Introducing Bash Helmet. The gay hero who's coming down hard on criminals

The world’s first gay superhero, Bash Helmet, was created in June 1941 by William 'Florrie' Mendelson while he was a young lieutenant stationed at an army base near Brighton, England. Each night, after lights out, Florrie loved to excite his privates by sneaking into their barracks and telling them fantastical stories in order to raise their morale.

His tales centred around the heroic Justin Nicely, an investigative hairdresser who possessed a magical helmet. When Justin rubbed it, he swelled to twice his size and his muscles grew firm and strong. Accessorising with a tasteful purple costume, Justin called himself Bash Helmet and took to the streets, coming down hard on criminals.

Left: Florrie Mendelson            Right: Florrie Mendelson

Word of Bash Helmet's exploits spread throughout the army base and Florrie soon found himself giving oral recitations in the officers' mess. Colonel Neville Hawthorne, the camp commander, had connections to an American publishing house that was producing a comic called Tales to Excite.

Hawthorne radioed details of Bash's adventures to the publishers who then employed artists to draw them. Early sketches of Bash depicted the hero as aggressive, bulky and hirsute but the editors worried that readers would mistake him for a lesbian. So his appearance was refined.

 

Right: A rejected sketch of Bash Helmet

Originally, Florrie’s Bash was an Englishman from the fictional village of Uppham-cum-Hardy but the publishers took the decision to make Bash an American as they felt it would broaden his appeal.In October 1941, Bash Helmet was introduced to the world in Tales to Excite issue 27. The debut story explained how Justin first came across his helmet in Greece and then returned to the United States to fight crime.

Bash Helmet’s first appearance in Tales to Excite number 27

Bash Helmet. The gay superhero who's out ... to save the world. His History in Briefs: The 1940s Part II

After his successful launch in Tales to Excite number 27, the following issues showed Bash Helmet getting to grips with the seedy underbelly of organised crime and grappling with gangsters.

The new hero proved a massive hit and copies of these comics were found under beds and in public toilets across the United States.

Reacting to the events taking place at Pearl Harbour in December, an editorial decision was taken to tell tales of Bash fighting the Nazis. As America's involvement in the war grew, so did the popularity of Bash Helmet - and so did the number of gay men enlisting into the army. Ever keen to swell its ranks and realising that this was a large section of men it hadn’t touched on before, the military used Bash in a recruitment campaign to encourage more gay men to join in the War Effort.

Soon there were whole squadrons comprised of homosexuals desperate to get their hands on a German Panzer. Some of Bash’s phrases from the comics were adopted as slogans by the squaddies, including,        

“Watch your backs, Hunnies!”

and

“We’re out ... to save the World!” 

The most popular enemy of Bash during the war-era comics was Diva Braun (right), a brutal lesbian Nazi from Titz in Germany who specialised in SS & M.

She and Bash had a number of confrontations over the years until her eventual demise at the hands of Hitler himself when she attempted to overthrow the Führer, kill all the males and rename the country ‘Hermany’.

Tales to Excite No. 32. March 1942. Featuring Bash Helmet, the Gay Superhero who's out ... to Save the World. And introducing Diva Braun, the Third Reich Dyke

Bash Helmet. His History in Briefs: The 1950s Movie Serials

With the war ending in 1945, sales of the action-based Tales to Excite saw a steady decline as the general public became less interested in stories about armies fighting.

In an effort to target a younger, more innocent market, Bash Helmet was dropped as the comic’s flagship character. 

He was replaced with Squirt ‘n’ Spurt, the unlikely comedy pairing of a squid and a cheetah in the retitled ‘Tales for Kidz’.

Above: Squirt ‘n’ Spurt from the story: “Where There’s a Wildebeest, There’s a Way!”

Bash may have been ousted from the comic world but he was about to conquer a whole new frontier - the motion picture!

Having left the army with an honourable discharge, Florrie Mendelson was out for a late night drive in November 1950, when he backed into the head of RKY Studios, Walter Possum.

This chance encounter resulted in a huge release - the ten-part movie serial, Bash Helmet vs the Size Queen. In the story, Bash confronts the eponymous villainess who invades Earth from outer space using a size-changing ray gun to enlarge insects and shrink humans.

The success of the serial made a star of the actor playing Bash, former Olympic Flower Arranger, Rusty Clappe (right). 

Unfortunately the critics weren’t so kind to the Swedish actress, Rüt Busch, who many felt was too manly for the role of Queen Domina, as this excerpt from a 1951 edition of Moviegoer Monthly demonstrates: 

“Rusty Clappe is a revelation in the role of Bash Helmet, chewing the scenery whenever he appears. Unfortunately, Rüt Busch looks like she merely wants to munch on the carpet!”

Clappe went on to star in three other serials:

Bash Helmet and the Magic Ring (1953)

Bash Helmet and the Haunted Cottage (1956) 

and 

Bash Helmet and the Turkish Prison (1958). 

Bash Helmet. The 1950s. Part II. Launch of The Helmeteers

Above right: The Helmeteer membership certificate that every fan longed to get!

Above left: People are paying a fortune to get their hands on that helmet.

During the 1950s people flocked to watch the movie adventures of Rusty Clappe as Bash Helmet in Bash Helmet and the Magic Ring (1953); Bash Helmet and the Haunted Cottage (1956); and Bash Helmet and the Turkish Prison (1958) and, in a shrewd marketing ploy, RKY Studios set up a club for audience members to join - The Helmeteers.

This proved a hugely profitable move as thousands of fans sent off their fifty cents to the studio in exchange for a membership certificate, a signed letter from Bash and a plastic replica helmet.

Despite vast numbers of these items being produced, not many exist today. At an auction in the year 2008, an anonymous bidder paid a record $9,000 for a complete mint-condition Helmeteer club pack.

Throughout the 70s, gay men referenced the club in marches even though it had stopped running in 1961. The chant: “We’re here! We’re Queer! We’re like a Helmeteer!” became part of gay culture.

The Swinging Sixties and Bash is out ... on his own.

Above: the cover to the first edition of Bash’s own comic

In 1962, the rights to Bash Helmet were purchased by a fledgling production company, Bona Ventures. Bona’s owner, Godfrey Pryce, planned on relaunching the character in his own comic and, in October of that year, Bash Helmet appeared in his own self-titled series.

Over its 24 year run, the comics introduced a whole new rogues’ gallery for the hero, including Hardwood the Lumberjack, motoring maniacs Drag Racer and Diesel Dyke, Mr Pride and the cockney criminal Polari Bear. 

Hardwood the Lumberjack: still going strong in 1974's Issue 139 

Issue 8 introduced the Bashmobile, a souped up 1950s Alfa Romeo,

which allowed our hero to cruise for action at high speeds.

Mr Pride did survive, at least until 1978 and Issue 192

Comic superhero Bash Helmet meets the Fiends of Dorothy ... and gets himself a sidekick

In the 1960s some of the most enduring villains introduced to readers of the newly eponymous comic Bash Helmet, were the Fiends of Dorothy - perversions of the popular L. Frank Baum characters given a little twist so that they fit right in with the world of Bash Helmet. 

The Fiends of Dorothy returned frequently 
throughout the years to battle our hero

A surviving page from the 1979 story ‘Blowing a Gale!’

With comic sales at a steady high, Pryce passed editorial duties on to his partner, Pu Yao-Yun. As an eighteen year old Thai boy, Pu was more in touch with a younger audience, and the older editorial team members valued his enormous input. Bud Demsky, then Vice President at Bona Ventures, remembers one board meeting held at an executive sauna in New York:

“We were all loudly arguing about how to make the stories more interesting when Pu quietly entered the steam room. 

He winked at us all and said coyly,  “If any of you are interested, I like lots of different partners”. 

“Then he popped out again. It was a very insightful comment and, the very next issue, Bash received his first sidekick.”

That character was Ginger Crawley, a red-haired orphan living on the streets of New York. Ginger had a penchant for tying all sorts of elaborate knots which he liked to test on himself. In issue 20, Bash finds Ginger bound to a tree in Central Park. Mistakenly believing the boy had been kidnapped, the hero attempts to rescue him until Ginger explains the situation. Bash, recognising that he could use the boy’s talents in a number of ways, takes him under his wing and christens his young partner Bondage Boy.

Bash's junior partner Bondage Boy 
was the star of Issue 23 from August 1964

Bondage Boy manages to rope 
someone into joining him

For the next ten issues the boy bonder roamed the city with Bash, tying up numerous villains, sometimes against their will. But in the real world there was a growing level of concern expressed about this new junior hero.

Parents feared that children would start to identify with the youngster and want to emulate him. Horrified at the thought of their kids dying their hair ginger, adults petitioned Bona to get rid of the character. Demsky succumbed to the mounting pressure and, in a controversial storyline during issue 30, Bondage Boy tragically perished while attempting a monkey’s fist. 

The Turk's Head knot from 

Samplers and Stitches, 

a handbook of the embroiderer's art 

by Mrs Archibald Christie, London 1920

The Monkey's Fist by Markus Bärlocher