Mystic Comics #5

Mystic Comics #5 (1941)
written by unknown
pencils by Al Gabriele
cover by Alex Schomburg

We don’t really know who wrote this story. But keep an eye on artist Al Gabriele because he’ll show up multiple times in this retrospective.

We begin with a couple of thugs sabotaging a power plant. Taking bets now: racketeering or saboteurs? I think I’ll go with racketeering this time.

This is the 1941 equivalent of a disaster movie.

That’s when Black Marvel show up.

The story then stops in order to tell the origin of Black Marvel, which for some reason involves Native Americans.

Please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist…

The tribesmen fail the tests that would prove them worthy of inheriting their chief’s strength. Luckily for them, there’s a white guy just around the corner! With a tragic backstory THAT WE DON’T GET TO SEE.

Yeah this isn’t overtly racist, but there are heavy shades of a White Savior here.

Guys, are these tests REALLY part of the tradition, or are you just trying to kill him?

It is a little ridiculous that this Native American tribe has its own hero who wears a skintight suit, but then again this is the same universe that will introduce Black Panther.

I just realized that Marvel has been sleeping on “Native American Black Panther” for over eighty years! Guys he’s RIGHT THERE for you to use!!!

Back to the main story: seems like I jumped the gun betting on racketeering, because the bad guys were after robbing an armory.

Also: “my feathered fiends”? Uh? What am I missing?

Black Marvel tries to get some information from one of the criminals, but he’s shot before he can say much.

Did you bet on “saboteurs”? Well I’m not sure whether you win or not, because all we learn is that this is part of a new big criminal organization.
I wonder if this is somehow the secret origin of what will eventually develop into the Kingpin’s reign.

I should point out that Black Marvel doesn’t use his bow in this adventure, not even once.

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Historical significance: 0/10
I tell you, they should’ve taken the opportunity to turn him into Native American Black Panther.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Honestly this is more of a classic pulp story than a comic book one.

 Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
Slightly bumped by the artwork during the origin flashback. That’s clearly what the creators were focusing on, because all the modern day stuff looks bland.
There’s SOME potential with the idea of a criminal conspiracy, but Golden Age stories are too self-contained to do anything with it.
And as it’s standard for the times, Black Marvel is a complete non-entity.

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How close is this to the modern character? What modern character?
Black Marvel only lasts 6 stories in the Golden Age.
We see him again in 1995 in a Captain America story by Mark Gruenwald, at a party of retired Golden Age heroes.

But we truly see him again in the 1998 series Slingers, where he’s the mentor of the teen hero Prodigy.

Apparently he was quite famous in-universe.

He tries to re-live his glory days, but he’s not completely in there.

We eventually learn that he made a deal with Mephisto to relaunch his career, giving powers to the members of Slingers.

Black Marvel dies during all this, but at least the Slingers manage to free his soul from Mephisto.

Slingers is a weird series. Its characters keep popping up, but it’s such a footnote that its last panel is LITERALLY about them leaving a footnote on a Captain America billboard.

Speaking of the Slingers, they’re brought back in 2017 on the pages of Scarlet Spider, courtesy of Peter David. And Black Marvel shows up.

But it’s immediately revealed that this is just a demon pretending to be Black Marvel to mess with their heads.

He’s shown up in a couple of flashbacks set during the Golden Age, but as of 2024 he’s still dead.

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What else was in Mystic Comics #5?

Aside from another hero origin that I’ll cover in its own review, we have what is probably the worst named hero ever: Super Slave.

Who is just a genie. Why would you call him Super Slave????

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that Super Slave only appears in 1 story.

Speaking of weird names: Sub-Earth Man.

This could EASILY be integrated into the Marvel Universe, with these beings being related to the Lava Men.

I mean there’s already like five sub-terranean realms at Marvel, what’s one more?

In case it wasn’t clear, Sub-Earth Man is the villain of the story.

The access point to his realm is eventually sealed off with an explosion, but I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t bring him back. Sub-Earth Man was actually kind of awesome!
Instead, he only appears in this story.

We also have the Terror, who at least looks like a character that you’d expect on a series called Mystic Comics.

He has 6 Golden Age stories, but he last showed up in 1990 on the pages of She-Hulk, of all places. Being written by Steve Gerber will do that.

Back to Mystic Comics #5, there’s another Black Widow story.

Followed by Moon Man by Fred Guardineer, the creator of Zatara.

Who spends his time reading the GINORMOUS TITLES of newspapers.

He displays his incredible abilities of… jumping a little higher than an ordinary human.

Little known fact: in the 1940s, if you went around in a costume without pants you’d be considered a hero regardless of your actions.

Too bad he’s so obscure. Imagine the adaptation as “Moon Man: Orphan Food Inspector”.

“Moon Man: Confession Stenographer”.

“Moon Man: He Really Needs Better Glasses”.

There is one other story, but it’s worthy of its own review.