The Flame

One of the earliest costumed mystery men of the Golden Age, The Flame debuted in Fox Feature Syndicate's Wonderworld Comics in 1939. Raised in the Far East and trained by monks, he gained the power to control and project fire, becoming a pioneering superhero of the era.

Few characters can claim to have sparked to life at the very dawn of the American superhero tradition, but The Flame — debuting in Wonderworld Comics #3 all the way back in 1939 — is a genuine Golden Age original, born from the fertile imagination of Floyd Kelly at Fox Comics when the genre itself was still finding its shape. Sharing pages with the likes of The Black Terror, Black Venus, and Linda Dale, this fiery figure kept some of the era's most colorful company. What makes The Flame especially worth a collector's attention is a publishing history that somehow stretches across an astonishing 85 years, from those pulpy Fox origins through dedicated reprints in Gwandanaland Comics, ensuring that new generations of fans can discover what made this character crackle in the first place.