John Dickering

Scientist John Dickering accidentally gave himself extraordinary powers while experimenting on gases in his laboratory. Injecting a mixture into his bloodstream granted him the ability to fly and project a disintegrating ray from his eyes, leading him to become the costumed hero the Comet.

Jack Cole — yes, that Jack Cole, the genius behind Plastic Man — launched John Dickering in the very first issue of Pep Comics in 1940, making this character a true ground-floor figure of the Golden Age and one of Archie Comics' earliest superhero creations. Debuting alongside luminaries like The Comet, The Shield, and The Black Hood, Dickering entered one of the most storied superhero launches in Golden Age history, and his presence across Pep Comics and beyond speaks to a legacy that stretched an remarkable 78 years. With five key-issue appearances to his name and a catalog footprint that includes The Mighty Crusaders and Archie's Double Digest Magazine, he's a character whose roots run deep into the very soil from which American superhero comics grew. For collectors with a passion for the Golden Age originals and the publishers who dared to compete in comics' wild early days, John Dickering is exactly the kind of discovery that makes digging through back issues so rewarding.