and connections into his own air transport business. Hopping from place to place around the world, he flew airplanes, met attractive women, helped local people in trouble, and fought bad guys (mostly “the underground” but pretty obviously Communists.)
When the Korean War broke out, Steve went back to active duty with the United States Air Force, remaining with them for the rest of the strip’s run. But for this volume, we’re looking at 1948.
“Medical Sabotage” Steve Canyon and his sidekicks Happy Easter (an older fellow who’d been in the Seventh Cavalry before striking it rich) and Fireball Feeney (a less-experienced bucktoothed pilot) are in the Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan area supposedly bodyguarding American doctor Deen Wilderness. While Steve is most assuredly interested in the attractive doctor, his actual job is creating a network of airfields in the American oil concessions.
Dr. Wilderness is not happy about being tricked, and even less pleased that Steve’s secretary Feeta-Feeta has arrived to help coordinate the new air service. But a more pressing problem is that the underground has decided that Dr. Wilderness, and thus American medical aid to the locals, must be discredited, even if they have to resort to murdering the locals to do it.
“The Nine Maid” As a result of the previous adventure, Steve Canyon and Happy Easter have been captured by nomad raiders led by the Maid of Nine. This mysterious masked woman claims to be the direct descendant of the leader of the Ninth Great Crusade. Just one problem; as Steve points out, history records only eight Great Crusades. The Maid may or may not be someone Steve has met before.
The nomads are enemies of the underground, and the Maid of Nine and her warriors are trying to get their women and children to a safe port where they can be evacuated. Steve and Happy decide to help out, as the underground is shooting at them too.
“Operation Convoy” has Steve and Happy rescued from the corrupt police by a teenage girl nicknamed Convoy. Problem! Her price is that Steve Canyon must marry her! Turns out the GIs who used to be stationed in this area during the war adopted her as a mascot, and assured her that a handsome American would come back to marry her some day. Steve is reluctant on multiple grounds, the first being that she’s way too young for him.
But still hiding from the underground-infested police, Steve and Happy accept Convoy’s offer of a hiding place in a ruin near the Persian Gulf. There the two spot suspicious submarine traffic. While investigating, they and Convoy are kidnapped by the seemingly ruthless Captain Akoola (usually transliterated as “Akula”, it’s Russian for “shark.”) Captain Akoola’s new sub has a nasty surprise for the Americans, but maybe our heroes can steal a page from the future Tom Clancy?
“Plantation Sabotage” has Steve and Happy washing ashore near a plantation in Burma, and meeting “Miss Fancy.” She’s being pursued by the unpleasant plantation owner Mr. Rak, who has bad taste in toothbrush moustaches. Turns out Mr. Rak has taken bribes from the underground to sabotage his own crops, desperately needed by the Americans.
In a bit of a twist, Mr. Rak realizes what a fool he’s been and redeems himself a bit, though too late.
“Puppy Love” “Rak” turns out to be a pseudonym; Mr. Rak was in fact Reed A. Kimberly, and his college-aged son Reed Jr. arrives just after Mr. Rak has left the strip. The rather naïve Reed gets a crush on glamorous older woman Fancy (who’s actually an alleged war widow.) When they make it to a major city in India, Steve and Happy head off to fix their paperwork and report in to the American authorities.
While our heroes are gone, Reed blows off returning to school to try to get to know Fancy better. She’s just not into him, but local thief and con artist Cheetah, who’s about Reed’s age, is. Or rather, his money belt. Reed’s head is rather turned by Cheetah’s wiles, but he is forcibly clued into her true treacherous nature.
When Steve and Happy return, it’s to join an airlift mission to an isolated mountain region cut off by rebels. Turns out there’s an American mining concession, and while the airlift is bringing food to them, they might as well help the locals too. (The Berlin Airlift is namedropped.) Reed talks his way into joining the mission, but Cheetah isn’t done with him yet.
The art is good, with some va-va-voom women and nifty aircraft. Intrigue and action are leavened by witty dialogue. The adventures flow nicely into each other.
Seen from more than seventy years later, there’s some elements that don’t age as well. The Americans are always the good guys, the underground (read: Commies) is always the bad guys, and the natives are benighted, needing the U.S. to develop their natural resources on their behalf. There’s never any pause to think that just maybe the locals have valid reasons to distrust the great white saviors.
Steve’s attractiveness to women means that they tend to lose their heads over him, and even do things that are dangerous to themselves on his behalf for no reward. (Captain Akoola is a prime example.) Reed’s not quite so lucky with Cheetah, so that’s a change.
The “Checker” reprint edition shoves the entire year into a comic book sized volume, so the strips are reduced to “modern” strip size (tiny!) and the Sunday strips (without color) have to be cut apart as they won’t fit on a single page. You might want to go for one of the more expensive full-sized reprints.
This reprint was done in 2003, and the editorial/end notes reflect this with a rather belligerent attitude towards the unpatriotic people who didn’t support the Vietnam War and caused Caniff to move away from gung-ho military adventures to more domestic affairs. The United States was having a flareup of patriotic fever following 9/11 and the realities of what the administration was doing with that excuse hadn’t fully registered.
Overall though, this is prime adventure strip material, and well worth reading if you can access it through your library.
