Power Nelson, Futureman
From the first issue of
Prize Comics, Power Nelson, aka Futureman, used his
superpowers to fight the evil Mongol horde that conquered all of civilization in the
far-future year 1982. I’ve read many of the escapades of the red-and-yellow champion of
democracy (through
Prize Comics 23), but I haven’t yet found issue #7 and the
story “Journey to 1940.” (The issue is highly prized, being identified as the first
horror comic because of its modern Frankenstein story; it also has the first Simon and
Kirby Black Owl story.) Later issues do have Power Nelson fighting Nazis and fifth
columnists who are attempting to undermine America, but I’m unclear on whether they are
World War II Nazis or 1982 cohorts of the horde.
Wikipedia cites Paul Norris (the
Brick Bradford strip artist) as the creator of Power Nelson, but the Grand Comics
Database gives a tentative identification of Dick Sprang as the artist for the first six
stories, with Norris’s first works being the cover of Prize Comics 6 and the
“Journey to 1940” story in issue 7. His first signed work, as by Roy Paul, is the
Power Nelson story in issue 13.
I’ll do something about this!