Superheroes That Fought Hitler

The Man of Steel's participation in World War II is a perplexing thing - a dude who can spin the planet on its axis to reverse time seems like a pretty sure way to end a conflict. Better than obliterating two cities full of civilians with nuclear weapons, at least. Here we see the Golden Age incarnation of the Man of Steel holding both Hitler and Tojo up by their scruffs like a pair of genocidal kittens, presumably getting ready to give them a stern spanking before hurling them into the Sun.

Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon has fought with all manner of menaces over his career. Early on, he teamed with Hellboy to fight one of history's greatest villains, Adolf Hitler. The pair prevailed, but that wasn't the end of the Nazi menace for our heroes. They saved Hitler's brain - why do they always do that - and transplanted it into the skull of a superhumanly powerful monkey. And thus was created Brainape. The Dragon has also gone toe-to-toe with a gigantic Osama Bin Laden as well.

When the Fantastic Four first battled the villain known as the Hate-Monger, he was just some mook in a pink and purple outfit. Wielding a ray that caused the quartet to fight each other, he was eventually defeated and unmasked to reveal... Hitler. The Fuhrer, aided by his top scientist Arnim Zola, had transplanted his consciousness into a perfect cloned body, which didn't do him that much good when someone put a bullet in it. The Monger made multiple reappearances over the years, bringing the hate across the nation.

One of the most enduring characters from Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers project has been Frankenstein, an entertaining take on the monster that casts him as a globe-trotting demon hunter. With a storied career of ass-kicking behind him, it's no wonder that he came head-on with Hitler, who was way into all that occult stuff. Needless to say, Frank wins the day with ease.

No, this isn't a dupe of the Fantastic Four entry - this is the original Human Torch, an android who had the power to burst into flames and who was aided by a flaming youth named Toro. The original Torch battled alongside the Invaders during World War II. But, in a story published in the 80s, it was revealed that the Fuhrer died by his hand - the Torch and Toro burst into Hitler's underground bunker as the mad dictator was preparing to put a bullet into his head and incinerated him instead. Oh, sure, it was self-defense but whatever, how does a guy made of living fire take prisoners?

DC Comics kept their war line going long after Marvel decided to focus entirely on superheroes, and it gave us some pretty awesome characters. One of the coolest was the Unknown Soldier, a heavily disfigured special agent who could take on any mission. In his last appearance, he was sent to Berlin to stop the deployment of genetically engineered vampiric octopi known as the Nosferatu (really). The only way for him to do it was to kill Hitler and impersonate him to call off the plan. So here's a hero who both fought and was Hitler.

When gay, Batman analogue The Midnighter was sent on a mission through time to kill Adolf Hitler, he didn't think anything of it. He's killed plenty of people, what's one more jerk on the pile? Unfortunately, the time police weren't crazy about our hero messing with the continuity and they snatched him from the trenches before he could get anything but a mighty kick to the nuts in on the future Fuhrer.

We're going to take a short detour into live-action super heroics for a second, but trust me: it's worth it. Kamen Rider X is one of the seemingly endless number of Japanese masked hero TV shows that feature brightly costumed dudes battling occasionally giant monsters. But it took a turn into the world of awesome absurdity when our hero battled Starfish Hitler, a massive sea creature with the facial features of the German dictator. He was smashed to smithereens by the patented X-Kick. Other historic monsters included Genghis Condor and Ant Capone. I am not even kidding.

Probably the most dramatic use of Hitler in the funny pages was in Justice Society of America. DC's geriatric heroes were all active during World War II, but there needed to be some kind of explanation as to why they weren't kicking Nazi ass all over Poland. Enter the Spear of Destiny, a mystical artifact that gave the occult-obsessed Adolf superhuman powers. He used it to keep those pesky capes out of his way until a final confrontation trapped both parties in an endlessly-repeating time loop. Comics, everybody!

Okay, so classifying murderous Commie Joseph Stalin as a "superhero" is a bit of a stretch, but this insane Russian comic by Alexey Lipatov is so balls-out crazy that it has to have a spot here. The plot is simple: Stalin, wielding a baton that allows him to channel the willpower of the Soviet people, enters Hitler's sanctum and engages him in a duel of energies that could have erupted from a '60s Dr. Strange book. Who wins? Who loses? Who cares!