Dynamic Comics
Entry updated 19 August 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
1. US Comic (1941-1946). 16 issues numbered #1-#3, #8-#20. Harry A Chesler jr. Artists include Joe Beck, Paul Gattuso, Gus Ricca, Charles Sultan and George Tuska. Script writers include Fred Schwab. Initially 68 pages, eventually down to 52 (#16 and #17 only had 36). Usually 7-8 long strips and 2-3 short text stories per issue, plus short strips and non-fiction pieces. #1-#3 were published between October 1941 and February 1942; there was then a gap of two years or more, until #8 was published sometime in 1944. The missing numbers were probably used by another comic – perhaps Yankee Comics (see #8, below).
#1 opens with a guard sacrificing his life protecting an army camp: ghostly winged figures take him before Father Patriot "a spirit born in 1776", who explains that "Through the years men have given their lives so America shall live on. They must not have died in vain." The guard is dubbed Major Victory (see Superheroes) and given a wireless, aeroplane and a cape decorated like the American flag to ensure this. The antagonist, The Yellow Spot, asserts "wise men have driven superstition from this Earth. I will bring it back": a little hypocritically he does so with a piece of Technology, that reduces the intellect of the wise to a child's (see Intelligence). An exception is made for Scientist and authority on black magic Dr Moore, who is murdered – but not before he activates Dynamic Man, who has the "power of steel, the speed of an eagle and the wisdom of the sages" (see Superpowers). Yellow Spot is duly killed. As he seems to have had no existence prior his creation by Dr Moore, Dynamic Man would appear to be an Android. Hale the Magician was the son of an English nobleman from 1541 who rebelled against the conquistadors' treatment of the natives (see Imperialism). A local chieftain trains him in "the secrets of the natural and supernatural science and Magic", such as mastering electricity. However Hale is murdered; the chieftain gives him an Immortal soul and he then sleeps (see Suspended Animation) until 1941 when he is awoken and pledges allegiance to the USA. He and The Black Cobra, a superhero only in that he wears a costume, appear only in #1 of Dynamic, but would reappear in other comics. The issue's other strips involve crime and World War Two: one features K-9, a detective's Dog: in #2 a villain steals and uses a scientist's Invisibility serum, but the dog is able to locate him by smell. That issue introduces Dynamic Boy, a plucky orphan who dies whilst rescuing a girl from a burning building. Her father is a doctor who tries to revive him: "My medical knowledge is useless – perhaps the fluid given me by the dying Lama will do it." It does: the boy is now invincible and can fly; the daughter makes him a costume and he vows to fight evil, whose representatives include an ape-man (see Apes as Human). #2 also has Lady Satan, who battles Nazis and might be deemed a borderline superhero in that she wears a mask and on one occasion uses a chlorine gun. The Green Knight is a "modern knight", dressing in a vaguely medieval manner, armed with a bow and arrow, who fights villains in the Everglades, including Vampires.
After the hiatus, the reprint-heavy #8 retained only Dynamic Man, repeating his origin story from #1, and the non-genre Lucky Coyne. There were strips previously seen in Yankee Comics: Yankee Boy, a forgettable young superhero. Echo, so called because he is a ventriloquist, also uses the Inventions (invisibility belt, paralysing ring) of his sickly scientist brother Dr Doom to fight crime: the story is a reprint from Yankee Comics #4. A one-off is the origin story of Yankee Doodle Jones, from Yankee Comics #1: here three crippled war veterans of different faiths willingly give up their lives so that "a protector of the American doctrines shall rise": their organs are used to create Yankee Doodle Jones (arguably thus a Frankenstein Monster), who is then injected with an invincibility serum. Uncle Sam is a real person in this universe. There are also two reprints from Scoop Comics; from #1, we have scientist Ray Cardell working with radio waves when a laboratory accident gives him a kind of X-Ray vision. He duly dons a cape and names himself Master Key: his first success is foiling Nazi agents building an arsenal beneath Abraham Lincoln's statue in Washington DC (entered via a secret door near his lower tibia); he reappears in #9, but not subsequently (but see #24 in section 2). From Scoop Comics #3 comes space adventurer Dan Hastings, who must rescue his girlfriend when she is kidnapped by King Zaco of the planet Zaris, wishing her to become his queen. Mr E is introduced in #9: he worships King Kolah, "god of an extinct race" (see Gods and Demons) who helps him fight crime by providing visions and wisecracking elf- or gnome-like Shapeshifters as assistants. #15 has a one-off appearance of the The Sky Chief strip (which had and would appear in other comics). The Sky Chief is a Physics professor who has built a "sky submarine": here he deals with the Prince of Rahjap, an Indo-Japanese pirate with a fleet of rocket ships (see Rockets).
Though not necessarily appearing in every issue, Dynamic Comics' regulars from #9 (ignoring non-genre strips) were Dynamic Man, Echo, Mr E, Dan Hastings and Yankee Boy. Being set in the future, Dan Hastings' adventures are consistently sf: these include giant bugs which kill the children of members of the Academy of Sciences, created by a Mad Scientist who seeks revenge for being outlawed by the Academy. A subterranean (see Underground) race is taking America's radium (see Elements), as they consider it stolen from them. The planet Mexady moves toward the Earth thanks to one of its scientists controlling the gravitational (see Gravity) pull of other worlds: recent wars have wiped out all Mexady women, so its warlord plans to invade and take Dan's girlfriend for himself. In another planned Invasion the villain uses androids grown in test tubes.
The other heroes, despite being superpowered, often fight mundane antagonists: Yankee Boy initially battles Nazi agents but later moves on to dope peddlers. Mr E – despite the having the aid of a god – is similarly unchallenged. However, one of Echo's stories includes a mad scientist who, believing women are descended from Cats, has devised a serum that can turn them into one (a lioness in the example we see); Echo also fights vampires and a doctor who breeds giant bats to ruin a charity that owns land which, unknown to them, holds gold. Dynamic Man (helped by Dynamic Boy) would fight Sea Horror, an underwater (see Under the Sea) hunchback who can command sea creatures and proves to be a Nazi agent. There is also the Sleep King, a scientist whose invention makes a City's population sleep – excepting insomniacs – enabling him to plunder; fortunately our hero is also unaffected, whilst the Sleep King is easily traced: inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., coll 1820), he has made his base there. A refugee scientist invents the Tangerine Terror, a gas which kills but leaves no trace: the army considers it too dangerous to use and wants the formula destroyed, but the scientist takes it to a rebel leader on a Latin American Island.
Some of the storylines are uncomfortable: Dynamic Man goes up against gypsies kidnapping children for a man who claims to be their king ("Blood ties forced us to follow him"). A Japanese spy at an "internment camp for dangerous enemy aliens" in Arizona (presumably a reference to either the notorious Gila River War Relocation Center or the Poston Relocation Center) passes his glass eye containing microfilm to "a mex-jap halfbreed" who tries to get it to Japan: he is foiled by Mr E. More sympathetically, in a murder investigation involving a patent for labour-saving machinery that will make a million workers unemployed (see Automation; Jobs in SF), Mr E destroys the patent.
Dynamic Comics does not hold up well: there are some agreeable absurdities, but not enough. Aside from the bugs that murder children, most of Dan Hastings' adventures are lacklustre, whilst the other heroes mainly face unremarkable villains. The artwork is not strong, though there are a few exceptions, such as some of the Dynamic Man strips, and the cover of #8 is memorable.
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2. US Comic (1947-1948). 4 issues (numbered #21-#24). Superior Publishers Limited. 50-68 pages. 7-9 long strips and 2 short text stories per issue, plus short strips and non-fiction pieces.
Despite the change in publisher, the contents were initially much the same as before, including strips for Dynamic Man, Echo, Mr E, Dan Hastings and Yankee Boy. Dan appears only in #21, when he goes to Venus to find out why the native frogmen are gouging out the human settlers' eyes: it turns out "book peddlers from East Mars" sold their king a collection of Martian fairy tales, whose story of "the Jupiter Wolf that got human eyes" he took literally. The Earth colony is surprisingly forgiving ("It's our fault Dan, we should have educated the frogmen."). Despite his battling a giant reptile (see Monsters) on that issue's cover, the Dynamic Man story concerns match-fixing at a skiing competition. Meanwhile, Yankee Boy defeats a glamorous albino hypnotist (see Hypnosis).
Yankee Boy last appears in #22; #23 has a Yankee Girl adventure (see Captain Flight Comics), though here she can fly and her name is Lauren Mason rather than Kitty Kelly. The issue's Mr E story has a device that can cure polio (see Inventions; Medicine), whose inventor fakes being kidnapped and the theft of the machine to make some money. Aside from Dynamic Man, #24 has no superhero or otherwise genre-related strips. There is a strip called Master Key, but the character bears little resemblance to the one in #8, lacking any Superpowers. [SP]
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