“Top that, Superman!”
Whiz Comics #2
Fawcett Publications (February, 1940)
I’m using DC’s “Millennium Edition” reprint from March, 2000. Like the other two comics I’ve gone over lately, this is an anthology title. But why is the first issue #2? From Wikipedia:
The first issue published of Whiz Comics was issue #2, published with a cover-date of Feb. 1940. Fawcett created two black-and-white ashcan #1 issues to solicit advertisers and to secure the copyrights to the material. The two copies were identical but carried different titles: Flash Comics and Thrill Comics; the Captain Marvel character was called Captain Thunder in a near-identical story. When Fawcett went to press with the magazine, the first issue was retitled as Whiz Comics, a name inspired by the company’s bawdy humor magazine, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang.[1] Further complicating matters, when they got to issue #3, Fawcett, through either mistake or intent, used the number twice. Thus, if viewed from the perspective of the second #3 (and, therefore, all the issues that followed it), Whiz #2 unofficially became Whiz #1.
Publishing, everyone! As before we will look not only at the most famous title, the debut of Captain Marvel, but the other comics as well, and one of them WAS used by DC as Captain Marvel’s ally. If you want you can read along thanks to the Digital Comics Museum, since all the Fawcett-published Marvel Family stories are in public domain, even though the now renamed characters are owned by DC. The credits come from the back of the Millennium reprint.
Also, Captain…Billy’s….Whiz….Bang. ‘kay.
