The Mad Artist

The Mad Artist is a Golden Age villain who debuted in the very first issue of Captain Marvel Jr. in 1942, serving as an early antagonist for Freddy Freeman in Fawcett's wartime superhero universe.

Dreamed up by Joe Millard and Al Carreño for the very first issue of Captain Marvel Jr. in 1942, The Mad Artist is a genuine Golden Age curiosity from Fawcett's golden era of superhero publishing. This villain carved out a niche in the vibrant, anything-goes world of wartime comics, sharing pages with the likes of Bulletman, Bulletgirl, and Freddy Freeman — some of Fawcett's finest. With appearances stretching across reprints into the 1970s, this peculiar antagonist proved memorable enough to revisit across three decades, and for Golden Age completists hunting down that landmark Captain Marvel Jr. #1, The Mad Artist is one of the original reasons the issue matters.