The original Red Tornado is one of the most unique superheroes of the Golden Age, if you can even call her that.
This will be an unusual review without proper scores, because I have to jump all over the place: her roots go way, WAY back…
Popular Comics #6 (1936)
by Sheldon Mayer
…to even before Superman! This is a collection of humor comics published by Dell Comics, of all things.
That’s where we are introduced to child cartoonist Scribbly.
Presumably Scribbly is based on his creator Sheldon Mayer, so he must’ve been quite the troublemaker!
Mayer then went on to become immensely important for the history of comics: it’s entirely possible Superman would never have been published without him!
The syndicated press rejected it about fifteen times. I was singing [its] praises so much that in 1938 Gaines finally took the strip up to Harry Donenfeld, who was looking for original material to run in his new title, Action Comics.
SHELDON MAYER
So it’s not that surprising that the series eventually moved to what would eventually be known as DC Comics.
All-American Comics #1 (1939)
by Sheldon Mayer
It’s still VERY early: this is a month before Batman!
All-American Comics #3 (1939)
by Sheldon Mayer
Scribbly meets his rival Huey in this issue…
…which gets him in trouble with his mother Abigail, or as she’s universally known: Ma Hunkel.
Ma Hunkel is the powerhouse in the family…
…but her daughter Sisty is a close second.
Now I know what you’re thinking: don’t I usually stick to superhero comics? What does any of this have to do with superheroes?
Well…
All-American Comics #20 (1940)
by Sheldon Mayer
…for that, you have to wait for Sisty and Scribbly’s kid brother Dinky to be kidnapped.
Because it turns out that Scribbly and the gang are in the same universe of Green Lantern!
Something that shouldn’t be surprising, considering THIS is the cover.
Considering Scribbly talks about his secret identity, however, it’s entirely possible the idea was initially that Green Lantern is just a comic book character in his world.
The kidnapped kids are doing fine on their own…
…but a mysterious hero shows up anyway.
All-American Comics #21 (1940)
by Sheldon Mayer
While Scribbly is still technically the title character, Red Tornado takes the spotlight.
Too bad Ma Hunkel missed all the action.
Supposedly Red Tornado is a regular human, but you can’t convince me super-strength isn’t involved.
All-Star Comics #3 (1940)
by Gardner Fox & Everett E. Hibbard
If you’re questioning the validity of Red Tornado’s career as a superhero… this is the first Justice Society story!
The fact that Sheldon Mayer was the editor might have had something to do with this.
It’s also quite a bit of a fourth wall break, since the JSA knows that Red Tornado is Ma Hunkel.
All-American Comics #22 (1941)
by Sheldon Mayer
The Justice Society cameo didn’t stop Red Tornado from continuing the Scribbly adventures.
It’s notable that characters constantly consider Red Tornado a male, and she never corrects them in this series (as opposed to the JSA example).
I don’t know how much reader feedback they could get in 1941, but it seems like Red Tornado was a relative hit.
All-American Comics #23 (1941)
by Sheldon Mayer
Especially since Red Tornado gets added to the title from the following issue.
All-American Comics #24 (1941)
by Sheldon Mayer
Not content with stealing the spotlight from Scribbly, Red Tornado immediately gets her own sidekicks: the Cyclone Kids, who are actually Ma Hunkel’s daughter and Scribbly’s brother.
All-American Comics #59 (1944)
by Sheldon Mayer
The serial would last all the way until 1944. But even if Red Tornado was unquestionably the star, Scribbly was still in theory the main character.
Comic Cavalcade #7 (1944)
by Sheldon Mayer
However, the last Ma Hunkel story doesn’t have her dressing up as Red Tornado, as a nice callback to her beginnings.
Scribbly would get his own series in 1948, lasting only 15 issues until 1952.
By that time superheroes were no longer popular, so Red Tornado is nowhere to be seen.
Justice League of America #64 (1968)
by Gardner Fox & Dick Dillin
You would think that, once the android named Red Tornado was introduced, there wouldn’t be any sort of connection to the original. But Ma Hunkel DOES feature in the first appearance of her successor!!!
Kind of.
Secret Origins vol.2 #29 (1988)
by Sheldon Mayer
Ma Hunkel was presumably too goofy even for the Silver Age. But Mayer comes back in 1988 to retell her origin, three years before his death.
It’s the story of how Ma Hunkel managed to keep her secret identity!
The Cyclone Kids showed up 2000 on Young Justice, courtesy of Peter David.
They were part of Old Justice, a team of Golden Age sidekicks!
Which is played for laughs, but apparently the kids had a rough adult life.
The 2007 Justice Society series would eventually introduce Ma Hunkel’s granddaughter, who has wind powers.
Ma Hunkel is the caretaker of the Justice Society’s headquarters in this series. I haven’t read it, but at first glance this version of the character doesn’t seem to have any of the comedic charm of the original.
Her granddaughter will prove to have lots of staying power, taking the codename Cyclone… as a callback to the Cyclone Kids.
You would think she would have no connection to the android Red Tornado, but actually the reason she has powers is that the same evil scientist that created him also gave her powers.
As of 2024, Ma Hunkel hasn’t appeared in a while but she’s still probably alive since she’s occasionally namedropped.
But to close off this VERY unusual review by bringing it back to the beginning… in 2015, on the pages of “Convergence: World’s Finest Comics”, Paul Levitz goes so far as bringing back Scribbly!
He’s important to the story, but he’s basically one gigantic homage to Sheldon Mayer.
I built this around Scribbly Jibbet, whose name you will probably not remember. I guess he’s the only character in the DC Universe who precedes DC. Shelly Mayer created Scribbly originally, as a boy. His Scribbly stories — in the view of Art Spiegelman, who is very knowledgeable on such — is arguably the first autobiographical example of a cartoonist writing about a cartoonist in America. Shelly created it at first for Dell, but then he brought it to DC when he became the first editor of All-American Comics.
PAUL LEVITZ
So… yeah, turns out that Red Tornado is WAY more integral to the DC Universe than you’d think!
