Wow Comics #38
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWow Comics #38 is a representative late-Golden Age chapter of Fawcett's most successful anthology, a title whose covers were anchored by Mary Marvel — one of comics' earliest female superheroes — from issue #9 through #58. Published in the final months of World War II, the issue captures the title at a creative high point, balancing its signature blend of whimsy and patriotic action across four concurrent strips that each had their own established casts and ongoing villains. It also marks the sole known appearance of Baron Nukki, an antagonist who frames Commando Yank in a military tribunal plot that mirrored real wartime anxieties about prisoner treatment and military justice. As part of a run that averaged over three million copies sold annually, the issue documents the astonishing mainstream reach of the Fawcett superhero universe in its commercial prime.
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Wow Comics had started in winter 1940 as a general Fawcett anthology before Mary Marvel's arrival with issue #9 transformed it into her primary showcase, with Otto Binder scripting and Marc Swayze providing art that drew on Judy Garland as a visual touchstone for the character. By 1945, the creative engine of the book was a stable of reliable Fawcett hands — Otto Binder on scripts, Jack Binder and Marc Swayze on art, Carl Pfeufer and Edd Ashe in supporting penciling and inking roles — all operating under editor Mercedes Shull and executive editor Will Lieberson. The issue was published in October 1945, just as the war storylines that had driven Commando Yank and Phantom Eagle for years were about to lose their urgent real-world context.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: September 1945; on-sale date: October 1945. Published by Fawcett Publications.
- Cover art and significant interior penciling/inking by Jack Binder; additional art by Marc Swayze, Carl Pfeufer, and Edd Ashe; scripts by Otto Binder. Executive editor: Will Lieberson; issue editor: Mercedes Shull.
- Lead story 'The Pictures That Came to Life' features Mary Marvel versus Leonardo Da Pinchy, an artist whose paintings become dangerous, with a cameo appearance by Billy Batson (Captain Marvel's alter ego).
- Commando Yank story 'Commando Yank Goes on Trial Tomorrow': the hero is framed and faces a military tribunal — the villain behind the plot is Baron Nukki, a Japanese official who first tries to have a kenjudo wrestling champion kill him. This is Baron Nukki's only recorded comics appearance.
- Phantom Eagle story 'The Traitor in the Phoenix Squadron' continues that hero's ongoing wartime saga with his international youth aviator unit, whose recurring members appear across roughly a dozen issues from 1943 to 1947.
- Mr. Scarlet and Pinky story: 'Jim Diamond Wanted for Murder' — the crimson crime-fighting duo take on a murder frame-up plot, with Penny Graves rounding out the anthology in 'Two in a Tomb.'
- Issue runs 36 pages in full color — notably four pages longer than most surrounding issues in the run, which were typically 32 pages.
- Wow Comics was acquired by DC Comics as part of DC's 1991 purchase of Fawcett's comic book assets, and the characters from this issue (Mary Marvel, Mr. Scarlet, Phantom Eagle, Commando Yank) all exist in DC continuity on Earth-S.
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