Minutemen

The Minutemen, formerly known as the New Minutemen and later the Minutemen Franchise LLC, were the premier group of superheroes throughout the 1940s. They were founded in 1939, largely through the actions of Nelson Gardner (Captain Metropolis), Sally Jupiter (the first Silk Spectre) and Jupiter's agent Laurence Schexnayder. Schexnayder also provided the group's publicity. After several public controversies, the group disbanded in 1949.

History[]

Formation[]

Captain Metropolis contacted Silk Spectre and her manager, Laurence Schexnayder about joining forces with all "mystery men". As World War II was starting in Europe, advertisements were published in newspapers, attracting the interest of adventurers who wished to fight for the country.

In 1939, the original eight-person lineup of the team included Captain Metropolis, Silk Spectre, Hooded Justice, Nite Owl, Silhouette, Dollar Bill, Mothman and Comedian.

Sometime around December of the same year, the team held their very first annual Christmas party.^[1]

The Golden Age[]

Because of their name and the war, Captain Metropolis and Laurence Schexnayder wished their image to be that of "modern patriots". The earliest criminals thwarted by the Minutemen were gangs dressed up as pirates or ghosts, who found it hilarious to perpetrate heists while wearing costumes. Regardless, with Schexnayder as their manager, he kept track of their popularity and appearances in newspapers, radio shows, and publicity events, allowing the Minutemen's popularity to soar. He attended to their personal lives, including arrangements for those of the team who needed help with living expenses, like young Eddie Blake. He also suggested targeting only big time cases, like saving elderly women, and beating crime bosses, such as Moloch. This disappointed some of the heroes like Hooded Justice and Silhouette who felt they were fighting for something more and so continued to work independently.

The crimefighters also defeated a costumed criminal named King Mob, who's ape make was later displayed in a showcase.

In 1940, they stopped Moloch and apprehended the Solar Mirror Weapon which he employed for heists. The Minutemen continued to be his frequent enemies, often foiled his operations and sent him to prison only to begin anew when he'd escape.

That year, the Comedian was kicked out of the group, after attempting to rape Sally Jupiter, reducing the group's membership to seven. Around that time, the Minutemen were immortalized by the publication of a comic book which promoted their heroism, patriotism, and moral values.

World War II[]

The United States entered World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The war years greatly reduced the effectiveness of the Minutemen. Captain Metropolis was reactivated into the military, Dollar Bill was drafted into the Third United States Army, and Mothman (a conscientious objector) was assigned as a medical aide. As police officers, Hollis Mason and Will Reeves were not eligible for the draft, and since the draft excluded women, Sally Jupiter and Ursula Zandt were also excluded from combat roles. Because of this, the Minutemen only had four active members between 1941 and 1945. They would spend the war years fighting Nazi saboteurs in the US, including the top Nazi operatives Captain Axis and the Screaming Skull.

Decline[]

Death of Dollar Bill[]

The end of the war brought the Minutemen back to full strength for a short time, but was soon struck by tragedy. In 1946, Dollar Bill was killed by a gunman while trying to foil a bank robbery.

Expulsion and Death of Ursula Zandt[]

Months after Bill Brady's death, the press discovered that Ursula Zandt was a lesbian. Laurence Schexnayder convinced the group that they had to expel Zandt from the team in order to preserve the Minutemen's public reputation. Months later, Zandt and her lover were killed by the Liquidator, an old enemy of the Silhouette.

Sally Jupiter's Retirement[]

The Minutemen in S1 E6 — The Minutemen, as portrayed in the HBO series (Season 1, Episode 6 "This Extraordinary Being"). (HBO series)

The following year, Sally Jupiter announced her retirement from the Minutemen and married Laurence Schexnayder. The wedding was attended by Hollis Mason, Byron Lewis, Nelson Gardner, and former Minutemen member Eddie Blake. Without Schexnayder's management, the remaining Minutemen lost coordination and met sparingly.

Fading Trend[]

Hollis Mason recounted in his book Under the Hood that one of the biggest problems they had faced was the absence of costumed criminals. The Minutemen had hammered costumed villains to such an extent in the 1940s those new criminals stopped continuing the trend. He claimed that stopping criminals without costumes felt kind of stupid and embarrassing, but there had never been as many costumed criminals as heroes. He says crooks turned in their costumes along with their careers, but some opted for a less extroverted and more profitable approach. He called them the new breed of villains who had colorful names but were ordinary men in business suits who ran drug and prostitution rackets, and although they still caused a lot of trouble, they were no fun to fight.

Things were starting to get serious, but Mason noted how funny it was that the more serious things got, the better the Comedian seemed to do. About ten years younger than the other masked vigilantes, the Comedian was entering his physical prime while the others were starting to feel old. He was the only one of them still showing up on the front pages, and through his government connections, was turning into a patriotic symbol.

Disassembled[]

End of the Minutemen[]

In 1949, the remaining four members of the group, all tired of it, decided to disband the organization. Despite remaining individually active, Hollis Mason described the 1950s as cold and bleak, both for himself and for costumed adventurers in general.

The House UnAmerican Activities Committee[]

In 1954, the New Frontiersman published an article featuring photographs of Byron Lewis at the 13th World Science Fiction Convention associated with artists linked to socialist organizations. This revelation brought the attention of the United States government, and the House Un-American Activities Committee led by Joseph McCarthy subsequently demanded that all costumed adventurers reveal their identities to a congressman.

Being the first to answer the summons by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, the Comedian served as justice of the peace for Senator McCarthy's committee by delivering subpoenas to others costumed adventurers. Because of his involvement with the government, and past campaigns for several HUAC members including Joseph David Keene, Blake was the only vigilante not forced to testify.

The remaining active masked adventurers, however, had to testify before the HUAC, and were forced to reveal their true identities to an FBI lawyer and sign an oath of loyalty. This action didn't present any immediate problems for most of them, with Captain Metropolis' outstanding military record and Nite Owl's service in the police force, but Mothman had more difficulty because of his left-wing ties. He was cleared, but the investigations were both lengthy and ruthless, and that the pressure most likely prompted his drinking problem that later contributed to his decline in mental health.

Hooded Justice was the only masked adventurer who refused to testify on the grounds that he was not prepared to reveal his true identity to anyone. HJ spoke out about his decision in an ad published in the Amsterdam News, a leading black newspaper, in which he states "At this time, I am not prepared to share my truth to the world. And I will certainly not bow to the bullying of this racist Congress. For as long as the structures of law and order are controlled by corrupt elites whose singular, cyclopean focus is to protect and fortify the interests and flourishing of the ruling majority, I will never surrender my mission to help the invisible and the oppressed." This action surprised many including his former Minutemen teammates. When further pressured by the committee, HJ vanished from the public eye, leaving many to conjecture that he died at the hands of the Comedian. Müller's badly decomposing body was found in the Boston Harbor, but the circumstances of his death, and the possibility that he actually was Hooded Justice were never proven. In reality, Reeves retired from both his role as Hooded Justice and the New York City Police Department, and left New York in the fall of 1955.

Emergence of Doctor Manhattan[]

The final end of the Minutemen even as a loose association came with the sudden appearance of Doctor Manhattan on the world stage in 1960, which changed everything. A few months later Nite Owl and some of the other masked vigilantes met Manhattan at a Red Cross event. Mothman was also in attendance but had a bad shake and not long afterwards would be entered into a sanitorium in Maine for his drinking problem and mental illness. That night Nite Owl realized that he was forty-six and feeling old, and decided to retire.

Legacy[]

Critics of the Minutemen have leveled the accusation that they were simply performing street theater while atrocities were being committed overseas during World War II. Despite this accusation, they were very popular with the American public. Even after the group disbanded in 1949, the concept of the costumed adventurer became embedded into the American psyche.

The second generation of costumed adventurers, inspired by the actions of the Minutemen, began to appear. Ozymandias first appeared in 1958, two years before the Red Cross event where Hollis Mason decided to retire; Laurie Juspeczyk, the daughter of Sally Jupiter, would ultimately follow into her mother's footsteps and ultimately became the second Silk Spectre. Even as Mason wrote Under the Hood in 1962, a new young crimefighter named Dan Dreiberg inspired by his career wrote him a fan letter formally asking his permission to use the "Nite Owl" name as a new masked vigilante. Mason met with Dreiberg, gave him his blessing, and they became good friends. Captain Metropolis' career continued sporadically, and despite his declining years he tried his hardest to stay fit for duty through vigorous exercises. In 1966 he even went so far as to try to organize the second generation of costumed adventurers into a new team he called the "Crimebusters", modeled on the Minutemen organization, which he himself had first proposed organizing. The attempt at an actual organization failed, though the individual careers of the second generation of superheroes continued up until the signing of the Keene Act in 1977, which outlawed vigilantism with the exception of those in service of the United States government.