Big Shot Comics #24
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBig Shot Comics #24 (June 1942) stands as one of the most fully realized wartime numbers of Columbia Comics' flagship anthology, arriving at the exact moment the title's patriotic identity was at its sharpest — as reflected in its Uncle Sam cover image. More consequentially, it contains what MyComicShop and the GCD record as the final appearance of Marvelo the Magician in the series, a narrative close-out in which the character departs to his homeland and transfers his legacy to Raja the Arabian Knight, making #24 a quiet but definitive endpoint for one of Big Shot's original features. The issue also showcases Sparky Watts — already the title's most popular character despite being a parody of the very superhero genre filling newsstands around him — at a critical point just months before his own solo Columbia series launched, capturing the strip-to-comic-book reprint era of the character before Rogers returned from war service to write new material.
Big Shot Comics #24 is an anthology issue featuring multiple stories. "The Adventurer" follows a man on an exotic mission who uses dynamite against natives and creates a megaphone from bark to communicate with them, ultimately securing dynamite in an armful to complete his task. "The Face" (also known as Tony Trent) removes his disguise in a shopping district and becomes involved in a hospital case where Brooks has been shot; Tony must evade police while investigating, leading to a confrontation where The Face confronts the villain in a hospital room. Additional stories featured include those starring Joe Palooka, The Skyman, and Captain Devildog, as advertised on the cover.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Big Shot Comics was Columbia Comics Corporation's launch title, debuting in May 1940 under editor Vin Sullivan, the foundational DC editor who had shepherded Superman's acquisition and prompted the development of Batman before moving to Columbia. The publisher was a three-way partnership between Sullivan, the McNaught Syndicate, and the Frank Jay Markey Syndicate, which is why the book's pages blended original superhero features with licensed reprints of McNaught newspaper strips. By the time issue #24 reached stands in June 1942, creator Boody Rogers — who had launched Sparky Watts as a newspaper strip in April 1940 — had been drafted into military service, so the Sparky Watts pages in this issue are repackaged strip reprints rather than original comics work, a situation that would persist until Rogers returned stateside after the war.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published June 1942 by Columbia Comics Corporation; cover price 10 cents; 68 pages, full color.
- Cover features Uncle Sam — a patriotic wartime image reflective of Columbia's editorial pivot toward the war effort by mid-1942.
- Contains the last appearance of Marvelo the Magician in the Big Shot Comics series: Marvelo returns to his native Brahama and passes the torch to Raja the Arabian Knight.
- Sparky Watts — a superhero parody created by Boody Rogers, described by some historians as the first sustained parody of the superhero genre — appears in a story involving gamblers who have kidnapped him.
- The Sparky Watts pages in this issue are reprints from Rogers' Frank Jay Markey Syndicate newspaper strip, as Rogers had been drafted and was serving in the U.S. Army at the time of publication.
- Also features continuing stories of The Face (Tony Trent), Skyman, Joe Palooka (Ham Fisher), Dixie Dugan (J.P. McEvoy/John Striebel), and Charlie Chan — representing both original Columbia characters and licensed McNaught Syndicate reprints.
- Contributing creators identified in GCD and retailer records include Boody Rogers, Ogden Whitney, Ham Fisher, J.P. McEvoy, and John Striebel.
- Issue #24 was published just one issue before Big Shot Comics #25 (July 1942), and only six issues before the title was shortened to simply 'Big Shot' with issue #30 (December 1942).
Reprints
Reprinted in Take That, Adolf!: The Fighting Comic Books of the Second World War #[nn] (2017)
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