May 1947: Off to See the Wizard

For his final Justice Society of America script, co-creator Gardner Fox conjured up the Wizard to give the JSA the runaround (All-Star Comics 34, May 1947).

In his debut, the top-hatted sorcerer tries to team up with the JSA, believing their alleged “honesty” a mere con. After a few chapters of cat and mouse, the Wizard apparently commits suicide.

“In the end, all the Wizard’s attacks are explained as illusions,” noted Roy Thomas’ All-Star Companion. “Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Miracle Man (in Fantastic Four 3, March 1962) will have a similar look and modus operandi. Of course, Lee Falk and Phil Davis’ Mandrake the Magician had been ‘gesturing hypnotically’ since 1934. Yet when, in the All-Star finale, the Wizard seems to jump to his death in a vat of acid, only the Flash seems at all suspicious!”

I’m glad the Wizard survived to become the catalyst for one of my favorite Superman stories three decades later. 

In Superman Takes a Wife! (Action Comics 484, June 1978), the washed-up Wizard is hired by the super-criminal Colonel Future to wipe Superman out of existence with his magic. The Wizard succeeds simply by making Superman forget who he is.

Freed of the pretense of weakness, Clark Kent then becomes a dynamic reporter, winning the love of Lois Lane and marrying her. Their happiness is only threatened when Lois accidentally discovers that Clark is, in fact, the vanished Superman.

January 1947: Cat in a Hot Pursuit

In the late 1940s, Marvel’s Human Torch battled DC’s Wildcat.

Well, okay, not really, but it certainly looked like it.

In The Catman Murders (Captain America Comics 60, Jan. 1947), the Human Torch and Toro tackled a deadly villain whose costume virtually mirrored Wildcat’s. The Catman was being manipulated by an evil physician, as it turned out.

“He was a mentally ill patient with a cat complex,” the captured doctor explained. “I fostered it, made him think he turned into a cat. Even created that black cat outfit for him — bullet-proof, asbestos-lined to safeguard his life!”

“One of the most visually arresting superheroes of his time, the Torch and Toro delivered plenty of red-hot action and thrills, as the fiery friends confronted the Mad Violinist (and) the Madame,” noted the American Comic Book Chronicles.

Meanwhile, Wildcat would hang in there for another couple of years. 

“Green Lantern, who’d already been shoved off the covers of his self-titled comic by Streak the Wonder Dog, lost his solo venue altogether when it was canceled with Green Lantern 38 (May-June 1949),” noted the Chronicle. “Wildcat was the next to fall, effective with Sensation Comics 91 (July 1949), his spot filled by leftover Streak adventures in the next three issues.”

Ironically, the Human Torch story in Captain America Comics 60 was drawn by an artist who would come to be primarily associated with DC Comics — Carmine Infantino. And in a further note of irony, on the newsstands at the same time was Sensation Comics 60, which featured Wildcat facing a Marvel — Marvello the Mind Reader.

While the Catman ended up dead, Marvello had been coerced by a gang into using his psychic talents for crime, so Wildcat gave him a chance to go straight.

In the last panel of this Irwin Hasen-penned tale, during his stage performance, a member of Marvello’s audience asks him who Wildcat really is. But whether he knows the secret or not, Marvello refuses to say.