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Schomburg bondage cover; origin & 1st app of Fiery Mask, Monako, John Steele and Doc Doyle (1/40)
Windy City Copy


The tenuous bridge between the pulp fiction of the 1930s and the hero boom of the 1940s was famously defined with Daring Mystery Comics #1 — starting with the characteristically hyperactive bondage cover from the great Alex Schomburg. The wild sci-fi imagery may be straight out of Buck Rogers, but Timely's reliably nightmarish villains invited readers to pursue a bold new direction.

The company was still bringing in outside stories from the Chesler and Jacquet Studios, with writer/artist Joe Simon inspiring Schomburg with the debut of the Fiery Mask in "The Fantastic Thriller of the Walking Corpses" (featuring both giant birds and zombie hordes). Monako the Magician also makes his first appearance, as well as two-fisted football star (and future superhero) Flash Foster. These early issues crackle with the fearless creativity that would lead to the Marvel Age, as publishers tried pretty much anything in pursuit of a constantly growing readership.

This striking 9.2 is one of only two copies of Daring Mysteries #1 to be graded above an Unrestored 9.0 on the CGC Census. (There are only 29 Unrestored copies in the entire Census.) The rich colors and sharp corners are typical of the legendary Windy City pedigree that carefully preserved thousands of first issues from the Golden Age.


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