Wonderworld Comics
Entry updated 17 November 2025. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1939-1942). Fox Publications, Inc. 33 issues (#1 and #2 titled Wonder Comics). Artists include Arturo Cazeneuve, Will Eisner, Lou Fine, S M Iger, Claire S Moe, Klaus Nordling, Munson Paddock, Bob Powell and Chuck Winter. Scriptwriters include Will Eisner, S M Iger, Claire S Moe, Klaus Nordling, Munson Paddock and Bob Powell. 68 pages, usually with 7-9 long strips per issue, a short text story, plus assorted short strips and non-fiction pieces.
Wonder Comics #1 opens with The Wonder Man. During a visit to Tibet the "timid radio engineer and inventor" Fred Carson is given a ring that makes him "the strongest human on Earth – you will be impervious – and now in the name of humanity and justice, go forth into the World" (see Superpowers): donning an appropriate Superhero costume, he does so. Fred's Inventions include a "long-range televisor" (a distance viewer seemingly not requiring a camera). However, this was his only appearance, as Detective Comics, Inc (that is, DC Comics) went to court over the similarities between Wonder Man and Superman, and won.
Also in #1 is Dr Fung "master sleuth of the Orient", who defeats Mad Scientist Li Wang's plans to conquer the world (see Imperialism) using an army of "creatures with half-minds" whose will has been replaced with his own. As well as his deductive abilities, Dr Fung is also a Scientist; for example, he treats a leaf to make it give off excessive oxygen, allowing divers to survive for hours underwater; #16 has him inventing a "mind-space projector" which enables him to see and hear activities far away. In #9 and #10 the apparent Supervillain The Moth turns out to merely be an agent of Karno, The Chess Man, with instructions to abduct people so they can be shrunk by scientific means (see Miniaturization) to become pieces on Karno's Chess board. #11 has a subterranean race (see Underground) who have a wheel instead of legs (it's not clear whether this is Evolution or they are Cyborgs). #15's plot owes something to the Sherlock Holmes tale "The Six Napoleons". Other stories have Vampires, ape-men (see Origin of Man) and Telepathy. Dr Fung is assisted by Dan Barrister, an American who provides the muscle, though Fung himself is a capable fighter and often has to rescue his sidekick.
#2 introduces Yarko the Great "master of Magic" a turban-wearing American "initiated into the mysterious magic of the East". In his first story he confronts the sorcerer Shaddiba: in the showdown they stand still as they battle in a shared mindscape. #2 has him dealing with both the Devil and Death (the latter in human guise, wearing a top hat and sunglasses); In #5 he faces Vladim, who conducts "experiments in the forbidden sciences"; Death appears again in #8, which involves a visit to the land of the dead (see Eschatology). Also featured are a Mayan Lost Race and women turned into ape-like beasts by a mad scientist.
#3 sees the appearance of The Flame, a superhero with a flame gun (see Weapons) and the ability to manifest out of fire, even lit matches. In #7 a mobster, on discovering a Lost Race of green tribesmen who live hundreds of years and have bullet-proof skins, exploits them to become a crime lord: The Flame is informed that "only one thing can stop them", which fortunately turns out to be fire. In #8 a Scientist uses atomic power to create 50,000 volts from a grain of sand (see Power Sources) but his assistant sells the secret to an international racketeer who uses it to build giant spider-like Mecha to rob banks. We finally get The Flame's origin story in #11: he was a missionary's baby, found by Buddhist monks after a tidal wave ran up the River Yangtze. Declared the new Grand Lama (see Religion), his training included wrestling and magic; then, when an adult, he is given the "power over flame" and goes to America to do good. Up to this point his fire powers have taken second place to his fists in resolving problems, but now they become more prominent – he can walk on tongues of flame; and later become partially coated in fire and able to fly and melt metal. #15 has a mad scientist turning people into what are described as "vulture men", though they look reptilian. Other features include a mechanical mole (#10) and a scientist inventing a Death Ray (#13, the same plot also being used in that issue's Yarko story). In #30, believing himself dying (though he recovers), he tells Linda Dale to use his "secret formula which will instill in you the ancient power of the flame people"; she dons his spare costume and becomes Flame Girl, reappearing in #33. In #32 he meets the Nazi agent the Devil of the Red Death, so named because on lifting his eye patch flesh-eating red spores erupt from his eye socket. In 1940 The Flame received his own comic (see The Flame) and joined two other Fox superheroes, The Blue Beetle (mentioned in Space Adventures) and Samson (see Fantastic Comics), in the comic The Big 3 (1940-1942, 7 issues).
The Black Lion is introduced in #21: George Davis, wealthy big game hunter, vows to fight crime after the murder of his brother, and is accompanied by his brother's young son, The Cub. Clad in black and some red, with the head of a lion and black panther on their respective chests, they lack superpowers or gadgets, as do their antagonists (last appearance #27). US Jones, another superhero without powers debuts in #28 (like so many at this time his costume is based the US flag): in #33 he faces supervillain The White Killer, dressed in an all-white costume and his head enclosed in a white globe. Lu-Nar "the Moon-man who has crashed to the Earth in his space-shell" also makes his appearance in #28: he is puzzled by life in the city, doesn't seem too bright but is very strong and performs heroics (a reworking of the "country boy in the big city" trope).
Other strips include Don Quixote in New York where Quixote and Sancho Panza experience the modern world (they just seem to step out of Miguel de Cervantes' novel): first appearance in #2, the last in #20 when the pair return to their own time by unspecified means (see Time Travel), to fight the dictator Adolphus Stalini. A regular strip featuring the American spy K-51 (K-5 in #1, last appearance #26) is usually non-genre, but in #3 he faces a Mongolian princess (who is also a Chinese spy) planning to conquer the world with a machine which broadcasts brain-destroying sound waves. Other stories have a Radium Ray sinking ships and a scientist inventing powders (see Drugs) that can variously shrink, increase strength or the power of the senses, which K-51 uses in #16-#18. Other strips only very rarely have sf elements, usually involving a mad scientist.
The early genre tales in Wonder Comics/Wonderland Comics were often good, but became less interesting after the first dozen or so issues (though some of The Flame's are lively); this was partly owing to the departure of Eisner and Powell, along with the US entry into World War Two resulting in plots often focusing on fighting routine Axis agents. Unusually, Dr Fung does not speak using a mock Asian accent (pronouncing R as L etc) or phrasing; though there is some deterioration later, with heavy use of aphorisms (often beginning "It is wisely said ...") and, when disguised as a poor Asian, adopting the mock accent. Though respectful to Fung, Dan sometimes uses racist abuse (see Race in SF). There were many magician characters like Yarko the Great in this era, but some of his early stories might be said to particularly foreshadow Marvel Comics' Doctor Strange, due to a greater sense of style.
The initial title Wonder Comics should not be confused with Wonder Comics (1944-1949) from Great Comics Publications. [SP]
links
- Comic Book Plus – Wonder Comics
- Grand Comics Database – Wonder Comics
- Comic Book Plus – Wonderworld Comics
- Grand Comics Database – Wonderworld Comics
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