Number 2128: Firebrand zaps right out of the comics

There were two Golden Age characters named Firebrand: one from Quality Comics (see the link below) and one from Harry “A” Chesler. The Quality Firebrand lasted 13 issues in Police Comics, and the Chesler Firebrand made it for one issue of Yankee Comics. (There were reportedly more stories of the character in Harvey Comics later, but I have never seen them. According to the Public Domain Superheroes website, there is a question as to whether it is the same Firebrand as the one from Yankee. And frankly, what does it matter?)

This Firebrand, from the aforementioned Yankee Comics #1 (1941). drawn by Charles Sultan, was a lineman who got zapped while working on a power line. He was taken into care by a professor who experimented and juiced him up good with electrics! All he had to do was clench and unclench his fists! And he could leave the ground by just jumping and the electricity made him airborne! Wow. He took care of the bad guys, and yet apparently no readers felt a tingle of any electricity from the pages when they read about him. Or, perhaps since he appeared after the Quality Firebrand, Busy Arnold, Quality’s publisher, may have called Harry “A” and threatened to bring down some legal lightning bolts. At this late date nobody really cares, and this Firebrand is one of those one-and-done superheroes from early comic books.

Here is a tale of the Quality Firebrand from Police Comics #5, which I posted in 2013. It is included with a tale of a strange Batman, and a link to a Bad Batman. You have been warned!

Posted in: Pappy Comics