I agree with your point, James, that commie-baiting didn't disappear with McCarthy (just as it didn't start with good ol' Joe). But Cap and the boyz in the 50's were particularly jingoistic in their outlook, which was a little more unusual (and apparently not all that palatable) in a mass-market media approach. It did reflect more the Axis propaganda style of the early Timely stuff.

It's tough to gauge sales from the times. Some people say covers were all-important as title-buying wasn't always consistent. Others say, "Scratch that, reverse it." It prolly was a little'a both. A title like Showcase with it's rock'em, sock'em early issues was prolly definitely more the first than the second, it might not have had ANY steady buyers. There is no doubt that Flash was a new thing and probably took a little build-up. On that panel, do you recall whether Julius was referring to the general sales of the first Flash issue against Bats or Supes, or whether it did better or worse than, say, Firefighters or Frogmen?

I'm gonna guess that Sfcityduck's comment about "Timely's Golden Age reputation is largely a retcon based on Marvel's success," sorta was referring to the idea that they were, like, Number-2 and soooooo good when most of it was sooooo bad. But...heh...I'll leave it to him to carry on with Droid.

And of course I totally agree with SF (and everyone else who will agree) that in 1961, Stan received a mandate form 'da boss that clearly didn't involve the let's-use-our-old-guys dictate, and he was inspired (reportedly, we should all periodically give thank to Mrs. Lee for her nudging) to do something different and work outside the box. That and, of course, teaming up with Jack Kirby. They put some work into it and came up with something that was very *new* and different from what was clearly selling-at-the-time in comics, and whadayaknow, a market was there for it nevertheless.