Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Fox Feature Syndicate, golden age, lou fine, will eisner

Will Eisner, Lou Fine Debut the Flame, Wonderworld Comics at Auction

The legendary Will Eisner liked calling characters "The Flame", and his best-known character of that name debuted in Wonderworld Comics #3.

Will Eisner was enamored with calling characters "The Flame."  In 1935, he created samples for an (unpublished) detective comic strip featuring a character of that name as part of his early attempts to break into syndicated newspaper strips.  In 1936, a feature called The Flame, better known by its retitled name Hawks of the Seas, was serialized in early Golden Age comic book series Wow, What a Magazine.  Neither of these characters had anything in particular to do with fire. Initially, Eisner and Lou Fine's The Flame for Fox Feature Syndicate title Wonderworld Comics didn't have quite as much to do with fire as one might think either.

The creation of the costumed superhero version of the Flame was prompted by what can now be considered one of the most important sequences of events in American comic book publishing history. Fox's Wonderworld Comics title was launched as Wonder Comics #1 on March 17, 1939.  Its publisher Victor Fox was sued by DC Comics virtually the instant his debut issue hit the newsstands, "for infringement of copyright on plaintiff's comic strip called 'The Superman' by defendants' comic strip called 'The Wonderman.'"

On April 7, 1939, SDNY Judge John Munro Woolsey found that Wonderman did infringe on DC Comics copyrights. Although Victor Fox would appeal this decision, he had no intention of waiting on that appeal to continue his comic book empire.  Via another legal detour we'll get to in another post, Fox renamed Wonder Comics as Wonderworld Comics and had issue #3 on the newsstands cover featuring The Flame about six weeks later.  There are 26 of the 33 issues of the highly sought-after and tough-to-get Wonderworld Comics series, including the historically important Wonderworld Comics #3 up for auction in the 2023 September 28 The Fox Comics Showcase Auction #40239 at Heritage Auctions.

It is often assumed that the Flame is little more than a Human Torch rip-off, but that issue is more complicated than it seems. The Flame's debut in Wonderworld Comics #3 came three months before the Human Torch's debut in Marvel Comics #1.  However, his fire-based powers were limited to materializing himself within a flame in his initial appearances, as a means of teleportation, and using a flame gun that he invented.

In Wonderworld Comics #11, a few months after the debut of the Human Torch in Marvel Comics #1, the Flame's origin is told for the first time.  It was a not uncommon type of saga in which he ends up in a Buddhist monastery as a child and learns ways of advanced science, magic, and physical combat — and most importantly, control over flame.  That control is seemingly demonstrated for the first time in Wonderworld Comics #14, where he exhibits one of his go-to moves of this period, shooting a stream of flame from his gun and then walking on that stream to get where he needs to go.  Eventually, without further explanation in Wonderworld #22 and The Flame #4, he is shown being able to spontaneously burst into flame himself, which allows him to fly.

Wonderworld Comics is a highly sought-after series with a number of stand-out covers, and the competition to get them is fierce.  A historically important title, there are 26 of the 33 issues of the highly sought-after and tough-to-get Wonderworld Comics series, including the historically important Wonderworld Comics #3 up for auction in the 2023 September 28 The Fox Comics Showcase Auction #40239 at Heritage Auctions. If you've never bid at Heritage Auctions before, you can get further information, you can check out their FAQ on the bidding process and related matters.

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