Top Notch Comics #2

From January 1940, this ten-cent anthology from MLJ/Archie delivers exactly what its "Thrills Action Adventure" badge promises. Edd Ashe's cover puts The Wizard — billed as "The Man with the Super-Brain" — front and center in his red mask, his outstretched hand apparently smashing apart a swastika-marked enemy aircraft while aerial combat and leaping figures erupt around him in a blaze of fire and machine-gun fire. Rounding out the lineup are Air Patrol in "Sky Raiders of the Western Front," The Westpointer, and Scott Rand in the Worlds of Tomorrow — a remarkably packed issue that captures the bold, pulp-fueled energy of early Golden Age comics at its most exhilarating.