More Fun Comics #25
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMore Fun Comics #25 sits at a pivotal juncture in what would become DC Comics — it is one of the final issues published while Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson still nominally helmed Nicholson Publishing Co., just months before Harry Donenfeld completed his financial takeover and effectively ended the founding era of the company. The issue continues early work by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster on Doctor Occult, DC's first recurring supernatural detective, keeping that character's pre-Superman creative lineage alive in print. It also carries 'Sandra of the Secret Service,' one of the earliest adventure serials in American comics to feature a proactive female lead, here reaching a dramatic arc conclusion. As a typical mid-run entry in a title that would go on to introduce the Spectre, Doctor Fate, Aquaman, and Green Arrow, it illustrates how More Fun Comics functioned as a genuine proving ground for storytelling ambition during the nascent Golden Age.
More Fun Comics #25 is an anthology issue featuring multiple stories and instructional content. "Wooly Watts" by Alger presents a humorous strip about a man encountering a woman while tightrope walking between trees, leading to comedic exchanges about compliments and romantic tension. "Johnnie Law" by Will Ely follows a detective recounting events at a rooming house related to the capture of a firebug, involving a shooting incident and a murder investigation. The issue also includes a "How to Have Fun!" instructional section with DIY projects such as making an arrow-shooting slingshot, transferring magazine pictures onto paper using wax, and performing magic tricks with candles and water, along with membership information for the World-Wide Fun Club.
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By October 1937, Nicholson Publishing — the corporate name Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's operation had adopted — was deep in financial trouble, with the founder accumulating debts to printer and distributor Harry Donenfeld that would soon force him out entirely; bankruptcy proceedings concluded in 1938, transferring full ownership to Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz's newly formed Detective Comics, Inc. Issue #25 arrived during this turbulent transition, making it one of the last issues where Wheeler-Nicholson's editorial voice and writing credits still appeared in companion features of the run. The title had only recently standardized to the smaller, modern comic-book format with issue #20 (October 1936), and #25 represents the series operating in that format with a fairly settled anthology structure of serialized adventure, espionage, science fiction, and supernatural mystery strips.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: October 1937; published by Nicholson Publishing Co., Inc. (the imprint under which National Allied Publications operated in its final months before the Donenfeld takeover).
- Cover art by Vince (Vincent) Sullivan, who served as both cover artist and assistant editor on the title during this period.
- Features 'The Shrinking Doom,' a Doctor Occult story scripted by Jerry Siegel (under the pseudonym 'Leger') and drawn by Joe Shuster (as 'Reuths'), in which Occult investigates a murder committed by a scientist who shrinks his victim to doll-size through atomic transmutation.
- Doctor Occult, created by Siegel and Shuster in New Fun Comics #6 (October 1935), is considered DC's first recurring superhero still in use; #25 falls within his original run, which continued through More Fun Comics #32 (June 1938).
- Contains 'Sandra of the Secret Service: The Brain, Part 6 (of 6),' scripted and drawn by Will Ely, concluding the six-part 'Brain' story arc in which Sandra and Michael are rescued by the U.S. Marines; Sandra of the Secret Service ran from the series' very first issue through #35 (1935–1938), making her one of comics' earliest recurring female adventure leads.
- Also includes a chapter of 'Fang Gow of China,' featuring Barry O'Neill and his Fu Manchu-style villain, drawn by Leo O'Mealia — a serial that had run since New Fun Comics #1 (February 1935) and was scripted in its early episodes by Wheeler-Nicholson himself.
- Tom Hickey's 'Mark Marson of the Inter-Planetary Police: People of the Red Planet, Part 11' reaches its conclusion in this issue, with Marson destroying the Red People's stronghold — a complete eleven-part science-fiction serial arc closing within a single anthology book.
- Rated 68 pages, full color, with a 10-cent cover price — the standard specifications for More Fun Comics at this stage of its run.
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