 received his own title in the summer of 1941, while Green Lantern received his own title in the fall of that same year. With other heroes All-American broke new ground. In All-American Comics #20, November 1940, in the pages of Sheldon Mayer's comic strip Scribbly (which was about a boy cartoonist of that name), Ma Hunkel donned a t-shirt, a cape, red longjohns, and a saucepan as a helmet/mask to become The Red Tornado. Not only was The Red Tornado one of the first parodies of the superhero genre, but The Red Tornado herself may well have been the first superheroine created solely for comic books. The Red Tornado would be followed by a superheroine cast in a more serious mould. In All-Star Comics #5, July 1941, Hawkman's girlfriend Shiera Sanders became Hawkgirl. While The Red Tornado and Hawkgirl would both prove popular, neither would have the impact of All-American's next superheroine. Dr. William Moulton Marston, psychologist and educational consultant to both DC and All-American, was talking to M. C. Gaines one day and noted that there while there were many male superheroes in the pages of comic books, there were few if any superheroines. Gaines then asked Marston to create a superheroine. Assuming the pen name of Charles Moulton, Marston created Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman debuted in All-Star Comics #8, December 1941-January 1942--a portion of her origin was added as an extra eight pages to the magazine. Her entire origin appeared the following month in Sensation Comics #1, January 1942. Wonder Woman became a smash hit, easily All-American's most popular character. She received her own title in the summer of 1942 and even had a newspaper strip for a short time. Also debuting in Sensation Comics #1 were Wildcat and Mr. Terrific.
Not only was M. C. Gaines a shrewd entrepreneur, he was also a man with a social conscience. He was well aware of the power of comic books to educate as well as entertain. In addition to its superhero titles, All-American Comics Inc. also published comic books meant primarily to educate the reader. Gaines both published and edited Picture Stories from the Bible and Picture Stories from World History.
Despite the success of All-American Comics Inc. or perhaps because of it, M. C. Gaines and Jack Leibowitz increasingly found themselves in disagreement. By 1944 the two were so much at odds that All-American Comics Inc. and National Comics . actually broke off relations with each other. For a short time comic books published by All-American Comics Inc. did not bear the DC imprint, but an All-American imprint instead. Even the line up of the Justice Society of America was affected. In All-Star Comics #24, spring 1945, the two members from National, Starman and The Spectre, were temporarily replaced by guest stars from the All-American line, Wildcat and Mr. Terrific. The following issue the two National characters, Starman and The Spectre, would be permanently replaced by two All-American characters, The Flash and Green Lantern. It seems that with the schism between the two companies, the policy that no character with his own title could be a member of the Justice Society of America had been done away with! The disagreement between the two companies was eventually settled when Jack Leibowitz bought M. C. Gaines out for a reported $500,000. Thereafter National and All-American were merged into one company to be called National Periodical Publications Inc.
Although the All-American line was now officially part of National Periodical Publications Inc., M. C. Gaines was not yet finished in the comic book business. In 1945 he founded Educational Comics or E. C. for short. Gaines brought with him Picture Stories from The Bible and Picture Stories from World History from All-American Comics Inc. and continued to publish them under the E. C. imprint. E. C.'s output was not confined to educational comics, however, as it also published funny animal and humour titles as well. Among the titles published by E. C. in its early days were Tiny Tot Comics, Fat and Slat, Animal Fables, and Dandy Comics. Eventually 