After 85 years of the Marvel Universe, readers have witnessed endless world-building and canon-welding. But have you ever wondered when the FIRST character emigrated into Earth-616 canon? Your Major Spoilers Retro Review of Marvel Mystery Comics #2 awaits!

MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #2

Writer:  Paul Lauretta
Penciler: Paul Lauretta
Inker: Paul Lauretta
Colorist: Uncredited
Letterer: Paul Lauretta
Editor: Martin Goodman
Publisher: Timely Publications (Marvel Comics)
Cover Price: 10 Cents
Current Near-Mint Pricing:
Release Date: October 13, 1939

Previously in Marvel Mystery Comics: Though the Marvel Universe proper traces its roots back to 1939 with the debut of The Human Torch, The Sub-Mariner, and the rest of the cast of Marvel Comics #1, it was Stan Lee’s insistence on a shared universe in the sixties that gave readers the world that we know. That has made for some complications (ROM Spaceknight, Godzilla, and The Transformers reprints have been either a mess or impossible thanks to the shared universe), as well as a few canon immigrants. Firestar and X-23 didn’t appear in comics for years after their cartoon debuts, while Thor’s sister Angela first appeared in Image Comics Spawn. She’s not the only one to have their first appearance be entirely outside of a Marvel publication, though. For that, we go all the way back to (almost) the beginning!

Well, technically, we begin with the wicked Queen Ursula of Castile D’or, whose lust for power and willingness to commit any number of war crimes to get it makes her one of the most dangerous women alive. Apparently, one of the architects of World War I in this not-yet Earth-616 reality, Ursula is saved from exile by loyalists and smuggled back into Europe so that she can once again wage war. She sends an assassin to kill one of her own ministers wearing the uniform of an Attanian soldier. With that false pretense in place, Queen Ursula issues an ultimatum. As she prepares to attack Attania, a small plane sneaks across the border, carrying one brave man: The American Ace!
Making his way into Attania’s capital, The Ace finds a country in turmoil and is present when Castile D’or makes its first attack, a bombing that shatters not only buildings, but bodies, lives, and the promise of peace itself. As this story ends, we find Perry stumbling in the wreckage, uncertain of what he has just witnessed.
Note the hastily added “MORE” tag in the lower right-hand corner of that panel. It’s there because the story, as originally presented in a comic called Motion Picture Funnies Weekly (which we examined as a Retro Review some time ago) had additional pages. That additional material was partly re-presented in Marvel Mystery Comics #3 in January of 1940, wherein Perry meets a girl named Jeanie and vows to end Ursula’s reign of terror!

He then immediately gets shot down, but you can’t really fault him for that. He’s had a pretty big day.That final panel promising more American Ace every month in Marvel Comics ends up being an untruth (and not just because the book had already been renamed Marvel Mystery Comics.) Like a great many characters who appeared in the first wave of Timely Comics, American Ace simply vanished.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. Motion Picture Funnies Weekly was a creation of a studio called Funnies, Inc., and their work didn’t fill only Timely’s pages but in comic books published by Fox Features, Novelty Press, and Hillman Comics. Funnies Inc. material also appeared in the pages of Centaur Comics. (Again, Spoilerites have the upper hand, as Centaur was the home of the first costumed superhero to follow Superman, The Arrow.) In the pages of Amazing Mystery Comics #24, just a few months after the American Ace disappeared, wicked Queen Ursula popped up again, only to be menaced by a man she clearly knows… The Lieutenant Lank!
Why is he called THE Lieutenant Lank, friends? Because this is clearly the next chapter of American Ace’s story with a hastily re-lettered new name, proving that creator Paul Lauretta knew better than to let a good story go to waste. Lieutenant Lank made a second appearance a month or so later, but Centaur Publishing as a concern was entirely gone by late spring 1942.

Perry Wade’s story does have a couple of interesting post-scripts: He was finally acknowledged in the pages of Marvel Comics 70th Anniversary Handbook in 2009, though his name was given as “Perry Webb,” and the conclusion of the story as presented in Centaur books was not acknowledged. 2011’s All-Winner’s Squad: Band of Heroes limited series featured American Ace and other early Timely heroes, claiming that their adventures as presented in the comics were fictional, and that the real heroes were sent into battle as a special commando unit in Europe. As an aside, that story claimed his civilian name is Ace Masters, but given that the series was canceled mid-run and left unfinished, one might be able to claim that it “didn’t happen”, whatever that means. American Ace was also seen in Ant-Man: Last Days #1 right before Secret Wars reset reality in 2015, but the upshot of Marvel Mystery Comics #2 is that it’s the beginning of an 80-year publishing history, featuring one creator, two publishing companies, three secret identities and an unexpectedly entertaining quasi-mystery, with the first installment earning 3 out of 5 stars overall.

(American Ace, by the way, isn’t the only character to cross from Centaur to another publisher, as the history of DC’s Doctor Occult will show… but that’s a story for another Retro Review.)

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