Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Fawcett Publications, golden age, Wow Comics

Gotham's Hero and the Power of Radiation in Wow Comics, at Auction

Published Sat, 26 Mar 2022 10:32:09 -0500

Fawcett Publications' Wow Comics series is best known for its regular feature Mary Marvel beginning in Wow Comics #9, but the first eight issues of the series are historically fascinating as well. The cover star of many of these issues is Mister Scarlett, a fairly typical caped crusader based in Gotham City in these early issues who was created by the legendary Jack Kirby and writer France Herron. But another regular character in the series, Atom Blake, the Boy Wizard is perhaps even more interesting. An important and overlooked series, there's several early issues of Wow Comics up for auction in the 2022 March 27-28 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122213 from Heritage Auctions.

Wow Comics #2 Crowley File Copy (Fawcett Publications, 1941).

Mister Scarlet is described as "an underworld legend, a myth who strikes with merciless reality and brings justice to those who escape the law through its legal loopholes" and has some obvious inspirations among previous urban vigilantes from pulps and comics including Batman, Atom Blake appears to draw some inspiration from another DC Comics character — the Green Lantern. Atom gets his Dr. Manhattan-like array of god-like powers from his father's experiments in exposing him to radiation in order to make him super-human. The story presents a fairly deep dive into the notion of atomic energy for a comic book of this era, and he may be the first character of this type. But that's only half of the story. Only by wielding a special metal formed into a ring can Atom Blake fully unlock his powers. An inscription on the ring reads, "If the man in need or by evil oppressed can this message read, I will grant his request."

The Wow Comics #2 available here is from the Crowley pedigree, assembled by Wendell B. Crowley, who got his start in comics as the office manager of the Jack Binder Studio, also writing for a variety of comic book publishers, and then became a Fawcett Publications editor, most notably on the Captain Marvel line. Wow Comics is an underappreciated series full of fascinating characters, there's several early issues of Wow Comics up for auction in the 2022 March 27-28 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122213 from Heritage Auctions.