Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Ace Periodicals, Flash Lightning, golden age

Channeling Shazam and Dr. Fate, the Rare Flash Lightning, at Auction

The star of Lightning Comics, Flash Lightning got his powers from an amulet given to him by an ancient Egyptian figure before Dr. Fate.

Ace Periodicals entered the comics field in early 1940 with the title Sure Fire Comics, which featured the character Flash Lightning by Robert Turner and Harry Lucey.  A superhero with a broad range of lightning-powered abilities, Flash Lightning's origin takes some fairly obvious inspiration from Fawcett's Captain Marvel.  But it is arguably even more similar to the origin of Dr. Fate, and Sure Fire Comics #1 pre-dated Dr. Fate's first-told origin in More Fun Comics #67 by over a year.  Robert Morgan was an American studying in Egypt who encountered an ancient Egyptian figure known as "The Old Man of the Pyramids", who taught him ancient arts and sciences, and gave him "the Amulet of Annihilation, the weapon of the forces of right."  An underappreciated and rare gem of a comic character from the Golden Age, there's a very tough-to-get example of his exploits with this CGC VG- 3.5 copy of Lightning Comics #4 (Ace, 1940) up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase at Heritage Auctions.

Sure-Fire Comics was renamed Lightning Comics with issue #4 and lasted until issue #6.  Lightning Comics was then rebooted with a new #1 later in 1941. While Flash Lightning's adventures were far more standard superhero fare than Dr. Fate's, the saga made references to Egyptian themes from the obvious "lightning pyramid" symbol on his chest, to the Mummy supervillain that was introduced in issue #5. DC Comics reportedly objected to the "Flash in the character name "Flash Lightning", and the character's name was shortened to simply "Lightning" with issue #6.  The series was rebooted with a new #1 in 1941, where he was renamed "Lash" Lightning and the character also appeared in Ace's Four Favorites title.

In the lead story, drawn by Harry Lucey, Flash Lightning is dispatched by his mystical mentor, "The Old Man of the Pyramids," to combat a ring of river pirates who are disrupting the city's waterfront. The pirates' scheme is sophisticated; they have instigated a phony labor strike among warehouse watchmen to clear the way for a massive act of sabotage. Flash Lightning uses his superhuman strength to dismantle the mob, capture the saboteurs, and ultimately uncover their secret headquarters and leader. Flash Lightning's origin, briefly recapped here, is a fascinating combination of two major archetypes: he is granted powers by an ancient mystical entity, much like Fawcett's Captain Marvel, but his connection is specifically to Egyptian magic and artifacts, with similarities to the origin of DC's Doctor Fate.

A key aspect of the Ace comic book line was leveraging existing characters and stories for remixed use. The character The Raven in Lightning Comics #4 was based on the pulp character The Moon Man from Ace's Ten Detective Aces pulp. Similarly, X, the Phantom Fed, was adapted from Secret Agent X pulp stories.  The most famous example of Ace utilizing their pulp material in this way is the character Magno the Magnetic Man's debut story was based on the Secret Agent X storyline "Octopus of Crime by writer Paul Chadwick.

The entire Ace Periodicals comic book line is woefully underappreciated, and a bunch of them are next to impossible to get.  For this particular issue, there are only 15 entries on the CGC cenus, and incredibly, only five Universal entries above CGC 3.5. But there's a rare chance to get this CGC VG—3.5 copy of Lightning Comics #4 (Ace, 1940) up for auction in the 2025 July 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase at Heritage Auctions.

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