Number 1733: Flash Lightning goes to the gas chamber!

This past March, in Pappy’s Number 1706, I showed a story of the villain, the Mummy, from Lightning Comics #5 (1941). Flash Lightning conquered Professor Vatz, the scientist who put on mummy bandages and coated himself with “radium paint” to make himself invincible. Professor Vatz is now in prison, but is given enough freedom to make himself some gas bombs, re-outfit himself in gauze bandages and re-coat himself in radium paint. He is even in possession of a gun that shoots nitroglycerin bullets. Huh. Must be one of those cushy federal prisons, like Club Fed.

There are also other actors in this drama: the warden’s daughter, a prisoner who claims he was framed, and at least one African-American extra, a prisoner who pops out of the first panel of page 11. Just making note of it, and also that it is of its time, almost 75 years ago. And for some reason that is also the page that artist Jim Mooney signed.

From Lightning Comics #6 (1941):

Number 1706: Flash Lightning: Mummy’s Day

This typical early superhero tale from Ace’s Lightning Comics #5 (1941) has a mad professor who wraps himself in mummy bandages, then covers them in radium paint to “protect myself from common weapons” without naming the weapons. Guns? Knives? A couple of sticks of dynamite? And how would radium protect him? I have commented before on at least one other Flash Lightning story that sometimes logic is lacking.

There are some howlers...removing an ancient Egyptian mummy’s bandages as easily as unwrapping an Ace bandage (an appropriate brand under the circumstances) from a sprained ankle. And Flash admitting, “Either I’ve lost my punch or the radium coating is protecting him!” The story is of its era...a bunch of wild and improbable occurrences going off in sequence until a final panel which asks, “Will the Mummy ever stalk again?” Well, of course. If they ask the question then the next one has already been written and drawn! And it was. The sequel was in the next issue.

But wait...I don’t want you to believe there isn’t something redeeming about this tale. The artwork is presumed to be by Jim Mooney, one of the better artists at that early stage of comic book history, at the beginnings of his long career.

There was a point when Flash Lightning’s name was changed to Lash Lightning without any explanation. Here are a couple of Lash Lightning stories which by coincidence are both about werewolves. Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1393: “This guy ain’t human!” Introducing Flash Lightning

Flash Lightning was born of the “mysterious East.” We find out the bare bones of his origin on page 1 of his introduction in Sure-Fire Comics #1 (1940), published by Ace. He was trained in Egypt. Whatever gave him his powers, by 1940 superheroes were basically old hat and the origin was just a means to an end. And the end was action, action, action! That’s exactly what happens to Flash as he goes right to work rescuing a beautiful girl’s dad from a life of slavery.

The Grand Comics Database lists Robert Turner as writer. There is an indexer note that the story is based on the May 1938 pulp magazine, Captain Hazzard. A lack of originality in the story is matched by swipes from Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon by artist Harry Lucey. A year or so later Flash’s name became Lash Lightning, and while I can’t find official information on the reason for the change, it’s likely DC Comics’ character, the Flash, had something to do with it. Another name change came with the comic book title, which after four issues as Sure-Fire Comics became Lightning Comics. Like many other superheroes born in the wake of Superman, Flash/Lash Lightning disappeared shortly after the end of the war. Had I been in charge of him in 1946 I might have taken away the super powers and made Lash Lightning a private eye with a whip. He couldn’t be a cowboy, because Lash LaRue was already whipping up bad guys in the Western B-movies in which he starred.