Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: lou fine, victor fox

Lou Fine's Wonderworld Comics #6 & the Fiction of Sabotage, at Auction

With a Lou Fine cover and story featuring The Flame, Wonderworld Comics #6 also features a story inspired by the Rescue of the USS Squalus.

Best remembered today for its cover by Lou Fine, the publication of Wonderworld Comics #6 in late August 1939 captures a powder-keg moment for both the comic book industry and the world.  In hindsight, it's no surprise that these things are related.  From that point forward, over the next few months, the comic book industry would explode.  As for the world at large, the invasion of Poland would commence perhaps only days after this issue hit the newsstands.  In production over the prior few months and including a story inspired by the rescue of the USS Squalus, Wonderworld Comics #6 is a reaction to America's concerns over that time: some old worries, some emerging new fears, and the dawning reality that things were about to change.

The Squalus Disaster and the Fiction of Sabotage

In this issue, the feature K-51 Spies at War "The Sinking of the S-1" is directly inspired by the USS Squalus disaster that had taken place perhaps only days before work on this story commenced. On May 23, 1939, the Squalus suffered a catastrophic failure of its main induction valve during a test dive, sinking to a depth of 240 feet. The subsequent rescue utilized the experimental McCann Rescue Chamber, a diving bell that made four trips to the bottom to save 33 survivors. Wonderworld Comics #6 borrows the rescue mission elements of the real life event, with a rescue bell that closely resembles the McCann chamber's design. Crucially, the comic alters the cause of the sinking. While the official Navy inquiry determined the Squalus sank due to mechanical failure, the comic attributes the disaster to sabotage by foreign spies.

Elsewhere in Wonderworld Comics #6, the lead feature by Lou Fine, The Flame, takes on "The Arson Ring of Mr. Crass," a plotline inspired by the Murder Inc. era arson-for-profit scandals that plagued New York. The CGC census has 30 total entries for this issue, with only 23 of them Universal/unrestored.  Copies of this issue don't trade hands all that often in any grade, but there's an Wonderworld Comics #6 (Fox, 1939) CGC VG- 3.5 Off-white pages up for auction at the 2025 December 11 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase Auction IV at Heritage Auctions.

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