Jumbo Comics #14
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeJumbo Comics #14 (April 1940) is the earliest cover appearance of Lightning, Fiction House's electricity-wielding superhero — a costumed, gadget-powered hero who arrived at the peak of the original Golden Age superhero wave. The issue also continues the Sheena, Queen of the Jungle ongoing serial, a strip that had already made history as the anchor feature of comics' first female-led adventure anthology; by 1940 Sheena was firmly established as the dominant character in the book and a template for an entire generation of jungle-queen imitators. Together, the issue captures Fiction House at full creative stride: a 68-page full-color anthology produced by one of the era's most talent-dense packaging studios, where artists including Lou Fine, Bob Powell, and Will Eisner himself were honing the visual language of the Golden Age.
Jumbo Comics #14 is an anthology issue featuring multiple adventure stories. "The Hawk" involves pirates attacking a fort and features intrigue with characters named Nina and Carlos, culminating in combat between the Hawk and his adversary. The issue also includes "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" in "The Elephants' Graveyard" and introduces "The Lightning," a new dynamic character. Additionally, the issue contains "Wilton of the West," a Western adventure in which a rancher confronts rustlers and Native Americans in a mountainous setting, involving gunfights and dramatic rescue sequences.
Detective 'Bulls-Eye' Bannon arrives at the Earl home to read the will of the late Dean Earl, but walks into a tense situation where a mysterious killer has been terrorizing the city—dropping victims from heights and leaving mimeographed death announcements before each murder. When a potential witness named Jock Macduff claims he knows the killer's identity, Bannon pursues the lead, only to find Macduff missing and fresh clues emerging that suggest the investigation may be closer to home than expected.
Inspector Dayton suspects Anderson Case of running a criminal empire in Chinatown, but when he can't secure an arrest warrant from Commissioner Conroy, he follows a lead to the mysterious Dr. Sung Sin's antique shop—only to discover that Sung is orchestrating his own campaign against Case's opium operation. As Dayton is drawn deeper into Sung's world, the line between justice and vigilantism begins to blur in the shadowy streets of old Chinatown.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 18 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Jumbo Comics was produced for Fiction House publisher Thurman T. Scott by the Eisner-Iger Shop, the prominent packager co-run by Will Eisner and S. M. 'Jerry' Iger, with Malcolm Reiss as editor and Eisner serving as art director. By issue #14 the series had completed its physical evolution — it had started in 1938 as an oversized black-and-white tabloid and settled into standard full-color Golden Age format by issue #10 — and the creative roster assembled for this period included Bob Powell (who painted the cover), Lou Fine, George Tuska, Dan Zolnerowich, Charles J. Mazoujian, and Vernon Henkel alongside Eisner and Iger themselves. The Iger Shop's model of centralizing writing and art production under one roof meant #14 reflected the collective house style of arguably the most prolific comic-book packaging operation of its era.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published April 1940 by Fiction House; 68 pages, full color.
- Cover by Bob Powell; edited by Malcolm Reiss, Jerry Iger, and Will Eisner (art director).
- Lightning, Fiction House's electric superhero, makes his cover debut on this issue — he is depicted on the cover but does not appear in an interior story until Jumbo Comics #15.
- Lightning's powers — shooting electricity from his fingers, super-strength, and high-speed movement — are derived from a specially invented power belt, making him a gadget-based hero rather than a naturally super-powered one.
- Sheena, Queen of the Jungle's story in this issue takes her and companion Bob to an elephants' graveyard, one of the recurring adventure motifs of the Golden Age jungle genre.
- Other features include The Hawk in 'The Siege of Thunder Isle,' Wilton of the West facing the Crimson Rider, ZX-5 Spies In Action, Inspector Dayton, Spencer Steel, Ken Hammond, Bullseye Bannon, and the humor strip Peter Pupp.
- Contributing artists include Lou Fine, George Tuska, Dan Zolnerowich, Charles J. Mazoujian, Bob Powell, Will Eisner, and Jerry Iger — a roster representing some of the most accomplished shop artists of the early Golden Age.
- The series Jumbo Comics ran for 167 issues (September 1938 – March 1953) with Sheena as the lead feature throughout; Sheena's run in this title would later be recognized as foundational to the 'good girl art' genre that defined Fiction House's identity.
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints Jumbo Comics #3 (1938)
Reprinted in Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age: 1933-45 #[nn] (2011), Hawks of the Seas - Les Boucaniers #[nn] (2017)
Key issues in Jumbo Comics
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.