Cyclone Comics
Entry updated 24 March 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1940). Bilbara Publishing Co Inc. Five issues. Artists include Max Neill, George Papp and Ray Willner. Scriptwriters include Charles Quinlan Sr. 68 pages, with 9-11 long strips plus some brief non-fiction strips and text articles as filler. #1 also had an illustrated text story.
Though Cyclone Comics contained a mixed bag of genres including adventure, crime, animals and the Crusades, about half of its strips were sf-related. Their set-ups are often interesting, though the stories themselves can be less so; this is particularly the case with Robo. The strongest are Volton and Koroo the Black Lion (once it becomes the Tira strip in all but name).
#1 opens with honest farm hand Tom Kenny caught up in a tornado and deposited hours later "unhurt except for a strange feeling of power ... [for] in some remarkable way the tornado has imparted some of its strength and violence", giving him Superpowers of strength and speed, but also Amnesia. Given the name Tornado Tom, he searches for his home, fighting criminals as he does so – in his first story he captures a pair of bank robbers, then a "labor agitator" at a factory (see Politics). In #5 he is captured by a communist spy with a wasting disease, who believes Tom's blood will cure him, but – as a doctor explains – they will require all of it. Fortunately the nurse is a federal agent. Fairly unusually for a Superhero (albeit one without a costume) Tom is from a working class background.
In King Anthony, explorer Anthony Conrad falls through a hole in the Arctic ice, into the "Lake of Destiny" of the Underground kingdom of Artica (see Lost Races). He is rescued and Artica's king explains the same had happened to him 40 years ago; now aged, he wishes Anthony is to succeed him and continue his work of changing Artica from a medieval state into a powerful nation. To become king, Anthony has to pass three tests: defeating the strongest man in Artica; killing a Dinosaur-like Monster, which does seem to make the first task redundant; and winning an archery contest in which unlike his opponent Anthony gets to use a magic bow, so his victory is not a surprise. Further adventures are had, combatting monsters and rival states until King Anthony's last appearance in #4. Presumably Edgar Rice Burroughs's Pellucidar had some influence.
Volton the Human Generator is Scientist Guy Newton, who has mastered "the powerful forces of static electricity in the human body" using a control device on his belt. Aside from great strength he can render people senseless "by absorbing the essential static electricity from their bodies", amplify phone messages, supercharge motor vehicles to increase their speed, create a Force Field, stick people together with a Magnetic charge, and so on. Crime gets its come-uppance: in #3 a "half-mad professor" (see Mad Scientist) creates "atmospherical disturbances" to disrupt all electrical Communications, so his gangster friends can blackmail the telephone, radio and telegram companies. In #5 another scientist forces the rich into giving him money by threatening them with a device that can turn them mad.
Kingdom of the Moon opens with Europe's kingdom of Verdina falling to unnamed stahlhelm-wearing invaders (see World War Two), but sovereign King Vito and his family are rescued by a Scientist whose spherical Spaceship flies them to the Moon. Luma, ruler of the civilisation that greets them (see Life on Other Worlds), explains the Moon's inhabitants "are generally dull-witted": the smarter ones become their leaders, but then turn into bullies, adding "for some reason I am the exception" – and indeed he hands over power to Vito. Though rival cities attack, Vito beats up their leaders and – after quelling an internal rebellion – becomes King of the Moon.
Koroo the Black Lion is initially the main character in what starts as an animal adventure strip, until #3 when he is relegated to becoming the sidekick of Tira, "strange white goddess of the Wabizi Country", who is able to communicate with and give orders to animals: a variation on the female Tarzan or Jungle Girl (see Sheena, Queen of the Jungle), she has an ape army led by a gorilla, and the local people worship her. Anti-Imperialist, Tira wishes to "oust the invading white man from Africa and reclaim the dark continent for the animal kingdom". Her back story is confused by the letterer almost certainly having omitted "not" from her declaration "I am the child of white parents brought up by apes or other beasts in the jungle", as she goes on to say that when 17 she ran from her cruel monkey-trading step-father and fled into the jungle with the monkeys, one of whom taught her their language, and she subsequently befriended all creatures: "I am no enchanted daughter of nature, just a girl with a natural gift for animal training" – and presumably Linguistics (see also Feminism; Women in SF). The strip implies that animals have more Intelligence than science allows.
#2 introduces Robo "a giant radio-controlled doll" (see Mecha; Robots), created by Vedik, royal scientist of the little people (see Great and Small). Robo – human-sized and powered by a "secret fuel" – ends up in America where Vedik, through Robo, befriends a scientist and his daughter.
#1's illustrated text story is "A Visitor from Space": Scientist Professor Kirby has the same dream for seven nights, where "his mind seemed to be controlled by some foreign intelligence that caused him to build a weird sort of radio receiving set". With colleague Dr Prentiss's help the device is assembled and turned on: a cloud forms and begins to adopt a vaguely human shape before a fault in the wiring causes it to fade and wilt. "With a distinct sigh of relief he [Prentiss] said 'It couldn't quite make it ... it is my belief that we have just entertained ... a being from some other planet.'" (see Aliens; Matter Transmission). [SP]
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