Minute-Man

[1] He the second of a line of patriotic heroes from the Golden Age of Comics; preceded by MLJs The Shield in January of 1940 and followed by Timely’s Captain America in March of 1941.

[2] His double identity is known to his superior officer, General Milton, who sends the Minute-Man on unsanctioned missions behind enemy lines.

According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, "his nemesis is the femme fatale Illyria, Queen of the Spies, but he also fights rebellious Haitian natives, robot spies, ten foot tall Nazi monsters, the Black Poet, agents of the Black Dragon Society, the evil Toymaker, mad scientists, mummies, vampires, and head hunters".

In American Comic Book Chronicles: 1940-1944, Kurt Mitchell and Roy Thomas discussed the merits of the early Minute-Man stories: "The strip began as a lazy imitation of Captain America: given a top-secret commission to ferret out and smash subversive threats to the nation as the patriotically garbed Minute-Man, Jack Weston posed as an ordinary private as cover.

There was no origin, no explanation for his extraordinary fighting prowess, no kid sidekick or grotesque Nazi villains, for Minute-Man was stuck in the world of fictitious fascist nations that [Joe] Simon and [Jack] Kirby scorned as too timid for the times".