As long as we're in Golden Age Super Heroine mode this week, we may as well take a look at this awesome, nightmarish Jack and Otto Binder Mary Marvel adventure that I've been sitting on for a while. And being the first day of Spring 2026 no less, the wonderfully surreal, spooky-woodsy vibe of this one is sure to get you all scampering away from the weird wild in no time. Or maybe it'll get some of you budding artists to really appreciate the Binder craft of fantastically freaky monster foliage! Seriously, just all 'round great cartooning here, --and if you missed Binder's Captain Battle and Mr. Scarlet stories I posted over at THOIA earlier this month, you should go check them out immediately! From the January 1944 issue of Wow Comics #21. And FYI: we'll be returning back to "everything else too" here shortly, so quit'yer belly achin'...
3 comments:
It's subject to taste, but IMHO this one has vastly better paneling and it gives a chance for the art to breathe and get some incredibly great images of ... just about everything.
The smoke monster is awesome with his vicious grin and smoke strung mouth. Panel 5 on page 3, with his smokey hair and eyebrows, wow that's just an incredible piece of cartooning from Binder. And on top of that, his humans -- Mary and the hunter -- are very realistic. This is top form art.
Every tree, every plant, every panel of this thing is great.
I love that Mary hits the trees so hard they immediately turn sides and point out where the smoke demon went.
A couple funny story notes in this one: Mary can smash trees by punching them and she originally thinks the smoke monster is a guy in a costume so she -- punches him. If that really was a guy in a costume he'd be a bunch of discrete pieces of gore in a smoke suit after that!
I also love how Mary switches back and forth fully in front of people and ... they don't realize it? Is there some Shazam family power I'm not aware of?
This is a great one. It's so much fun.
A smoke demon and killer trees, the Marvel Family certainly had to deal with some weird foes back then.
The cartoony designs of the demon and trees would have been a perfect fit for a funny animal or Mighty Mouse comic book. In fact, the plot itself would have been a perfect fit for Mighty Mouse or Hoppy the Marvel Bunny.
I really like the fifth panel on page six, with the woodsman chatting amiably to himself as the trees creep up on him. I also like the elastic urgency of the cartooning all over page nine. The frame where Mary flies through the waterfall is pretty great. Mostly, I'm not convinced wacky action is the most comfortable fit for Binder, and there are whole pages where it feels like he's trying to cram so much into the frames that the elements get really tiny or the composition is awkward. I think page seven is a good example of that.
It's a pretty unique shape for a story, too, and I initially thought the sort of "made up as it goes along" vibe wasn't really working, going oblong and unwieldy like an exquisite corpse. But I came around on the second reading. It really does capture the feel of a fireside ghost story told by kids, which are often wild and shapeless.
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