Zip Comics #20
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeZip Comics #20 (November 1941) holds a firm place in Golden Age history as the debut issue of Black Jack, the card-themed costumed detective Jack Jones, whose origin story — a corrupt frame-up, a near-live burial, and a playing card as the tool of survival — is one of the more inventive hero-creation setups MLJ Comics produced during its superhero era. The issue also continues the early run of Wilbur, the teen-humor strip that would prove to be MLJ's bridge from superheroes to the editorial identity that eventually became Archie Comics. Taken together, these two features make the issue a small but documentable crossroads: the anthology was simultaneously adding new costumed heroes and laying the comedic groundwork that would eventually subsume them entirely.
In "The Secret Jungle Airdrome," Lucky Lavitto—still convinced of his local dominance after years of fortune-teller visits—faces a chilling new warning: fear "the Black Jack," a name that sends a shiver through his usual bravado. With Al Camy handling both art and inks, the story unfolds in the shadowy jungle where secrets take flight, and Irv Novick’s striking cover captures the mystery with bold, dramatic flair.
In a 1941 tale of crime and fate, Lucky Lavitto—boss of the city and a man long assured of his power—receives a chilling warning from a fortune teller: he must fear "the Black Jack," a figure who will bring his downfall. As Lavitto’s gang, led by Baxter, grows bolder, a mysterious new presence begins to stir, and the town’s uneasy peace teeters on the edge of chaos.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Zip Comics was an anthology published by MLJ Magazines Inc. — the company that would later rename itself Archie Comics — for 47 issues from February 1940 through summer 1944, edited throughout by Harry Shorten. By issue #20 the Steel Sterling feature, the title's anchor strip since issue #1, was being written by Joe Blair and drawn by Charles Biro, while Irv Novick handled the cover. The Black Jack strip, written by Harry Shorten with art by Al Camy, was slotted in to replace the departing Red Reagan feature, part of an ongoing rotation of secondary strips that characterized MLJ's anthology format during the war years.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance and origin of Black Jack (Jack Jones), a powered-down costumed hero with no superpowers or gadgets, who ran in Zip Comics from this issue (#20) through issue #35.
- Black Jack's origin: detective Jack Jones is betrayed by a fellow officer, sealed alive inside a mansion wall by gangster Lucky Lavitto, and escapes by using a Jack of Spades playing card to bore a breathing hole through the drying cement before being discovered and adopting a vigilante identity.
- The issue is cover-dated November 1941 and was published by MLJ Magazines Inc., the predecessor to Archie Comics.
- Cover art by Irv Novick; Steel Sterling story written by Joe Blair and drawn by Charles Biro; Black Jack written by Harry Shorten and drawn by Al Camy; Harry Shorten served as editor.
- Steel Sterling's lead story in this issue involves hunting a German spy responsible for bombing raids in South America, reflecting the wartime geopolitical anxieties that pervaded MLJ's output in this period.
- Wilbur Wilkin, the teen-humor strip introduced just two issues earlier in #18 and a forerunner of the Archie Andrews formula, appears in this issue — he would eventually graduate to his own series in 1944.
- Black Jack replaces the Red Reagan strip, which had run in Zip Comics from issues #10 through #19, illustrating MLJ's regular rotation of secondary features.
- The 'Red Circle' heroes introduced across Zip Comics, including Black Jack, were later revived under a DC Comics licensing arrangement decades after the original series ended with issue #47 in 1944.
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Reprinted in Gwandanaland Comics #1068 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #2006 (2018)
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