Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: golden age, Hillman Periodicals

Miracle Comics and the Rare Super-Science of Sky Wizard, at Auction

Miracle Comics featured Sky Wizard, the "world's greatest scientist" with a headquarters on a floating island in the sky.

Published Mon, 09 Jan 2023 11:16:10 -0600

by Mark Seifert

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The debut comic book effort from magazine and paperback publisher Hillman Periodicals, the Miracle Comics series ran for four issues from early 1940 to early 1941. Hillman's comic book line and this title itself were developed under the auspices of Hillman editors Tony Field and Lionel White, with White soon becoming the publisher's Editor in Chief. The title's protagonist was the Sky Wizard, the world's greatest scientist with a headquarters on a floating island in the sky. With a series of superweapons of his own invention, Sky Wizard defended mankind from a variety of threats. This is a tough-to-get and often-overlooked series, but there are copies of Miracle Comics #1, #3, and #4, featuring the world's greatest scientist turned superhero Sky Wizard now up for auction at Heritage Auctions' January 8-9 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122302.

Miracle Comics #1 (Hillman Publications, 1940)

Sky Wizard was the creation of writer Emile C. Schurmacher and artist Ed Kressy. Under Schurmacher's guidance, the short-lived feature became an example of how WWII-era cutting-edge scientific concepts were being embedded into comic book stories to update the more traditional superhero concepts. In a 1940 article in Writer's Digest, Miracle Comics writer Schurmacher wrote of the pseudo-scientific elements that he introduced to Sky Wizard's adventures. Schurmacher was inspired by news accounts of footprints in the Himalayas ascribed to a race of giant snowmen, a reported German effort to mine the skies against invading airplanes, and methods of growing vegetables in water known as hydroponics that was being introduced in newspapers in the late 1930s. With these elements in play, Sky Wizard's adventures took on a life of their own.

Schurmacher was a longtime magazine fiction writer for a wide range of publications, and later became the managing editor of Hillman's Pageant Magazine at the launch of that time. Pageant would later become embroiled in a massive political controversy under Schurmacher's successor as managing editor, Abner Sundell (who himself had been a longtime MLJ/Archie editor and writer).

There are only 14 copies of Miracle Comics #1, 10 of issue #3, and 8 of issue #4 on the CGC census. In addition, #4 is considered by Heritage Auctions as one of the ten rarest Hillman Periodicals comic books. Featuring a quirky and unique hero of the Golden Age in Sky Wizard, there are copies of Miracle Comics #1, #3, and #4, featuring the world's greatest scientist turned superhero Sky Wizard now up for auction at Heritage Auctions' January 8-9 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122302. For those new to Heritage Auctions and their bidding process, be sure to check out their FAQ on the bidding process and related matters.