This is a little bit of a cheat, but only a little bit in my eyes, as the crossover element in this story is big and prevalent, even though it doesn’t quite entirely qualify as a bona fide crossover in the way most others do. As we’ve spoken about in the past, DC (then known as Detective Comics Inc.) wasn’t really in the habit of having the characters in their assorted titles and strips interact with one another outside of very controlled conditions. This mostly manifested itself in the regular meetings of the Justice Society of America in the pages of ALL-STAR COMICS. But while the characters might often be depicted together on covers, it happened rarely within stories. Which is what makes this little tale all the more interesting.
The Shining Knight had made his debut a year and change earlier in the pages of ADVENTURE COMICS #66. He was the creation of writer Henry Lynne Perkins and artist Craig Flessel. The Shining Knight was Sir Justin, an actual knight of the round table in the time of King Arthur who was accidentally frozen in time and revived in the present day. He possessed a magical suit of armor that rendered him impervious and flew a winged steed given to him by the sorcerer Merlin called Winged Victory. While never the most popular feature in ADVENTURE COMICS, the Shining Knight settled in as a reliable second banana player. Probably his greatest claim to fame was being inducted as a charter member in the Law’s Legionnaires, alternately known as the Seven Soldiers of Victory, in the pages of LEADING COMICS.
By 1943 and ADVENTURE COMICS #85, the strip was being handled by write Joe Samachson and artist Louis Cazenueve. Sir Justin had established a civilian identity for himself as a museum attendant and he would don his armor to go into action against the crooks and other ills of the modern world.
This entire story is built around the scrap metal drives of the WWII years, where spare and discarded metal was gathered up and turned in so that it could be put to good use as part of the war effort. Likely every reader of the day would have been familiar with this effort, and most may have contributed to it. (There were also similar paper drives that meant the end of no doubt hundreds of copies of classic Golden Age comic books that would be worth a small fortune today.)
And here’s the unexpected crossover we promised! Because the captive Knight and the crooks that are holding them run straight into what seems like a Thanksgiving Parade procession that includes full-size helium-filled balloon avatars of Superman, Batman and Robin.
By the time this story saw print, the Man of Steel had been a feature of the yearly Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in balloon form for a number of years, beginning in 1940. But despite this story, Batman and Robin would not be so enshrined for a long while to come. Still, it makes for a weird and wacky crossover appearance.
There’s a lettering goof in this final panel, as the concluding caption tells readers to look for more of the Shining Knight in the next issue of MORE FUN COMICS rather than ADVENTURE COMICS. But the Knight’s strip never appeared in that series.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
The sword got heavy because they hit it with dum-dum bullets and they stuck? I don’t think Samachson knows much about dum-dum bullets. Including how much they’d weigh even if they did stick.
But fun “crossover.”
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The Shining Knight is the costumed equivalent of Starman’s cosmic control rod.
Knights are generally cool as are pirates, but he’s a very bland design for an armored guy swinging a sword.
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That has to be a magic sword (which is fitting), since there’s no way the Thor-whirling-hammer/bullets-and-bracelets trick works with normal human strength and speed. Thus here the magic must have decided to collect the bullets on the sword, because having bullets ricocheting around could have injured innocent bystanders, and that’s unchivalrous. I do wonder how he gets all the bullets removed later, but maybe the magic eventually takes care of that too (sloughs them off after a while?).
[rabbit hole!] Note, a quick check shows common bullets weigh around 6.5-9.5 grams. But further those were likely .45 bullets, I see they weigh 15 grams. 1 pound = 454 grams, then you’d need around 30 bullets stuck to the sword to add a pound to it. It actually doesn’t seem to be trivial, if that’s three crooks each firing a full drum of 50 rounds = 150 bullets, and all of them stick. 150*15/454 = around five pounds. That’s a lot of additional weight for a normal human arm to swing around.
He really should wear a helmet. As one of the crooks points out, his face is a vulnerable point.
And I hope that horse is bulletproof too. Riding a flying horse is cool. But in the modern world, it looks to be a really easy target if anyone want to take a potshot at it.
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“That has to be a magic sword (which is fitting),”
It is. As is the armor.
“…since there’s no way the Thor-whirling-hammer/bullets-and-bracelets trick works with normal human strength and speed.”
You’d be surprised at what ordinary humans can do in the Golden Age.
Indeed, even the Amazons weren’t presented as superhuman, just extremely skilled, and bullets and bracelets was presented as something normal people could learn.
For that matter, there have been stories claiming Sir Justin has superhuman abilities, but they don’t really say why.
“Thus here the magic must have decided to collect the bullets on the sword, because having bullets ricocheting around could have injured innocent bystanders, and that’s unchivalrous.”
If that was the case, you’d figure he wouldn’t have been surprised by it. And that it’d have happened even with non-dum-dum bullets, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case.
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As I recall from the 80s pages of All-Star Squadron, not only is Winged Victory bulletproof, but also capable of a hind-legs kick that hurt Dr Fate. Roy Thomas & Jerry Ordway et al gave Sir Justin plenty of moments to (appropriately) shine.
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I’d say very early Wonder Woman had something akin to the mysteries-of-the-Orient aspect, where standard humans could have low-level superpowers via secret techniques. But Sir Justin clearly doesn’t have any super-strength or super-speed in this story, otherwise he wouldn’t have have any trouble defeating some ordinary crooks in hand-to-hand combat. Indeed, he’s certainly a far more generally skilled fighter than them. The bullet protection only makes sense if it’s magic from the sword. I was thinking the sword itself made a specific situational decision to collect the bullets here, maybe given their number and nearness of bystanders, and that’s an excuse to explain it doing different things in different cases (n.b. the crooks are wrong – they’re saying what they think happened, but they don’t know all about the sword’s abilities). Justin is surprised because he doesn’t know everything about how the magic sword will act – he’s a knight, not a wizard. And even if Merlin did give him an instruction manual about all the gear, I would completely believe that Justin never read it.
It seems fitting to me if the magic sword gives Justin limited “super-swordmanship”. He can swing it very fast, very accurately. But that’s not “free” – he still has to pay a significant physical effort for each swing. Do too many swings in too short a time, and his arm will give out for a while in cramping and fatigue. That means he can’t do a Flash-style trick of turning his sword into a helicopter blade. Thus, he can do feats like bullets-and-blade for a few minutes, but it can leave him weakened for a while afterwards.
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“The bullet protection only makes sense if –“
Ah, I see where you’re going wrong.
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I wonder when the last appearance of the Shining Knight’s lance was, because that was enchanted by Merlin too ( but it did shatter against Captain Marvel’s body in All-Star Squadron#36 ( August 1984 ) which predates this issue ( April 1943 ).
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And by predates, I mean 1942 All-Star Squadron stories.
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Shining Knight did provide silver age DC with the name of a villain: T.O. Morrow ( only appearance ) [ Adventure Comics#86 ( June-July 1943 ) Twist in Time! — comics.org ] & T.O. Morrow [ The Flash#143 ( March 1964 ) The Flash & Green Lantern vs. duplicate Green Lanterns ] — a name I liked the first time I read it in Justice League of America#192 ( July 1981 ). Anyone for a Shining Knight – Black Knight ( Dane Whitman ) meeting? Merlin enchanted sword against Merlin enchanted sword or enchanted winged horse vs. science created winged horse ( I believe Winged Victory has that race in the bag ).
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That’s not unlike finding out that Will Eisner created his own Royal Flush Gang 20 years ahead of Gardner Fox’s.
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Knowing Roy, I have no doubt that he specifically had the lance shatter to “explain” why Justin suddenly stopped using it. I love silly continuity games like that (although I also recognize that they can be detrimental to a story overall).
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Besides the early Buckler art, Thomas’ having to explain away continuity gaffes, etc, from decades before that bothered no one besides him is one of the few things that annoyed me about All Star Squadron.
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It would have been funny if Sir Justin had deflated the Superman or Batman balloons instead of the random clown figure…
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Thanks to Roy Thomas, Jerry Ordway, Rich Buckler & others, I got to read some decent comics, in which the Shining Knight appeared.
“All-Star Squadron” #36? Had cover by Buckler & Ordway with what looked like a line-up of Golden Age versions of the 1960’s JLA (minus Aquaman & Martian Manhunuter), plus Plastic Man.
Sir Justin & Winged Victory faced off against “The Super-Nazi” (Captain Marvel, “Hauptman Vunder” as per Hitler & his minions in the story). Sir Justin referred to him as “the flying Hun”.
The interiors were by Buckler & Richard Howell, and they were dramatic, naturalistic, & pretty damn good. Maybe my fave Superman vs. Captain Marvel story.
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