Captain America #7 (October 1941) “Horror Plays the Scales”
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Simon and Kirby have completely mastered the double page splash with Cap #7. The important center is now occupied by the title “Horror Plays the Scales” and a ring of floating heads. Perhaps you remember me saying that floating heads and oversize figures were devices that Jack Kirby did not use often on covers but were devices that Joe Simon used for covers throughout his career. The Captain America covers did not use either floating heads or oversized figures but both devices appear in the splashes. On this splash the floating heads are obviously under torture with most trying to cover their ears. Behind them is are multicolor rings with musical notes floating about.

If the title and floating heads do not make it obvious about the nefarious use of music, the scene of the splash does. It is divided by the central design into left and right sections. On the left is a violin maestro in the thralls of playing his instrument. The musical notes that he is generating are shown flying up toward the right. The eye follows these notes into the top of the rings of the central design. The eye then follows the stream of musical notes that enters the right section of the scene. The musical notes stream then wraps around the head of a man. Now is revealed what effect the maestros music is having. The man, obviously in a trance, advances with a knife toward Bucky who is tied up on a chair. But Captain America descends from above to save the day. I have no idea where Cap leaped from. While the left section shows a music hall, the right section takes place on a city roof top.

Along the bottom of the splash is the start of the actual story. Unlike what was done in Cap #6, the story section in Cap #7 is well integrated with the rest of the splash. The background to the story panels has strips like the scales of music notation. These scales are given various colors that give them a visual connection to the color rings behind the floating heads. On the left is a musical symbol, I am afraid I am ignorant about music so I do not know what it is called. Following this symbol are a row of musical notes. The round part of the notes are actually the panels of the story.

For me this is perhaps the most interesting design of the Captain America double splashes. That is not to say that the rest are not successful, only that Simon and Kirby would experiment with other different designs.

Captain America #6 (September 1941) “Who Killed Doctor Vardoff”
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I do not think Simon and Kirby invented the double page splash. I seem to remember an earlier example in a Kazar story in Marvel Mystery Comics and I make no claim that was the earliest either. Using the centerfold for such a purpose would seem natural for anyone aware of how a comic was made. Because of the vagaries that occur in the folding and stapling of a comic only in the centerfold could a publisher be sure to get a good double spread without registration problems. No I doubt that S&K were the first to do a double splash, but I do not think anyone else at that time did as many or as well.

S&K already had produced a number of comics before their first double splash. In those previous comics are really terrific examples of single page splashes. So it should be no surprise that their first attempt at a wide splash (Captain America #6) would be so successfully done. In it Joe and Jack integrate a scene as well as a caste of characters. The scene occupies only a relatively small portion of the splash, but it is in the center and so commands attention. We find Captain America and Bucky over the victim of a hanging. Although the victim is now on the ground, the noose is still around his neck and the rest of the rope goes up to the top of the splash and then the end drops back down. But the heads of the characters, even the deceased, are turned to our right where the masked hangman stands holding another noose in both hands. Oddly the shadow that he castes also holds a noose but in just one hand.

The noose’s rope that the hangman holds trails along the lower part of the splash visually connecting the various characters arrayed in a broad ‘U’ shape. Besides Bucky and Cap we find a scientist (the victim), a lab assistant, a mob moll (with her cigarette in her mouth as she speaks, a sure sign that she is not respectable), and a mysterious man (whose monocle and cigarette holder indicate that he is a nefarious foreigner). As the eye follows the rope to our left side in ascends until it is covered by a large question mark. But where the rope disappears is well placed because the eye follows the upper part of the question mark until the rope reappears and the victim is portrayed hanging.

Below the splash are a row of story panels. The splash was used to catch the browser’s eye, while the story panels would get him interested in the story. That way when the newsstand owner called “you buying or what? this ain’t no library” hopefully the reader would have become involved enough to purchase the comic. S&K extend the splash panel’s edges to enclose the story panels also. This attempt to integrate the splash and the story panels is the greatest weakness of this double page. In the future Simon and Kirby would use other means to overcome this defect.

The first double page splash already has some features that we will see in others. Often these wide splashes do not just provide a scene but something more complex. It is not just that this sort of thing takes advantage of the greater width, it actually could not be done effectively on a single page. What is presented in the splash is a well integrated “story”. However like some the Harvey covers that I have written about previously, there are logical inconsistencies in what is presented. The Hangman and his shadow holding the noose differently. The victim shown three times, once on the ground surrounded by Captain America and Bucky, also still hanging on the left side and finally as one of the characters describing himself. But like those Harvey covers I really do not consider these true defects. The splash is not meant to be a snap shot, instead variously timed events are represented together. Everything is well placed to provide a sort of condensed story, without the ending of course!