Marvel Mystery Comics
Entry updated 2 June 2026. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1939-1949). Initially Timely Comics, later Marvel Comics. 92 issues. Artists include Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, Jack Kirby, Charles Nicholas, Bob Oksner and Alex Schomburg, whilst Frank R Paul has one credit, the cover to #1. Script writers include Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), Bill Everett, Ray Gill, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon and Ben Thompson (Stan Lee also wrote scripts for at least five issues and was editor from at least #69). Initially 68 pages, down to 52 by #91, with #92 only having 36. Usually 5-7 long strips and a short text story per issue, with occasional short strips as filler; #92 only had 3 long strips.
#1 was titled Marvel Comics, but expanded to Marvel Mystery Comics from #2. That first issue introduced The Human Torch and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. Both were notable, though the former faces too many mundane antagonists; Namor was more interesting, not being an all-American hero, but actively hostile to that country and arrogant, yet more of an Antihero than a Villain. Sadly when World War Two began and he turned into an American ally his personality became indistinguishable from that of most other wisecracking US Superheroes. The Vision seems an opportunity wasted; though from another dimension and with supernatural powers, he usually relied on his strength and fists. Miss America, The Blonde Phantom and Sun Girl are important as fairly early female superheroes, but only the last had interesting adventures. The Patriot and The Angel stories were usually forgettable. The main non-superhero SF strip was Electro, the Marvel of the Age, which had moments of enjoyable absurdity but tended to be unremarkable. Of the other strips, Terry Vance Schoolboy Sleuth (#10-#57) sometimes uses science and has a pet monkey named Dr Watson (who in later issues was of human Intelligence); Jimmy Jupiter (#29-#48) has predominantly Fantasy adventures; for example, digging a hole to China he visits Lewis Carroll's Wonderland (#33) and then Hades (#34) before arriving at his destination (#35), where he meets friendly dragons who are – echoing events in the real world – being attacked by Japanese dragons.
#1 opens with The Human Torch (created by Carl Burgos), where Professor Horton announces he has built a "synthetic human being" (see Androids): but there's a problem – oxygen causes it to burst into flame. After discussions with other scientists this "human torch" is encased in concrete, but escapes only to be exploited by gangsters – in defeating them he learns that nitrogen douses his flame, enabling him to control it at will. He reunites with Horton, but on discovering the other wishes to make money from him, departs. In #3 Martian Spaceships arrive, seeking a new form of TNT that will enable them to blow up a "heavenly body" approaching their planet (mention is made of "Lawson Bell's famous broadcast some months ago" about Mars, presumably a nod to Orson Welles). #4 has evil chemist Dr Manyac developing a chemical bath that covers his asbestos-suited henchmen in a super-cold green flame. Sidekick Toro the Flaming Kid – first appearance in The Human Torch #2 (1940) – becomes a regular from #18. #49 has "a chemical that will turn your blood to gasoline"; when those so treated light a cigarette they burst into flames. A ventriloquist (and former electrician) uses a remote-controlled dummy to commit crimes (#75). In #90 a scientist tests a growth serum on a child, creating a giant (see Great and Small).
The Sub-Mariner (created by Bill Everett) is "an ultra-man of the deep ... lives on land and in the sea ... flies in the air ... has the strength of a thousand men ... is youth of dynamic personality" – and also hot-headed (from #3 the strip is called Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner). Mistaking deep-sea divers for Robots he kills them and presents them to his mother, Fen ("beautiful goddess of the seals"), who points out they are humans, but is pleased – the work of a scientific expedition nearly wiped out the sub-mariner civilization Under the Seabeneath the South Pole (Atlantis is not mentioned): their "scientific investigations" involved dropping high explosives through the ice, which fell on the undersea city. Fen had been a spy for the "race of amphibians", but also fell in love and married the Sub-Mariner's father. This is an expanded version of a strip that appeared in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 (1939), produced but not widely distributed. Namor agrees to take vengeance on the surface humans, specifically "the white man", and in the next couple of issues scouts the USA in preparation for Invasion and performs acts of sabotage, but makes time to rescue damsels in distress. He is briefly persuaded (#4) to join the fight against the Nazis (see World War Two) only to be arrested and sent to the electric chair (#6) for past crimes; the shock is invigorating but, offended by America's ingratitude, he decides to become its Emperor. He is fought to a standstill by The Human Torch (#9) and persuaded by his human friend Betty to desist in his ambition. But he becomes increasingly involved in fighting Nazis and by #17 is teaming up with the Human Torch to stop a German invasion of the USA through an undersea tunnel across the Bering Straight into Alaska. In #12 Fen wants to transform an American woman into a "human sub-mariner" using science (see Pantropy) and so become her son's "mate" (in this issue Namor says "three-quarters of my blood is that of the white man", despite the events of #1 suggesting it is only half). Other adventures include the German's attempt to invade Britain by freezing the English Channel (#57); a Mad Scientist transplanting the brains of fellow asylum inmates into the bodies of animals (#61); a Japanese submarine using electrolysis to turn seawater into flames (#62); a Vampire (#74). A thousand-year-old mad scientist says, "In 970 AD I was a young scientist in Rome working on a chroma gas experiment." This went wrong, but extended his life; the effect is wearing off and he has only a century left, but wants to spend his last days as ruler of the world, and so has built an "electronic bomb", boasting "I've split the electron" (see Scientific Errors) (#79). In #81 Namor is joined by Namora, one of his people, when her family are murdered (last appearance #91).
The Angel is hired by a city's authorities when they cannot handle six racketeers' activities, since "he'll stop at nothing" and "there'll be no trials or legal formalities to contend with ... [the six will] simply be wiped out". They are duly murdered by the Angel, though he discovers the man who suggested his hiring has his own agenda. Subsequently becoming less of a vigilante, he is only a superhero to the extent he wears a costume: in #10 and #11 he faces subterranean ghouls and ends up wearing clothing once worn by Mercury, enabling him to live up to his name and fly; but this is only a one-off, and next issue he is back in his old costume and no longer flying. He faces a giant whom bullets don't harm (#4); a Mad Scientist (#9) and Vampires (#35) (last appearance #79). Ka-Zar the Great is a Tarzan-like character who previously had his own pulp magazine: the origin story in #1 is adapted from the first issue (see Ka-Zar). In #18 he finds a Lost World with Dinosaurs and giants (last appearance #27).
#4 introduces Electro, the Marvel of the Age, built by "millionaire philanthropist and humanitarian" professor Philo Zog as a "machine of righteousness" to "work for the welfare of humanity", Electro is a remotely controlled (using "electra-wave thought impulse and television apparatus") Robot. After dealing with mundane crooks, #8 and #9 has the professor and Electro kidnapped by Alien Dragon-men who want to use the robot to overthrow Empress Lara, ruler of the lion people of the planet Ligra. Other adventures include a mad scientist using artificial blood to create Zombies (and a two-headed Monster) (#10); the Professor orbiting the Moon and sending Electro to explore (#13); subterranean creatures attacking Earth's surface (#14) and inhabitants of a rogue planet invading the Earth (#18) (last appearance #19).
In #13, believing that ghosts and suchlike Supernatural Creatures are simply inhabitants of worlds "coexistent with our own" (see Parallel Worlds), Professor Enoch Mason's "Dimension Smasher" blasts "a path into the beyond", and from that breach steps "Arrkus, destroyer of evil", or The Vision, who manifests in this dimension through smoke. He fights a Werewolf (#14); dinosaurs hatched from eggs found in Siberia (#16); a vampire created by a biochemist (#20); an evil sorcerer (#22); there's also a scientist who discovers "seed-like shells" attached to a meteorite, so plants them – giant vicious mobile tentacled leech-like plants are the result (#26); a machine producing "Supersonic vibrations" is used to destroy buildings (#30). Of particular note is the story in #27, where we learn "Hades [is] a very modern and streamlined business establishment"; Satan is upset that a US town is "happy to a disgusting degree", so his sales manager sends celebrity pilot Victor Risling there to turn the population against each other (we can infer he preaches anti-Semitism as one victim remarks "nobody of my religion is safe"). Risling presumably references to Charles Lindbergh (last appearance #48).
The Patriot ("double-fisted defender of democracy") – first appearance in The Human Torch #4 (1941) – begins his Marvel Mystery Comics run in #21. He is costumed but without Superpowers. In #30 a Nazi agent fills corpses with hydrogen so they float and collide with aeroplanes (last appearance #74). Miss America debuts in #49: Madeline Joyce, bespectacled "teenage winsome ward" of a radio tycoon wants to help humanity, declaring "if only I was a man! I could do so much if I had a man's strength"; when she and the tycoon visit to an electrical experimental station a scientist complains the device he's working on gave him the strength of a thousand men and the ability to fly, whilst his brain had "acquired remarkable perception". Madeline returns that night and enters the machine: the scientist discovers and retrieves her; thinking her dead, he destroys the machine and himself. However, Madeline recovers and becomes Miss America. The stories usually lack genre elements other than herself, but a serial beginning in #76 has the formula for a "sun ray condenser" ("more powerfully destructive than the atom bomb") acting as a McGuffin (last appearance #85).
The Young Allies, who first appeared in Young Allies #1 (1941), are in #75-#83; there is a Superhero connection as Captain America and the Human Torch's sidekicks (Bucky and Toro) are Allies members. Captain America – first appearance Captain America Comics #1 (1941) – has a strip in #80-#92. The Blonde Phantom – first appearance All Select Comics #11 (1946), promptly retitled Blonde Phantom Comics from #12 – appears in #84-#91; a meek, bespectacled secretary, she literally lets her hair down to become The Blonde Phantom, wearing a glamorous, impractical dress and a mask; she fancies her boss but he has eyes only for her alter ego. Sun Girl – first appearance Sun Girl #1 (1948) – is athletic, with a Sunbeam Ray Gun and a lariat. She teams up with the Human Torch in #88-#91 when Toro takes a leave of absence; but also has her own strip in #88-#90, preventing an invasion from another dimension by Kain, dictator of Uncara in #89. "The Vengeance of the Space Monster" (#90) has scientists devise a beam to retrieve items from space: one such item turns out to be a space Monster, but fortunately Sun Girl is to hand.
Marvel Mystery Comics' numbering was taken up by Marvel Tales from #93: this was an anthology series, with none of the former strips carried over; its tales were usually Horror, supernatural or sf. [SP]
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