Somewhere Out There Lucifer Is Going Crazy

As noted last time, my favorite strip in Fantastic Comics was Flick/Flip Falcon by "Orville Wells" - another rather obvious pseudonym, as with Professor Fiend's "Boris Plaster".

I don't know who wrote it, but in the beginning it was drawn by the late Don Rico, an artist whose name might not be too well known now since he died back in '85. But, as well as being one of the greats of the industry back in the old days, his influence is still being felt today. In fact, he's one of the credited writers for the upcoming Black Widow movie.

And he was there at the dawn of comics with this series launching back in 1939 -

Yeah - i was hooked pretty instantly on this one. 

With his return to Mars, he and Adele learn that there was more to the story than Flick realized in his first encounter -
 

The next few issues wrap things up and then expand the boundaries of the series. First they follow through on that last panel, meeting the real Martians...
 

...and then working to overcome the invaders.
The fight to free Mars is a quick one. Flick does his Lemuel Carter routine...
 

 ...and Adele impersonates a goddess to save the day...

After a quick name change from Flick to Flip and an accidental side trip through time on the way home, they start to explore the neighborhood...

...with a bit of savagely dated social commentary, deftly deflected by our hero...
 

...and, honestly, i'm not quite sure what to think about how the final battle ends...
 

Just why is that creature pouncing on it's dead mate? Let's all be glad the camera moved on...

And then things started to get weird -

In the next issue, Flip took his first trip to Mercury. Again.
Um...  different Mercury? Like, above he went to "the planet called Mercury" and next time he's going to actual Mercury? Did we switch writers? Was Venus not hot enough? Will Flip be forced to mate with the Insect Queen of Mercury?

Yeah, that's an actual question.

page art by Don Rico from Fantastic Comics #s 1-3, 5, & 6 (1939, 1940)

Into The Unknown And Fantastic Elements Never Before Traveled By Man

Well, i promised a Fantastic post this afternoon, so it's time to deliver. We actually have a bit of a head start on this a few days ago when we met this guy...

 Okay. You might not recognize a couple of those stories (we'll get there) but, it's the good (bad?) Professor to whom we refer, not the tales. Rather surprisingly, Professor Fiend is the first time we've touched on Fantastic Comics. 

Fantastic Comics premiered in December of 1939 (cover date), lasting only 23 issues over two years. (Or 24 issues over 70 years. As mentioned in Professor Fiend's previous post, it's a little tricky.)

The star of the book, hogging all the covers, was Samson, a legally safe Superman substitute...

...and in that classical vein, they featured The Golden Knight...

...and an updated version of another classic character, Captain Kidd -

With world war looming, it's no surprise to find a strip like Yank Wilson, Super Spy Q-4 -

And BTW - Yank was rocking the blue body suit look for superspies long before S.H.I.E.L.D. -

They also had scifi adventure beneath the sea in the far future with Sub Saunders -

What makes it so surprising that we haven't been here before is one of the  golden age kings of Odd had two features in the book, including his most famous creation, Stardust, The Super Wizard -

Fletcher Hanks was perhaps too obvious when i was starting this blog, and so Fantastic Comics got pushed to back of the cave and ignored.

Fletcher also wrote & drew Space Smith under his Hank Christy nomme de plume -

And then there was my personal favorite. Halfway to Buckaroo, it's the adventures of Flip Falcon In The Fourth Dimension -

(Yeah, it took a couple episodes to settle on his name)

These were just the characters who were around at the beginning of the book. More joined along the way; some only in the last couple issues as they tried new things before cancellation. We'll likely peek at them eventually, but next - Let's join Flip Falcon back when he was still Flick to see how he got started...

splash panels from Fantastic Comics #s 1-12 (1939, 1940)