Pep Comics
Pep Comics was the title that originally published Archie Andrews, whose humorous teenaged adventures soon took over the company's
entire line, and continues to dominate today. The American Shield of Impact Comics had continued publishing. Barnes would continue as the lead character until the series' 1993 cancellation and also appeared as the Shield in the six-issue miniseries The Crucible, which was intended to reinvent the Impact Comics line, but instead served only as a finale, for various reasons, mainly low sales. Although his predecessor was implied to be single, Barnes was a married father with a young daughter. Michael Barnes became the new Shield. He would appear through the end of the Radio/Mighty Comics run. He soon joined the Army, acting like a Gomer Pyle-style country bumpkin, while leading a double life as the Shield.
Once he hit his teens, he discovered the truth of his background and his powers: strength, flight, near-invulnerability, vision powers, the ability to generate lightning, and a few more. After his father was killed by foreign agents, Lancelot was adopted by a farm couple and raised as their son. Lancelot's scientist father developed a method to create a superhuman by expanding the mind, which he used on his infant son. Most collectors refer to this Shield as "Lancelot Strong" to differentiate him from the previous one. They created a new Shield, whose real identity was Lancelot Strong, who appeared in a new title, The Double Life of Private Strong. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby had been hired by Archie to create characters for a new "Archie Adventure Series" line of superheroes.
In June 1959, a new Shield was published by Archie that had no connection to the previous version. But then a new character arrived who would over shadow him: Archie Andrews. In his first appearance, Captain America had a shield similar to the main part of The Shield's costume, but it was changed to a round shield for the second issue over accusations of plagiarism. In Pep#20, he is known as The one and only Shield at the start of the story and The original Shield at the end of the story because of the success of Captain America, another 1940s-era patriotic superhero. Both heroes wore their patriotic costumes beneath their street clothes and would change for action whenever the need would arise. He became an FBI agent after clearing his father's name, and fought foreign agents and other threats to America.
His white costume becomes the familiar colors under the process. The initials also gave him his name. Joe finally figured out the solution, which meant applying the chemicals to certain parts of his anatomy: Sacrum, Heart, Innervation, Eyes, Lungs, Derma, and using x-rays to give him super strength, being able to make great leaps, and invulnerability. After his death, son Joe continued to work on it while continuing his studies of chemistry.
He is really chemist Joe Higgins, the son of Lieutenant Tom Higgins who was slain by German saboteur, Hans Fritz in the Black Tom explosion, for which Tom was blamed while working on a chemical formula for super-strength which the Nazis were after. The character was created by writer Harry Shorten and artist Irv Novick. The Shield has limited superstrength, invulnerability, can leap superhuman distances, and wears an indestructible costume. The characters' initial DCU appearances will be written by J. DC has announced plans to integrate the Shield and other MLJ characters into their DC Universe line of superhero characters. DC Comics' Impact line, which were licensed versions of the Archie characters, also used the name for several characters.