Lightning Comics
Entry updated 9 June 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1940-1942). Ace Magazines. 10 issues. Artists include Harry Anderson, Jack Binder, Red Holmdale and Jim Mooney. Script writers include Maurice Gutwirth, Cliff Howe and Mark Schneider. Each issue has 68 pages, usually with seven long strips and one short text story, plus occasional short strips or text pieces as filler.
Lightning Comics was a retitling of Sure-Fire Comics, which had 4 issues in 1940 (the last two both numbered as vol 1 #3) and introduced Whiz Wilson, a young Scientist who has invented the wearable "Futuroscope" that "can harness gravity, space and time" and "project him to any given place in the future" (see Time Travel), then return him to the present. His first trip is to 1960 Los Angeles, where he discovers a European dictatorship's agents (one is named "Fritz") have destroyed the Panama Canal and plan to "transmit an electrical force" that will wipe out the American fleet. In vol 1 #2 he visits Switzerland in 2040 where, after a Fourth World War has reduced most of civilization to a medieval level, the last redoubt of knowledge is about to fall to the barbarian horde. #3 has him "set the dial for the Planet Noom, in the year 3000", to find their President has just been usurped by a dictator. The fourth issue (also numbered vol 1 #3) has Whiz go to New York in 5000 to find America conquered by "the Brainmen from the planet Larz" (see Invasion) who have enslaved (see Slavery) the population using a gas which saps the will. Sure-Fire also had a Superhero strip, "Flash" Lightning, who is Robert Morgan, an American orphan schooled by "the ageless old man of the pyramids" (see Ancient Egypt) in "all the ancient and modern sciences" who bestows on the adult Robert his name, the "amulet of annihilation" (which fires lightning bolts) and, presumably, his Superhero costume; he can also fly and is bullet-proof. Sure-Fire's other heroes are The Raven, who "preys on the clever crooks the law can't touch", stealing their money for good causes; though costumed, he has no Superpowers. In Marvo the Magician and Tito, Marvo can create illusions (see Magic); Tito his trained monkey, and has unusual Intelligence. Aside from Whiz Wilson, the strips' adventures usually had little genre content beyond some protagonists' powers.
The fifth issue, retitled Lightning Comics and numbered vol 1 #4, saw no immediate change in the line-up. Whiz Wilson goes to South America in 2500, where "Alf of the cavern people" explains they have been reduced to living as cavemen by "Gorok and his army of giant beasts", these being Dinosaurs whose origin is unexplained. Vol 1 #5's destination is Florida in 3000, a era of peace until giant Robots start destroying the town; strictly speaking these are Mecha, with men inside controlling them. They are following the orders of Baron Krawman, a Mad Scientist who discovered a deserted Atlantis and wants to destroy civilization because it laughed at his experiments. In vol 1 #6 Whiz returns to the present to find America invaded by a foreign dictator (using advanced Technology); he travels to the pastoral idyll of 6000 (when animals can talk, perhaps suggesting Uplift) and asks its people if he can borrow a weapon from their museum. On their agreement he chooses a "stratotank ... powered by earth pull and lunar attraction" (see Power Sources). Vol 2 #1 has him visiting Planet Mongo in 2300, whose inhabitants are large, four-armed and short-tempered; at the same time a Spaceship from Earth containing a Scientist and his daughter crashlands: they and Whiz are arrested as spies. When the city is attacked, Whiz – with the help of the scientist and a sympathetic prison guard – proves his good intentions by defeating the invaders. Vol 2 #2 has Whiz going to 5000, wanting to see what happens when a time capsule buried in 1941 is opened, only to discover a dictator has used the information it contained to build Weapons and take over the peaceful world Earth has become. Whiz puts an end to this by going to 15000 (where people dress as wizards) to borrow an atom-disintegrator. In vol 2 #3 he arrives in the year 4400 to discover the planet Fantasa is bombing Earth with comets. Whiz is thrown in a Fantasa jail: though the guards suspect the Futuroscope is a weapon, they let him keep it. The strip's last appearance is in vol 2 #4, where present-day mad scientist Dr Stone decides to wipe out humanity with a plague (see Pandemic) – again, because they laughed at him. Whiz goes to the future for a cure, only to find Dr Stone has his own Futuroscope and is already there, this era being when he concocted the plague (and its cure).
"Flash" Lightning is confirmed as having "the speed, strength and power of lightning" and in the first issue battles a bogus dock workers' union leader who starves alley cats and poisons their claws, setting them on his enemies. In vol 1 #5 he fights a mad scientist who wraps himself in bandages coated with radium, explaining "This will protect me from all common weapons"; he calls himself The Mummy and has a Ray Gun. Vol 2 #1 finds Amy Lane, a scientist, ousted from her "castle atop of Storm Mountain" by a criminal calling himself Mastermind (he's "been reading too many dime novels" suggests Flash) who wants the mountain for the frequency of its electrical storms. Returning to her laboratory they find a new device has been installed; Mastermind appears (with The Mummy, whom he has Teleported out of prison) and uses the new machine to absorb the power of lightning, telling our hero "We'll see how you like to have a bolt hurled at you!" In fact Flash is immune. The story now loses impetus, but Mastermind is defeated, though not before he destroys the Washington Monument and kills The Mummy. Amy, besides being a scientist, is a little more proactive than the usual damsels in distress of this period's comics, attempting to hit one of the villains with a vase (see Feminism; Women in SF). In vol 2 #2 our hero is renamed Lash Lightning – usually referred to just as Lightning – following a lawsuit by All-American Comics Inc (who would becomes DC Comics). In this issue story the Nazis (see World War Two) attempt to invade the USA after Mastermind invents a serum to make military leaders obedient. In vol 2 #3 and #4 Mastermind continues to use his Inventions to help the Nazis. Vol 2 #5 has a flying city ruled by The Vulture, who has artificial wings and uses solid purple fog to interfere with shipping. Vol 2 #6's Supervillain is The Eel, a man who can survive underwater, is exceptionally strong and has a gun that delivers electric shocks. In the final issue, vol 3 #1, Lightning Girl is created when Lash, in a weakened state, passes some of his powers to Isobel Blake so she can warn the US fleet about a Japanese attack coordinated by a villain called The Teacher (he wears a mortarboard).
Marvo the Magician and Tito's adventures are mundane, aside from themselves; likewise The Raven's until vol 3 #1, where he confronts supervillain The Lizard, a lizard-man who can climb walls and has trained gila monsters to kill. Vol 1 #6 introduces Dr Nemesis, who is Dr Jim Bradley disguised by a surgical mask, whose truth serum forces crooks to confess. A two-part story featuring Congo Jack, an adventurer and explorer, begins in vol 2 #1: Molemen, green-skinned and costumed, appear from beneath the earth and with unclear motives begin killing the Congolese people with their ray guns. Jack goes to stop them but is overpowered and taken to Queen Moletta in the Underground Molemen city. Because they hit it off, Sir Lugi, the palace commander, attempts a coup and Jack is thrown to a leopard whose head resembles a crocodile's (see Monsters). Jack twice stops the queen from executing Lugi, which proves unwise: the second time he teams up with a rival nation of blue dwarfs, Moletta's city is taken and a wedding arranged with her and Lugi. Jack puts a stop to all that and returns to the surface. His subsequent adventures tend to be more mundane, though vol 2 #4 has a horned big cat and bushes with prehensile branches, and in vol 2 #6 Jack meets the last descendant of a Roman who after a failed attempt to assassinate Caesar fled to Central Africa, building a castle and having local tribesmen dress as centurions and speak Latin.
The final issue, vol 3 #1, brings in The Sword. King Arthur's Excalibur is at the US mansion belonging to Arthur Lake's father. Whenever the boy Arthur withdraws it from the stone he becomes an adult, gains an un-Arthurian costume and fights evil. He had previously appeared in #6 of Captain Courageous Comics (1942), and would next jump to Super-Mystery Comics, beginning with vol 3 #3; Dr Nemesis made the same move. Lash Lightning and The Raven would appear in the comic Four Favorites (though the latter only for a short while).
The most interesting of the strips is Whiz Wilson, whose attitude to Time Paradoxes sometimes appears lax: though his inability to travel into the past seems to acknowledge the dangers of changing the present of 1940-1942, whenever his asks for help from future civilizations they happily provide him with advanced weaponry to deal with a problem in their past. Perhaps their own studies of time and causality assures them they are safe. The "Flash" Lightning tales in Sure-Fire Comics are mainly dull, but become more colourful in Lightning Comics. Congo Jack's depiction of Africans is unfortunately typical of contemporary comics (see Race in SF); fortunately the serial covering vol 2 #1-#2 quickly shifts venue to a subterranean world. [SP]
links
- Comic Book Plus
- Grand Comics Database
- Comic Book Plus – Sure-Fire Comics
- Grand Comics Database – Sure-Fire Comics
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