All-Winners Comics #19
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeAll-Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946) marks a watershed moment in Marvel history: it introduced the All-Winners Squad, Timely Comics' first-ever superhero team, predating every subsequent Marvel team by more than a decade. In doing so, it established the structural template — assembling solo stars into a coordinated ensemble — that would eventually underpin the Avengers and every team book that followed. The issue's central story, 'The Crime of the Ages!', also directly echoes DC's Justice Society format in All-Star Comics, positioning Timely as an active participant in the postwar evolution of superhero storytelling. Because the team appeared only twice in the Golden Age and then vanished, this issue became the cornerstone of decades of retroactive Marvel continuity, with every subsequent retcon — from Roy Thomas's 1970s work through modern-day flashback cameos — tracing directly back to these 43 pages.
"The Crime of the Ages! [Chapter 1]" kicks off with the All-Winners Squad racing to a museum where the "Ages of Mankind" exhibit lies in ruins—its curator desperate for answers. A cryptic note from the enigmatic Isbisa challenges the team to solve a series of clues hidden within the wreckage, turning the museum into a high-stakes puzzle with a mysterious twist: a false clue implicates Prince Namor as an enemy. Written by Bill Finger and illustrated by Syd Shores, this 1946 adventure blends mystery and suspense in a classic wartime superhero tale.
In "The Crime of the Ages! [Chapter 1]," the All-Winners Squad is summoned to a shattered museum exhibit, where a cryptic note from the enigmatic Isbisa sets them on a race against time—and suspicion. With a trail of clues scattered across "The Ages of Mankind" display and a dangerous hint that Prince Namor may be an enemy, the team must untangle deception before the game turns deadly.
In "The Crime of the Ages!," Chapter 2: The Age of Bronze," Cap and Bucky track a mysterious bronze idol with star sapphire eyes through a museum, only to uncover a clever ruse—while the crooks exploit "bronze disease" to target the idol’s shipment, the real prize lies in the art on display. The story unfolds with sharp pacing and a twist that keeps the heroes one step behind, all set against the backdrop of wartime intrigue and classic superhero sleuthing.
In "The Crime of the Ages!," Chapter 3: The Iron Age," the Whizzer arrives on a movie set filming the life of the infamous train robber Mal Brennings, where a vintage locomotive—once stolen for its hidden gold—is now used for a dramatic scene. When Isbisa’s men try to pull off a real heist, the Whizzer races to uncover the truth, discovering the missing gold concealed beneath the cab’s floorboards.
In "The Crime of the Ages!," Chapter 4: The Steel Age, the Torch finds himself ensnared in a cunning trap—only to be pulled from danger by a determined lady policewoman with a personal stake in cracking a baffling case. She’s engaged to a detective who wants her to leave the force, but she won’t step down until she solves the mystery behind a newly built bank’s hidden passage leading into a sewage tunnel—and the Torch, ever the ally, steps in to help uncover the truth.
In "The Crime of the Ages!," Chapter 5: The Stone Age, Miss America arrives in Millstone to meet the Chief of Police—only to discover he’s been petrified. A cryptic note from the Calcium Master, offering to restore him for $10,000, sets her on a trail through stone-cold clues and cunning traps, where every sculpted clue leads deeper into a mystery carved in marble.
In "The Ice Age!" from All-Winners Comics #19, Toro teams up with Namor as the Atlantean prince journeys to a remote Eskimo trading post to confront a ruthless gang using a whaling ship as a base to steal furs. With the frozen tundra as their backdrop, the duo faces danger in the icy wilderness, where survival depends as much on wits as on strength.
In "The Crime of the Ages!," Chapter 7: Conclusion!, the All-Winners Squad regroups after their separate missions, only to realize their pursuit of Isbisa was a distraction—while the true mastermind, freed from their focus, moves to steal the atomic bomb and seize global power. The stakes have never been higher, and the team must act fast before history is rewritten.
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The story was written by Bill Finger — then best known for co-creating Batman and, later, the Riddler at DC — under the editorship of Stan Lee at Timely Comics. The 43-page, seven-chapter lead story was illustrated by a rotating team of pencillers (Vince Alascia, Al Avison, Bob Powell, and Syd Shores) and inkers (Avison, Alascia, Powell, Allen Bellman, Al Gabriele, and Don Rico), reflecting the sprawling, multi-artist production style common to anthology comics of the era. Stan Lee later recalled that publisher Martin Goodman was likely the driving force behind the team concept — Lee himself remembered almost nothing about its creation beyond the name. The shift from anthology format to a single unified team-up story in issue #19 was a dramatic editorial departure; the previous 18 issues had all presented separate solo adventures for each character.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance and origin of the All-Winners Squad, Timely/Marvel's first superhero team, published Fall 1946 by Timely Comics.
- Roster consists of seven heroes: Captain America (retroactively identified as William Naslund, the Spirit of '76), Bucky (Fred Davis Jr.), the Human Torch (Jim Hammond), Toro (Thomas Raymond), the Sub-Mariner (Namor McKenzie), the Whizzer (Robert Frank), and Miss America (Madeline Joyce).
- First appearance of villain Isbisa (Simon Meke), a criminal mastermind whose alias is an acronym formed from the initial letters of the Ice, Stone, Bronze, Iron, Steel, and Atomic Ages — with atomic bomb theft as his ultimate goal.
- Story titled 'The Crime of the Ages!' — scripted by Bill Finger, edited by Stan Lee — runs 43 pages across seven chapters, structured in the Justice Society style where heroes split up for individual missions before converging for a climax.
- The team made only two Golden Age appearances in total: this issue and All-Winners Comics #21 (Winter 1946/47); there was no issue #20, which historians generally attribute to postwar magazine-registration practices involving the retitling of series.
- Per later Marvel retroactive continuity (established in What If? #4, Aug. 1977, and Captain America #251), the Captain America in this issue is William Naslund — not Steve Rogers, who was presumed dead in 1945 — marking this as Naslund's final Golden Age appearance.
- The issue's lead story was reprinted in Fantasy Masterpieces #10 (August 1967), introducing Silver Age readers to the team; the entire issue was later reprinted as Timely Presents: All-Winners (December 1999) with a new painted cover by Ray Lago and an introduction by Roy Thomas.
- The issue is also collected in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age All-Winners Comics Vol. 4 (November 2011) and was referenced in Giant-Size Avengers #1 (1974), integrating the All-Winners Squad into the broader Avengers mythology.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Fantasy Masterpieces #10 (1967), Timely Presents: All-Winners #[nn] (1999), Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age All-Winners Comics #4 (2011)
Key issues in All-Winners Comics
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