Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities An EDE Super-Retro Review: New Fun #1

So, yesterday I received in the mail DC's new fancy-dancy hardcover reprint of New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine #1, originally cover-dated February 1935.

This is the first ever reprint of the first ever comic published by one of the companies that would eventually become DC Comics.

It is also the first successful comic book to feature new strips, as opposed to reprints of newspaper comics.

This is a life-size reprint, which means it's gigantic. It was a few months before they decided that they didn't have to produce comic books that were the same size as newspaper features, and shrunk the books down to the present standard.

It's basically a bunch of one-page stories, generally the very beginnings of ongoing serials, so they don't necessarily have a lot of story to them. Eventually, they would realize that having to wait a month for the next page was a lot more annoying than having to wait a week as in the newspapers, and so they would cut the number of features and lengthen each individual feature to multiple pages. But this, of course, was the very early days.

It features introductions by the late Jerry G. Bails and Roy Thomas, as well as a nice piece on Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson by his granddaughter Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson.

So, yeah, I'm going to read this sucker, and talk a little bit about each feature in this thread. I hope it's both new and fun!

Looking forward to it EDE

FIRST FEATURE: JACK WOODS

So, one doesn't even have to open the magazine to be treated to its first comic strip! You get the beginnings of a story featuring Jack Woods, mysterious cowboy-type and sometimes Texas Ranger, right there on the cover of the issue! Wacky!

Jack is apparently out taking his horse for a stroll in the moonlight when he comes across Mexican cattle rustlers who insist that he go along with them! At the rustler's ranch he overpowers the rustlers, but we get the dramatic cliffhanger ending where he is about to have a knife thrown in his back! It really makes you want to open up the book to see what happens next, except... oh, yeah, the story isn't actually continued inside. Bummer.

Jack Woods would run for 35 issues of New/More Fun Comics, and a brief run in Adventure Comics. Then he disappeared, and, despite being technically the very first DC Comics hero, has somehow managed to avoid being gruesomely offed in some mega-crossover event or anything. So, yay!

Great stuff! Not bad for dc's (eventually) first hero. Terrific cliffhanger.

Keep ' em coming EDE. Looking forward to it.

FUN THE FANTASTIC

So, this comic is "hosted" by the elfish figure of "Fun the Fastastic", who introduces the new magazine and describes the exciting adventures that readers can expect in this and coming issues. Readers are appointed as "assistant editors" to help insure the quality of the magazine, and it includes a clippable coupon that can mailed back, listed one's favorite strips, and well as one's name and address, and, for some reason, the nearest movie theater.

The most curious thing about Fun is that he's a dead-ringer for one of the characters who will appear in a strip later in the book! More on that later!

That brought a much-needed smile to my face. Thanks, EDE.

Keep them coming.

Sad that DC couldn't find room for him in either Crisis as a cameo or Who's Who. The anniversary being celebrated was of that issue, so it would have been nice if someone (anyone) from that issue who had an ongoing feature that stretched into the era of acknowledged DC Comics characters was included.

I disagree.

I'm glad Jack Woods remains untainted by the tastelessness and incompetence of DC from 1983 on.

Well, a more tasteful and competent DC would've acknowledged these characters, so it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing.

Fair enough.

SANDRA OF THE SECRET SERVICE

Next up, we have a somewhat inauspicious opening to what is actually one of the coolest features in the book, Sandra of the Secret Service.

Sandra, apparently not yet of the Secret Service, is late for an appointment at the dressmakers, and so hops into her limo and tells her driver, naturally named "James", to step on it. At a red light, a well-dressed man hops in the car with her, and tells James to take them to a certain address. Pursued by gunmen in another car, they apparently manage to elude their pursuers (it's not shown how), and the mysterious gentleman thanks Sandra for her help.

Once at home, Sandra's butler Haskins announces that she has a gentleman caller, who turns out to the man she saved earlier, but just as he is about to explain who he is and what the deal is, a man with a gun enters the apartment, and... that's the cliffhanger.

So, Sandra of the Secret Service would also run until More Fun Comics #35. It's actually pretty cool that the lead inside feature of the book stars a female protagonist. And she would develop into a pretty kickass female character as well. Unfortunately you don't really get that in this issue, as she's pretty passive in this story so far. I'm betting she hurls a vase at the gunman or something in the next installment, though.*

Anyway, I've decided that Sandra is old friends with Diane Belmont and recruits her into the OSS for the duration of the war, as theorized in the A-SS re-read thread!




*I looked it up. It's actually a chair she hurtles at the gunman!

JIGGER AND GINGER

So, this is a really curious little feature. I read the first installment as intended as a kind of teen comedy, but sources on the internet describe it as an adventure/mystery feature.

Jigger has a date with Ginger. Kip, his rival, overhears, and convinces "the boys at the fraternity" to kidnap Jigger for an initiation so that Kip can date Ginger instead. Kip picks up Ginger, angry at having been stood up by Jigger. Meanwhile, the fraternity leave Jigger stranded in the road as the last step in his initiation. But, soon, Kip and Ginger drive by, Ginger insists on picking up Jigger, and Kip ends up chauffeuring them around. Not the greatest gag, but okay.

This feature would only last one more issue, and the second installment apparently ends on a cliffhanger of Ginger being kidnapped (probably the source of the adventure/mystery label), and thus I would assume makes it the oldest unresolved plot in DC history!

I love this.

I like the Sandra idea. Does she have a last name? I know that Phantom Lady was acquired by DC and not originally published by them, but maybe it could retroactively be "Knight".

Apparently her last name is "McLane" or "McClane". I'm not sure how well identifying her with PL would fit, but it's an interesting idea.

Barry O'Neill

Next up we have square-jawed adventurer Barry O'Neill, who has been summoned to the office of French Secret Police Chief LeGrande to discuss his arch-enemy, the criminal matermind Fang Gow. Unbeknownst to Barry and LeGrande, Fang Gow at that very moment is planning an assassination attempt, via a bomb designed to go off when he sits down in his car! Barry is saved because he causally tosses a dufflebag into the car from several feet away (as one is wont to do), triggering the bomb from a safe distance! Afterwards, he returns to his hotel, shaves, and then, as he is talking on the phone, a knife-wielding assassin sneaks up on him from behind! To be continued...

This series seems to be basically an attempt at the Yellow Peril/Fu Man-Chu genre. From what I can tell, we're never really given much in the way of background on Barry or his rivalry with Fang Gow, but he apparently travels around all over the world, LeGrande in tow, thwarting a variety of pulpy schemes. He's actually the longest running character introduced in NF#1, with his exploits lasting through #29 of More Fun, and then an additional run from Adventure Comics #31-#60. Fang Gow is apparently killed off eventually, but Barry and LeGrande have a couple of adventures after this.

In his last story, a wealthy uncles dies, leaving him a fortune, so it seems he most likely settles down at this point to a life of peace, hoping that no future DC writer discovers him and has him brutally murdered. And then, seventy-five years later, in an issue of Rebirth Batman, an elderly wealthy gentleman named Barry O'Neill is, you guessed it, brutally murdered!

Well, Sandra Knight was based in Washington, had an adventurous spirit, and was friendly/familiar with scientists who work on unusual projects. Having some sort of secret career as a government agent before becoming a super-heroine wouldn't be out of character and probably not hard to retrofit to her backstory.

Is this Fang Gow the same Fu Manchu figure who is featured on the code of Detective Comics # 1?

Yeah, it might work. Giving her a secret service career in 1935 makes her a bit older than I would normally think of her as being, and I'm not sure how well having a father who is a Senator would fit with this Sandra, but, again, it's an interesting idea.



I don't remember if that guy is named, but, from what I recall, he has a very distinctive tall build, so it wouldn't really fit. One could probably connect the organizations, though.

Just had a look back at Rebirth Batman Annual #1. Yeah brutally murdered indeed, and apparently just to introduce a new villain (although his years of generosity do get a speech from Gordon and a philosophical pondering from Bruce).

Is there anything to indicate that it actually is the same character from NF#1? It seems unlikely that the re-use of the name is just a coincidence.

The Magic Crystal of History

Now this is a delightful little feature! A young boy and girl, Bobby and Binks, are caught out in a rainstorm, and take refuge in a spooky looking old abandoned house. In the darkness of the house, they are attracted to the light from a strange glowing crystal ball. As they touch the ball, it seems to grow bigger, and draw them into it, and suddenly they find themselves in Egypt! Only... the pyramids are still being built, so Bobby concludes that they've gone back 6000 years to 4000 B.C.! What will happen to them? We've got to buy the next issue to find out!

So, I guess this is officially DC's first time travel series. I had previously thought that honor belonged to Sheldon Mayer's "The Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed" from New Comics (later Adventure) #1. Apparently, their adventure in Egypt lasts for the first year of the series, and, after they returned home, the format changes so that the crystal simply shows the kids historical events rather than transporting them to them. In this format it lasts until #50.

This is a pretty cool premise even if we don't really get much of it this issue. There's definitely potential for a cool story crossing over with the Legion, or maybe an older Bobby and Binks could face off against Per Degaton twelve years later. Or could the Magic Crystal actually be the Orb of Nabu?

New Fun certainly living up to its title.

Dial O for Orbuculum!

This thread is a BLAST, Edie! For me, it would be frustrating to buy it and only get a page per story, but I like how you describe them and give us a look ahead at the feature's future!

Yeah, even with the GA-style writing which packs a fair amount into each page, the one page per story thing is frustrating. The main value of this really is just seeing what the first DC comic looked like.

Honestly, part of the reason for this thread is that posting about each feature makes it a lot more fun for me to read, so I'm glad other folks are enjoying it.