Super-Mystery Comics #4
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSuper-Mystery Comics Vol. 1 #4 (August 1941) marks the first appearance of Davey, the boy sidekick who would become inseparable from Magno the Magnetic Man — a partnership that anchored Ace Magazines' flagship superhero title across the majority of its 48-issue run and made the duo among the most prominent non-DC, non-Timely superhero team of the Golden Age. The issue also delivers a pointed piece of wartime propaganda in its Vulcan story, in which the fire-controlling hero confronts and humiliates Hitler, Goering, and Mussolini during the Blitz, placing it squarely within the genre's rapidly escalating anti-Axis storytelling turn of 1941. Magno himself — a master of magnetism who flies by attracting himself to metal and operates without any revealed origin or secret identity — has been widely recognized by comics historians as a significant early model for the magnetically powered superhero archetype. The Magno-and-Davey team that crystallized here went on to appear in 28 issues of Super-Mystery Comics and all 26 issues of Ace's crossover anthology Four Favorites, making this single issue the pivot point for the entire Ace superhero narrative.
This anthology issue features multiple superhero stories. Brad Spencer battles ghostly Gestapo officers who have been freed from Jefferson Detention Camp and fights to prevent them from reaching Colonel Hess to promote him to major rank. Wonderman confronts alien creatures from Saturn who have landed on Earth and demand he help them harass the solar system until their additional ships arrive. The Jungle Boy (Zudo) encounters large creatures in a jungle setting and battles them while seeking revenge, ultimately escaping with a diamond and vowing to return for further adventures.
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Super-Mystery Comics was the creation of a comics production studio run by packager Patrick Lamar, who assembled the early content for Ace Magazines publisher Aaron A. Wyn — a former pulp fiction publisher who had entered the comics field in 1940. A 1941 lawsuit that Lamar filed against Ace over page-rate disputes revealed the production arrangements behind the series, and researchers have concluded that Vol. 1 #4 may represent Lamar's final work in comics before he exited the industry following that contentious legal battle. The cover and lead Magno story were drawn by Jim Mooney, with Jack Alderman handling the Vulcan strip, Harry Anderson on Buckskin, Mark Schneider on Captain Gallant, and Earl Da Voren on Peewee Wilson — reflecting the multi-artist anthology structure typical of 68-page Golden Age books that Ace used throughout the series.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Davey, Magno the Magnetic Man's boy sidekick: Davey's sister Carol (a private investigator) sewed him a miniature Magno costume; when she was kidnapped, Davey put it on, and Magno reluctantly shared a portion of his magnetic powers with the boy for one hour to rescue her — establishing the duo that would define the series.
- Cover and lead 'Magno the Magnetic Man' story drawn by Jim Mooney, who also served as a recurring artistic presence on the title throughout Ace's superhero era.
- Published August 1941 by Ace Magazines (under the Periodical House imprint), 68 pages, full color.
- The 'Vulcan' installment in this issue depicts the Blitz and has Vulcan — a fire-controlling hero described as a descendant of the Roman god — torturing and humiliating Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Benito Mussolini, an unusually direct piece of anti-Axis wish fulfillment for a 1941 comic.
- Anthology lineup also includes The Black Spider (a district attorney who fights crime with trained poisonous spiders, introduced in Vol. 1 #3), Buckskin (art by Harry Anderson), Captain Gallant and His Mini-Sub (art by Mark Schneider), and Peewee Wilson, U.S.A. (art by Earl Da Voren), plus a text story 'Hair-Trigger Headwork' by Cliff Howe.
- From this issue forward, the Magno feature effectively became a duo strip; it was formally retitled 'Magno and Davey' beginning with Vol. 3 #2.
- The Magno-and-Davey partnership that debuted here ran through 28 issues of Super-Mystery Comics and all 26 issues of the companion anthology Four Favorites (1941–1947).
- A modern reprint collection by Calumet History and Hobby (ISBN 9781490918280) includes the complete Vol. 1 #4 alongside five other issues from the run, making the issue's contents accessible to contemporary readers.
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