While prewar versions of the "Yellow Peril" from the early 20th century warned of the threat to western civilization posed by indiscriminate "Asian hordes," during the Pacific War those hordes were clearly Japanese. After early Japanese successes, Americans began to depict the Japanese as vicious supermen rather than a backward little race of people technically incapable of waging a successful war. In this 1942 cartoon from the Chicago Tribune, the hands and faces of the Japanese were colored a bright yellow to evoke the so-called Yellow Peril and emphasize racial difference.