Amazing Man Comics
Entry updated 25 August 2025. Tagged: Character, Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1939-1942). Comic Corporation of America. 22 issues, numbered #5-#26. Artists include Martin Filchock, Lew Glanzman, John Kolb, Sam Glanzman, Frank Thomas and Basil Wolverton. Scriptwriters include Martin Filchock, Lew Glanzman, Allen L Kirby, John Kolb, Frank Thomas and Basil Wolverton. 68 pages per issue, usually with 8-9 long strips and a short text story, plus occasional short fiction and non-fiction strips as filler, the latter including a piece on Nostradamus.
The first issue (#5) opens with the origin story of Amazing Man, who appears throughout. "25 years ago, in the dismal country of Tibet, the Council of Seven chose an orphan of superb physical structure": an American called Aman whose training enabled him to "prove his station as an amazing specimen of ultra-manhood" (see Superman) by demonstrating to the hooded council that he is stronger than an elephant and can withstand being impaled by knifes, as well as answering a "thousand diversified questions involving the languages of all civilized and uncivilized countries". One of the council, a Scientist, takes him to one side and injects him with a fluid enabling him to become Invisible at will, save for a green mist. He then receives the blessing of the High Lama's (see Religion) and departs for the US, planning to do good. Aman also possesses various ESP and other Superpowers and is named Amazing Man (aka "The Green Mist"). However, a member of the Council called "The Great Question" lacks the benevolence of the others and uses Telepathic powers to turn Aman evil, his face taking on a demonic appearance. Fortunately he reverts to his good state when his finer sensibilities are shocked, for example by seeing a woman whipped.
Sadly the mind control and other interesting aspects are quickly dropped, with The Great Question becoming little more than the recurring criminal mastermind our hero must defeat: he can Teleport, in #21 has a Mecha and in #22 aids Hitler by freezing the English Channel to allow Nazi invasion of Britain (see World War Two). In #24 another villain invents a Rocket-powered mechanical mole operating Underground, which he calls a "burrowing tank" (it can also fly); in #25 the Nazis use a cyclotron to dig a tunnel between Belgium and England. Aman eventually gains a female assistant, Zona Henderson, "who can think three times faster than most people", and later her young brother Tommy accidentally acquires superpowers and becomes his sidekick.
Iron Skull (#5-#11, #14-#20, #22) is a hero whose origin story we learn in #7: "in the year 1950 during the Second World War, this time in the United States, a soldier battered and smashed beyond recognition" had operations in which "steel and iron plates replaced flesh and bone" (see Cyborgs) and "10 years later ... during the period of reconstruction" the Iron Skull appeared as "the enemy of crime" (though in #9 the year is 1970). In the initial tale two radio-controlled humanoid Robots rob a bank; the gangster responsible for this "scientific crime" creates a wave of terror with his "spider mechs" that start devouring people in a ploy to blackmail the City. Genre elements are common, including an expert in growth glands who kidnaps women to turn them into cannibal giants who rob banks (#7); an invisibility Ray used to steal new rockets (#9) and a Mad Scientist of unclear motivation who broadcasts "waves of death" through the radio, paralysing brains and killing millions; fortunately the Iron Skull is immune (#14).
"Chuck" Hardy (#5-#13) and Miss Jerry Peterson are members of a scientific team in the South Pacific who find themselves in "The Land Beneath the Sea" (see Lost Worlds), inhabited by Dinosaur-like monsters and various humanoid tribes with antennae. Chuck and Jerry find "the lack of air pressure, which is being borne by the Earth crust above us" means their strength has increased threefold. They travel through this land having light adventures (see Humour). Minimidget (#5-#25) and his companion Ritty are "as large as a human hand – they were reduced from normal people by a Mad Scientist" (see Miniaturization) and forced to commit crimes; however he dies and in subsequent stories the pair fight villains. Apart from the premise, genre elements are here uncommon, but include a scientist in #14 sending them to the year 3000 (see Time Travel) using a "time destroying machine", to report on what they see; they end up foiling an Invasion by one-eyed, bow-legged Alien ape men. This means they cannot return at the appointed time, but gives them the opportunity in #15 to overthrow the mayor of a city's lower levels, who uses robots to enslave the people there; the scientist is then able to bring them back to 1940. Mighty Man (#5-#25) is initially more of a Fantasy, featuring a 12-foot-tall "Paul Bunyan character ... come to life" (see Great and Small) whose adventures are initially unremarkable, though in #11 he meets underground people made of coal. In #12 a scientist operates on him so that he can change the size of all or part of his body; later he later finds this allows him to alter his features and impersonate others (see Shapeshifters). In #24 he meets Super-Ann, the world's strongest girl (apparently taught the "secrets of another world" by an old man who had lived in a cave for centuries) and in the remaining stories acts as her guardian angel.
The Shark (#6-#22) is a masked Superhero with webbed hands and feet – son of Father Neptune and a mermaid – who can swim with sharks and has the strength of ten whales: the latter ability initially only works whilst in water, but #7 has Neptune give him a magic knife enabling him to retain his strength on dry land. He also has some advanced Technology, such as a television monitor whose receiver "need be nothing but a blank wall". Other than a mad scientist who tries to evaporate half an ocean, his adventures tend to be mundane until #10, when he finds himself at the centre of the Earth (the "strong Gravity pull" there severely weakening him) where a different mad scientist, in a mechanical house on legs, plans to conquer the world. His shark companions become increasingly irrelevant, conspicuously so in #12 when The Shark flies in a Spaceship to Mars at the behest of a scientist, to report on what he finds there. Martians turn up again in #15, when The Shark foils their invasion; they also turn out to be soluble in water. In #16 a scientist plans to shrink everyone so he can rule the world. #21 has a villain whose gas gun turns people into obedient, walking skeletons; #22's antagonist is The Portable Man, who can detach his body parts.
Jane Gem35 is the Magician from Mars (#7-#11), who was accidentally caught in a cathode Ray beam as a baby, which – being of mixed Martian and Earth parentage – gave her Magic powers and great Intelligence (in #8 the myth we only use part of our brains is used to explain how the ray enabled Jane to use all of hers). #9 has eerie Music as the key that calls forth an Elemental: "A creature of an alien world, a malignance not yet born, emerging from the non-existing world of shrieking demons. Lost derelicts on the hate washed shore of eternity. That's what this thing was!" It enters our world to feed on "human energy" (see Vampires): at one point Jane grows to match its giant size and slug it out; her victory is only temporary, but she finally defeats it with a beautiful song. In #11 she returns to Mars to stop a revolution there. Dr Hypno (#14-#15, #17-#21) is a crime fighting brain specialist and psychologist (see Psychology), who is able to perform "mental transposition" (that is, an Identity Transfer) on animals, his body going into a coma as his mind dominates that of his host. Adventurer and soldier of fortune Reef Kinkaid (#12-#22) occasionally has genre tales, such as finding a "lost world" with dinosaurs in #15/#16, alligator-men in #17 – and a sea serpent in #22 that abducts and takes him to "Atlantia" (not Atlantis, but a city in a cave whose only access to the outside world is via the ocean).
Characters with briefer runs include Jay Douglas (#7, #9), a palaeontologist who discovers Dinosaurs in South America. Zardi, the Eternal Man (#11-#12,#16) who has lived thousands of years (his title implies this is Immortality rather than Rejuvenation) and learnt the magic of different cultures: nowadays he dresses as a stage magician and fights crime. Dash Dartwell, The Human Meteor (#21-#22) was a guinea-pig for a scientist's experiments with pills to speed up human metabolism – they give him bursts of super-speed, so he becomes a crime fighter. The King of Darkness (#24-#26) is a radio engineer who has achieved the "neutralization of heat waves ... [and to] completely neutralize light". He has created a suit to keep him warm and lenses that enable him to see in the resulting mobile column of cold and darkness, so enabling him to fight crime; subsequently he creates an anti-gravity ray that allows him to fly. Novelist Lucille Martin's Chinese servant gives her a ring which she breaks, releasing a gas which affords its wearer super-strength and agility – donning a uniform she becomes The Blue Lady (#24-#26). Thanks to having learnt the "mystic secrets of the East", Nightshade's shadow can physically interact with the world – an ankle light enables him to cast a long shadow. Meteor Martin (#25-#26) is the "ace pilot of the Moon Patrol" who guards American observatories on the Moon; attacking an invading Martian fleet he is blasted by an "obliterator gun" and finds himself on one of a cluster of small worlds, where he rescues a woman who has been tied up for Bat Men to feed on. They cross a slightly surreal landscape (see Absurdist SF; Planetary Romance) and fight strange creatures, meeting her father who explains this "is a negative world – an invisible universe within our native universe", the Martian's ray "disrupts atoms" and turns objects into "a negative condition" (a possible nod to the concept of Antimatter). Due to the comic ceasing publication this serial was never finished.
There are also occasional one-off stories with sf elements. #6 has "The Ivy Menace" where a scientist's Cat knocks his growth formula onto some ivy, which engulfs New York and continues to spread: however, bombs dropped on its roots solve the problem. In #13 The Strange Dr. Watkins is a scientist who, after a laboratory accident, can melt glass – so criminals force him to penetrate a glass case holding diamonds (only to discover he melts them too). #21 has a young scientist who masters the power of the atom and becomes the superhero T.N.T. to fight crime: his weapons include a gun which fires a cloud of atoms that act as a bullet-proof shield (see Force Field). In #22 The Voice is a man whose vocal skills include shattering stone and steel, as well as creating a powerful wind. In #26 the character Ray falls into a giant dynamo and gains electrical powers – thus the Electric Ray is born.
Amazing Man Comics' Superheroes, like most of their peers, tended to default to beating up mundane criminals or the Axis Powers, whilst their defining qualities were liable to become less prominent. This is particularly so with The Shark and Amazing Man: given the latter's exotic back story and being initially set up to have conflicting split personalities, this is a wasted opportunity. The Iron Skull suffers less from these flaws (though the future setting seems forgotten at times, particularly in the later tales), and so is the most interesting of the three. Mighty Man's potential increased as he gained more powers and was joined by Super-Ann, but the stories are largely forgettable. Aside from their trip to 3000 CE, Minimidget is dull; "Chuck" Hardy and Magician from Mars have their moments, whilst those short-lived series with only one or two stories have the advantage of being mainly set up. The artwork ranges from poor to good, with Basil Wolverton's Meteor Martin being the standout, displaying his attractively weird style – this serial being cut short is the main reason to mourn the ending of Amazing Man Comics' run. [SP]
further reading
- Amazing Comics: Volume 1 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2024) [graph: collects #14-#22 of the comic: in the publisher's Golden Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/Bill Everett]
- Amazing Comics: Volume 2 (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2024) [graph: collects #16-#26 of the comic: in the publisher's Golden Age Classics series: illus/various: hb/BLew Glanzman]
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