Wow Comics
Entry updated 18 March 2024. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1940-1948). 69 issues. Fawcett Publications. Artists include Ed Ashe, Jack Binder, Dick MacKay, Carl Pfeufer, C R Schaare, Marc Swayze and Bert Whitman. Script writers include Otto Binder (see Eando Binder), Dick Kraus, Dick MacKay and Joe Millard. Initially 68 pages; gradual reduction to 36 for #30-#41; 52 from #42. The comic began with 9 long strips, but from #6 it usually had only 4-5. Also a regular short text story and occasional short strips and non-fiction pieces.
Wow Comics' strips were a mixed bag of genres; Superheroes predominated. Non-sf strips included crime, adventurers, Westerns and War. #1 opens with Mr Scarlet: "Special Prosecutor by day, Brian Butler ... brings to justice those who escape the law through its legal loopholes" – as athletic, pistol-wielding Mr Scarlet, presumably named for his costume (though he also has a yellow cape). He has no Superpowers but his early tales often have genre elements: #2 has Dr Death mailing his "Symphony of Death" to musicians; when played, the Music kills them (see Basilisks). #3's Supervillain The Black Thorn has invented a Ray that mummifies people. #4 has a Dr Jelke using the potion from Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). #8's antagonist is The Croaker, a doctor who apparently resurrects three criminals (including Dillinger): they are easily defeated by Mr Scarlet, but – being legally dead – cannot be prosecuted (see Crime and Punishment); so they continue to loot with impunity. However, The Croaker is actually a plastic surgeon who simply altered the appearance of three petty criminals. From #4 Scarlet is joined by his own boy wonder, "Pinky, the Whizz Kid". Eventually his superhero alter-ego is so successful that Brian is fired by the Mayor, leading to hard times: in #17 a desperate Pinky hocks their costumes to pay for food, though brief respite comes when a Scientist succeeds in turning lead into gold (involving "atom smashing rays") and – uninterested in wealth – throws the transmuted lump out of the window as Pinky and Mickey wander past. Genre stories become more infrequent, but in #30 an evil meteorologist builds a device to concentrate the Sun's rays, causing sunstroke, with a larger version emitting a heat ray able to destroy buildings. Mr Scarlett was created by Ed Herron and Jack Kirby, who wrote and drew the first story: here he is more aggressive than in subsequent issues, where humour predominates. Only in #1 does he wave his pistol around; later it becomes a Ray Gun that can be adapted to take infra-red photographs. A rare superhero with a moustache – albeit a pencil-thin one – he had 2-3 strips in each of #2-#8 .
#1 had two strips about Atom Blake, the Boy Wizard. Blake's father, a physicist (see Physics), fused the atoms from all known elements into one super-powerful metal: the rays emitted from the resulting metal were so powerful that they burnt an orang-outan ("which I kept for the purpose") to a cinder. After much refining and testing he eventually turned the ray on baby Blake. He is then raised by an uncle, but given a ring as a keepsake; when a high-schooler he discovers that it contains a piece of the metal – which, when opened, releases powerful rays controlled by his thoughts (turning dogs to stone, cutting through walls etc). The second story in #1 has Atom and schoolfriend Janey ("Cut out that kissing stuff, Janey! I'm no sissy!") kidnapped by a millionaire who plans to send them to Venus as a means of testing his new Rocket: he explains they will survive the cold between the planets by being "frozen solid – alive!! ... Ever heard of quick-frozen meats and vegetables and fruits? Quick freezing doesn't kill them". The millionaire is foiled; Janey is frozen but recovers. The ring, combined with Mathematics, enables Blake to do virtually anything, including duplicating himself (though if one dies the other will too) (see Matter Duplication) – allowing one copy to travel to other planets to seek his father. He goes first to Mercury where he meets intelligent telepathic (see Telepathy) bugs threatened by the planet's King, who turns out to be "Scarface" Louie, a New York rum-runner who stole a scientist's rocket. In #4 Mercury proves to have a wall of flame which, when passed through, takes you millions of years into the Far Future: on learning his father once did so, he follows; they are eventually reunited. They go on to have an adventure on Saturn (see Outer Planets) before the series ends. Diamond Jack only appeared in #1 – he has a "ring given him by an old magician ... [making him] mentally and physically strong": in this story a Mad Scientist wants to "change men to vultures" to create an army with which to rule the world (they're feathered men, but without wings, whom he's armed with spears). #2 introduces The Hunchback, a handsome, wealthy playboy who was so moved after seeing The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) that he now fights crime in the guise of the title character (he wears a mask, though where the hump comes from is unclear): he is strong, athletic and uses a cudgel.
Atom Blake and The Hunchback last appear in #5, being replaced in #6 by two World War Two strips. The first is Commando Yank, an American that has joined the British commandos to fight Nazis in a costume and mask: his adventures are largely mundane with only very occasional genre Inventions like an "unsmashable tank" and "flame-ball thrower" (see Weapons). It is usually a mundane strip, but #35's story is atypical, with talking, human-headed bats turning out to be bats with painted faces and a "Jap midget in a midget plane rigged up to resemble a bat". The other new hero is the The Phantom Eagle: Mickey Malone is too young to fight so is tasked with cleaning the planes of an American squadron that moves around the world; but he secretly builds a plane of his own design from spare parts. His stories are often odd: for example, his first involves a Japanese plane with fluorescent paint applied so it resembles a skeleton (the crew wear skull masks). In #10 the Eagle meets a Robinson Crusoe figure who has built several Flying machines to escape his island: they are based on historical designs – including Goya's "Modo de volar" (1815/16) and W Miller's 1843 Aerostat. #12 has the Nazis using Incas to fly planes shaped like birds, which fire Death Rays – these are "concentrated sunlight" gathered from mirrors atop pyramids that act as giant storage batteries. Other rays stop engines or paralyse. Though the planes are German, the ray Technology is Incan. #13 has Mickey meeting another youngster, Jerry Sloane, who has invented the rocket-powered "Cometplane": it is duly built and used to rescue Sloane's scientist father, a Japanese prisoner – who is delighted to be reunited with Jerry, who – to Mickey's surprise – is revealed to be his daughter. A third faction enters World War Two in #16 – the World Haters, who are armed with flying pillboxes: Mickey comments, "They're anarchists Jerry! They hate everybody and everything! They're the dregs of humanity." #17 has a Nazi pirate in a rocket-powered pirate ship crewed by German children, with its airfield built atop a giant blimp. Mickey wins over the kids and they renounce Hitler, to become American citizens. In #21 the Japanese build a flying, fire-breathing dragon to cow the Chinese. With the allies approaching, #22 has Hitler ordering an impregnable retirement home be built for him – a vast floating sphere made of a "gas-steel alloy". The stories become a lot duller when, in #25, Mickey begins a round the world quest for a ghostly ancestor's golden mace inscribed by Merlin, whose words are the formula for international peace and unity; the quest ends in #41. There is a third new serial in #6, Spooks, which laster until #9: the murdered Professor Willard – speciality, Anatomy – is allowed by Heaven to return to Earth as a ghost (see Supernatural Creatures), but only if he stops as much evil as he can. In this Humour strip, the professor fights crime by possessing a skeleton, dressed in his bow-tie and glasses and smoking his pipe; he also regularly possesses the corpses of the recently killed.
#9 introduces Mary Marvel, who had first appeared a month previously in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 as Mary Bromfield: she is the twin sister of Captain Marvel's alter ego Billy Batson and discovers she too can turn into a superhero by uttering the magic word "SHAZAM!": whereupon she acquires strength, invulnerability, the power of flight and a costume. After a few mundane tales, sf and fantasy elements become quite common: for example, #13 has a scientist foretelling the End of the World in three days, with his predictions of preliminary disasters – earthquakes and eruptions – coming true. As a result industry grinds to a halt, soldiers desert and people live for pleasure alone ("we're going out and have a big picnic!") – until Mary discovers it is a Japanese plot, the disasters faked with explosives. In #14 a child prodigy invents a device that locates the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow ("Of course, pater doesn't believe it! He thinks I have mixed childish fancy with sober adult research!"): Mary ends up aiding the King of the Rainbow City. #16 has a scientist who reasons the far side of the Moon is fertile and plans to colonize it with a spaceship ark filled with pairs of animals (see Colonization of Other Worlds); unfortunately his casual remark that spectroscopic tests have found diamonds and gold there means crooks become involved: Mary has to deal with them and the hostile stone men who live on the Moon (she wipes them out). #15 has crooks using a mermaid to rig an election. #20 has a ghost whose ghost stories are repeatedly rejected by the editor of Ghostly Stories, so decides to have his revenge. In #21, when a smoke demon (see Gods and Demons) imprisoned in a tree is released, they plan to feed children to man-eating plants, which will make them fully alive, enabling the demon to lead a "revolt of the plants" against humanity. The mesmerist Svengolly (see Hypnotism) builds a thought-stealing machine in #22 and uses it for blackmail (pedantically, as the victim still retains the memory, it is more of a mind-reading device). #23 has Mary tied to a log by Dr Dwarf – but as the log approaches the buzz-saw, Mary is extracted to 2999 by kids who have built a Time Machine. They are upset because they learn from pills given to them by Robots (see Education in SF), then are forced to play all the time: they want Mary to lead a revolt so they can go to school. Mary is reluctant, until she discovers Dr Dwarf was also dragged to 2999 and – Hitler-like – has rallied the robots to revolt against humanity. In #25 we learn that when Atlantis sunk, its scientists invented artificial gills: Davey Jones, an Atlantean, now rescues humanity's drowned by fitting them with these gills – two are criminals who flee with his gold, only to drown on dry land, as they can no longer breathe air. In #26 a scientist works with black Magic to creating consciousness in machines, then educates them with lectures: unfortunately they prove hostile to humanity. In #27, as a town's leap year experiment, men and women swap tasks: the resulting chaos confirms traditional gender roles (see Feminism). In #30, using a crooked scientist's mirror spray, Mary enters "Mirror Land", which is somewhat similar to Alice's Wonderland (see Lewis Carroll) and where things are often backwards: to hit someone hard, you have to tap them gently.
The four main strips (Mary Marvel, Mr Scarlet, The Phantom Eagle and Commando Yank) continue until Mary's departure after #58, with Commando Yank's last appearing in #64: their replacements – and the comic's other new strips – were non-genre. Mr Scarlet and The Phantom Eagle survive to reach the last issue. Genre stories during this era include #48's Mary Marvel tale, where an inventor causes panic through his attempts to publicize his "robot engine" – which "can be used to run any outward shape" – the ones he uses being the Tin Man and Scarecrow from L Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), and the "What-Is-It?", which resembles a humanoid baloney.
Wow Comics' total annual sales exceeded 3 million 1943-1947, peaking with 4.37m sold in 1944 (according to the Grand Comics Database). It was a solid comic, at its best when displaying an eccentric whimsy and humour, which usually appeared in its best strips – Mary Marvel, Mr Scarlet, The Phantom Eagle and Atom Blake. [SP]
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