Whiz Comics #19
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWhiz Comics #19 (cover-dated July 1941) is a representative example of the anthology format that made Fawcett's flagship title the best-selling superhero comic of the Golden Age — a distinction it held over even Superman's own titles. The issue showcases the full bench of Fawcett's stable in a single 68-page package, with C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel headlining alongside Ibis the Invincible, Spy Smasher, Golden Arrow, Lance O'Casey, Dan Dare, and Dr. Voodoo — the very cast that proved a diversified anthology could outsell a single-character book. Its lead story, 'The Black Magician,' introduces two new villains (the Black Magician and his son Nip) and demonstrates the folkloric, magic-inflected storytelling sensibility that distinguished Captain Marvel from his more science-fiction-oriented contemporaries. As part of the run collected in DC's Shazam! Archives Vol. 2, the issue now sits in the permanent archival record of comics history.
In "The Black Magician," a mysterious figure takes offense at Billy's dismissal of witchcraft on the air, determined to prove that magic is very real—starting with a chilling personal challenge. Penciled by C. C. Beck and inked by Pete Costanza, the story unfolds with eerie precision, setting a haunting tone that lingers long after the broadcast ends. The cover by Beck and Costanza captures the moment with a striking, foreboding presence.
When Captain Marvel dismisses tales of black magic as imagination, a mysterious new villain named The Black Magician takes offense—and sets his sights on proving him wrong. With his enigmatic son Nip by his side, the Black Magician launches a sinister campaign to turn the young hero’s disbelief into terror, turning the airwaves into a battlefield of fear and mystery.
When Dan Dare receives an urgent telegram from an old friend, he uncovers a protection racket hiding behind the patriotic veneer of the so-called Foreign-American Society—a scheme that's pulling in manufacturers and threatening anyone who refuses to join. Racing to stop the ringleaders before they silence their victims for good, Dan must navigate a web of betrayal, blackjacks, and high-speed chases to expose the truth about who's really running the operation.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
By the time issue #19 reached newsstands in mid-1941, original Whiz Comics writer Bill Parker had already departed the series after issue #15, leaving C.C. Beck as the dominant creative force on the Captain Marvel strip. The issue was produced during a period of rapid editorial expansion at Fawcett: Captain Marvel Adventures had just launched as a companion title that same year, and the Whiz anthology was still carrying the full complement of back-up features that Parker had originally scripted. The cover — Beck's dynamic image of Captain Marvel wrestling a tiger-shark — is a textbook example of early Golden Age cover-versus-content disconnect, as no tiger-shark appears anywhere in the interior stories, a practice common to the era's newsstand-driven cover design philosophy.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated July 1941, published by Fawcett Publications; cover art by C.C. Beck.
- Lead story is 'The Black Magician,' featuring the first appearance of the villain the Black Magician and his son Nip, a warlock who targets Billy Batson after the boy dismisses witchcraft on-air at WHIZ Radio.
- The issue is a 68-page, full-color anthology priced at ten cents, running the full Fawcett back-up roster: Golden Arrow, Lance O'Casey, Spy Smasher, Dan Dare, Dr. Voodoo, and Ibis the Invincible.
- The Ibis the Invincible story, 'The Giant's House,' features a shrunken Ibis navigating a giant's home — one of the more overtly fantastical adventures in the strip's run at that point.
- The cover depicts Captain Marvel grappling with a tiger-shark; this scene does not occur in any story inside the issue — a deliberate or incidental cover/content mismatch noted by multiple sources.
- Original series writer Bill Parker had left Whiz Comics after issue #15; by issue #19, the Captain Marvel scripts were produced by writers working in the Fawcett bullpen under C.C. Beck's art direction.
- The Captain Marvel stories from this issue were collected in DC's Shazam! Archives Vol. 2 (1999 hardcover), alongside material from Whiz Comics #15–18 and Special Edition Comics #1.
- The GCD notes a story-sequencing anomaly: one story in this issue continues in the preceding issue due to a production mistake, an interesting artifact of early Golden Age editorial workflow.
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Reprinted in The Shazam! Archives #2 (1999)
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