As the 1940s were drawing to a close, a new genre was beginning to gain in popularity in the comic book field. This genre was horror, and it would only be a short time before EC Comics jumped on this growing interest to create some of the most memorable comic book stories of the period. But other publishers saw the coming trend and moved to inject their own features with a greater degree of horror content. This is what led to one of the best-remembered two-part stories of the Golden Age by readers of that era: the story in which Airboy battled the rats.
AIRBOY COMICS didn’t number their comics sequentially, they followed the mainstream magazine methodology of having a new volume every succeeding year. Consequently, this two-part saga kicked off in AIRBOY COMICS v5 #11, which equated to issue #58.
It’s a pretty mad concept on the face of it. The idea is that rats have been more intelligent and self-aware than anybody had realized over the course of centuries. And now, spurred on by the advancement of mankind, the rats have decided to scour the human race from the face of the planet and take over everything themselves.
By a coincidence, at this same time, Airboy comes across a mouse that has been stepped on and both nurses it back to health and adopts it as a mascot. The author of this story is unknown today, but the artwork was done by the series’ longtime artist Ernie Schroeder.
Airboy is quick to believe the Professor’s outlandish tale, despite him having no tangible proof of what he claims. Which would make him look like a bit of a gullible sap, except that the professor turns out to be absolutely right.
Don’t be a rat, Cheesie!
It’s moments such as this one that made this story memorable. There’s something inherently terrifying about rats.
While this story is treated in this issue as a self-contained adventure, these events were picked up upon in the very next issue–which we’ll look at in the future.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I liked this, and the Eclipse sequel too. In the latter, when the Rats come back, they encounter Davy Nelson III, but mistake him for his father. It seems like few people, including Davy, ever used the Airboy name for the hero. Why he wouldn’t use “Airboy” as a stage-name, like Mister Miracle did in his setup, I do not know. “He” certainly went out of his way to be as much like his old man as possible.
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It’s a wildly goofy idea for a story but damn did it work. If you accept the starting premise of some rats gaining human level intelligence it all works and works well. The artist playing it straight helped immensely.
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superb artwork
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It’s treated pretty goofily, but still manages to be chilling. The idea of rats just being super-intelligent all along is ludicrous, but the scenes of them swarming and eating humans are creepy as hell, as would prove effective on screen in years to come.
And I love the idea that bats are the rats’ air force. Or isn’t it pigeons that are supposed to be “rats with wing”…?
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Likewise squirrels are “rats in the trees.”
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That is some intense and impressive storytelling! One of the great things about being a comics fan is that there are always more “hidden treasures” to discover…work that flew under the radar, or has been forgotten by time. Thanks for sharing this!
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Can’t go wrong with an Airboy story. whether a WW2 air fighter story, mystery story, or horror, it just seems right when it’s an Airboy story.
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I’m reminded the episode “Stressed Environment” of the old “Monsters” TV series. A scientist is putting lab rats under various stresses to try to get them to evolve intelligence. They do evolve intelligence, and then rebel. It’s well-executed. They manage to create little crossbows, for example, powerful enough to kill people with.
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