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| This is why I keep coming back here:
1) The Steel Sterling Origin, which is pretty intense for 1940, but has that wonderful Golden Age logic ("I'll just jump into this vat of molten metal! Maybe it will give me super-powers!")
2) A western with nice horses;
3) A jungle hero with the added gimmick that he turns into a giant when eating a magic seed (and, yes, one pill makes him small...)
4) An aviation strip with beautiful planes and the worst comics lettering known to man;
and 5) a magic story in which the Great Zambini is asked to intervene in a war between Ritania and Hundaria--and no, the ruler isn't named Rufus T. Firefly...
You can't make this stuff up, folks... |
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| Steel Sterling---You just know that you are a real bad-ass when you wear steel shorts that are riveted on !!
"Kalthar" was a fun read with neat art work to match. |
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| Sterling has "the magnetic power of steel." Does that mean bad guys can capture him by turning on a huge electromagnet?
Nice Caniff-ish artwork by Elmer Wexler on "Zambini." Thanks to Ger Apeldoorn's blog I've come to appreciate Wexler's art. Later he developed an ad agency style and worked on tons of Johnstone & Cushing commercial strips. |
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| Love that Ed Ashe art on Mr. Satan.
Steel Sterling's origin is a lot of fun, one of the coolest out of the MLJ characters. |
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| I was amazed to see "Man of Steel" on a comic that didn't feature Superman! |
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| It was so easy in the good old days, to become a superhero, you just had to expose yourself to radiation (Hulk, Dr. Solar), or get bitten by a spider (Spiderman), or hop into molten metal (Steel Sterling), or just call SHAZAM and you were a Superhero. I used to go up and down in my apartment for a whole day and kept calling SHAZAM, but nothing happened, apart from the fact, that the neighbors now think I'm crazy. ;-)
Okay, okay, I accept, that I'm probably never become a superhero, but as a consolation I can read superhero comics, that's also nice . . . hahaha :-) |
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| One crazy feature after another, including the bizarre and violent Steel Sterling; the Scarlet Avenger, whose face is frozen and has a dozen gimmicks; Nevada Jones, Cattle Detective, a nicely drawn (albeit casually racist) Western; Kalthar, a cross between Tarzan and Henry Pym, and much, much more. Artist include Mort Meskin, Irv Novice and Charles Biro. I even liked the text feature. Pure Golden Age goodness. |
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| Additional Information |
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| Publication | February 1940 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 | Frequency: monthly |
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| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Steel Sterling [John Sterling] |
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| Synopsis | John Sterling completes the chemical formula which will completely protect him from the underworld's bullets, unlike his murdered father who was killed by a group of ruthless gangsters. John bathes himself in the formula, which has been poured into a cauldron of molten steel, dives in the cauldron, and emerges as a man with the resistance, magnetism and strength of steel. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Steel Sterling [John Sterling] (introduction, origin]; policemen; The Black Knight (villain, introduction, death); The Black Knight's gang (villains, introduction for all) |
| Notes | Script credit from The MLJ Companion: The Complete History of the Archie Comics Super-Heroes (TwoMorrows, 2016 series) #nn (August 2016) |
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| Content | Characters: Mugsy (a dog) |
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| Synopsis | Jim Kendall has devoted himself to wiping out gangland since the death of his wife and child while flying in a hijacked plane, which crashed, and in which all were killed except Jim. In the accident, his face muscles were paralyzed and Jim became the man who never smiled. Kendall has a giant scientific brain, and uses that science to the aid of his crusade. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: The Scarlet Avenger [Jim Kendall] (introduction, origin); Operative No. 12 (introducion); Chief Mike Brady; Sledge Hammer (villain, introduction) |
| Notes | Kendall fashioned for himself a scarlet robe, woven from steel into a super-fine, bullet-proof steel-mesh cloak, and the flaming arrow is the emblem of Scarlet Avenger. |
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| Comic Story | The Rustlers of South Valley (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | The Cattleman's Association has sent Nevada Jones to help Irene Cox prevent her herd being stolen by rustlers. |
| Content | Genre: Western-frontier | Characters: Nevada Jones (introducion); Irene Cox; A gang of Mexican rustlers (villains, introducion, most dead) |
| Notes | Art is identical to Volpe's many signed and unsigned Loop Logan stories in Blue Ribbon Comics, from #4. He can be spotted by his very realistic horses in #13, bony faces with marked cheek lines and mouth inked in two short lines. Also the small lines on each side of nose or smiling cheeks. Compare as well his signed London stories in Daredevil Comics #9 and 10 (Lev Gleason) The faces are more easy to spot a few stories later, but the horses are the same. |
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| Comic Story | "Kalthar, mighty giant of the jungle........" (6 pages) |
| Content | Genre: Jungle | Characters: Kalthar (introduction, origin); Ta-Lo (a witch doctor, introduction); Kate Goodwill; A band of Arab slavers (villains, introduction for all) |
| Notes | This bronze jungle lord was raised by the Urganas after his father died protecting them from Arab slave traders. In addition to being able to talk to the beasts, the witch doctor Talo gave him red grains that enables him to grow to 15 feet tall and green grains to restore him to normal height which helps to make him stand out from the many other jungle lords out there. His mate is the brunette Kate Goodwill. |
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| Comic Story | The Devil's Flying Twins (8 pages) |
| Synopsis | The Shane twins are rich Americans who join the British Air Force to continue a feud with the German sportsman, Herr Schultz. |
| Content | Genre: Aviation; War | Characters: Tim and Tom Shane (introducion, the Devil's Twins); Anton Schultz (villain, introducion) |
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| Text Story | You Can't Win! (2 pages) |
| Synopsis | Executions are likely to be drably gruesome affairs even to the most hardened newspapermen. |
| Credits | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Crime | Characters: William Edward Hickman (murderer) |
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| Comic Story | The Pirates of Ho Tsin (8 pages) |
| Synopsis | Captain Valor resigns his commission in the U.S. Marine Corps to seek adventure, and, aided by Ronnie and Angie, heads to China to battle the evil Ho Tsin. |
| Content | Genre: Adventure | Characters: Captain Valor (introduction); Ronnie; Angie (Ronnie's sister); General Ho Tsin (villain, introduction) |
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| Comic Story | The Eye of Oglu (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | A young girl's father is missing after a series of weird happenings. She suspects foul play and contacts Dudley for help, who dons a purple costume with yellow cape and ventures out to help as Mr. Satan, international detective and soldier of fortune. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Mr. Satan [Dudley Bradshaw] (introduction); Mary Doran; Mr. Doran; Count Bodana (villain, introduction) |
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| Comic Story | Lou Ambers (1 page) |
| Content | Characters: Lou Anders (Lightweight boxing champion) |
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| Comic Story | The Ritania-Hundaria War (8 pages) |
| Synopsis | The king of Ritania begs Zambini to help him win the war against Hundania. Hundanian spies place a huge and deadly cobra, whose bite means death, in Zambini's bedroom. |
| Content | Genre: Fantasy | Characters: Zambini the Miracle Man (introduction); King of Ritania (introduction); Mata Dari (villain, spy); Hundarian spies (villains, introduction for all) |
| Notes | Zambini possesses some real magic ability, and also owns a "boomerang" necklace that makes evil magics return to their source, allowing him to follow. He loses his abilities when someone makes and maintains physical contact. He speaks magic spells generally by inserting "ab" into the words. |
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| The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |
