More Fun Comics #51
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMore Fun Comics #51 sits at a genuine hinge point in early DC history: it contains the first published image of the Spectre — a single teaser panel appended to the final Buccaneer installment, asking readers 'Who is he?? What is he??' and pointing toward the full debut in issue #52. That solitary panel makes #51 the technical first printing of one of the Golden Age's most consequential supernatural characters, a being who would go on to charter membership in the Justice Society of America. The issue is simultaneously the curtain call on the original pre-superhero lineup of More Fun Comics, with the Buccaneer and Flying Fox both ending their runs here, making it the last chapter of the anthology's adventure-serial era before the superhero transformation that #52 would inaugurate.
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The issue was published by Detective Comics, Inc. — the corporate predecessor to DC Comics — with a cover date of January 1940 and an on-sale date in late November 1939. The cover was penciled and inked by Sheldon Moldoff, with interior contributions from a roster that included Tom Hickey, George Papp, Alan Sulman, Paul Lauretta, Bernard Baily, and Russ Lehman. Bernard Baily, who drew the departing Buccaneer strip and would go on to illustrate the Spectre with writer Jerry Siegel beginning next issue, is the creative thread connecting the end of the old era to the start of the new one; the Spectre teaser panel at the close of his final Buccaneer story was effectively Baily's own handoff.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: January 1940; published by Detective Comics, Inc. (the company that became DC Comics).
- Contains the first published image of the Spectre — a single promotional panel at the end of the Buccaneer story teasing the character's full debut in More Fun Comics #52.
- The Spectre teaser panel poses the questions 'Who is he?? What is he??' — a deliberate in-house advertisement rather than a story appearance, analogous to Batman's first printed image in Action Comics #12.
- The Spectre was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Bernard Baily, though some sources attribute the writing credit solely to Siegel and limit Baily to his role as assigned artist.
- More Fun Comics #51 is the final issue for the Buccaneer (by Bernard Baily) and for Flying Fox (by Terry Gilkison), marking the close of several long-running adventure serials.
- Kit Strong, by Maurice Kashuba, makes its sole appearance — a one-issue feature that debuted and ended in this very issue.
- Wing Brady, a French Foreign Legion pilot and spy created by Henry Kiefer, appears here in a Paris-set adventure; the feature had run continuously since New Fun Comics #1 (1935), making its appearances in #51 among its final installments before the strip ended.
- Biff Bronson, created by Joseph Sulman (with scripts by Al Sulman), continues his run in this issue; the character debuted in More Fun Comics #43 (May 1939) and was an adventurer/bounty hunter who traveled with sidekick Dan Druff.
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Reprinted in Alter Ego #4
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