The most recent character I’ve read from Mystic Comics #1-4 is Dynamic Man. I don’t remember how (or if) JMS dealt with his origin in The Twelve, but it’s pretty weird here! Dynamic Man is apparently an artificial man created, Frankenstein style, in a laboratory (although it could just as easily be spun that the scientist’s experiments to give him super strength and abilities resulted in amnesia. In any case, the professor conveniently dies of a heart attack just as the experiment concludes.
“What… who… where am I?” says the subject, rising from the table. “This must have been my creator,” he continues, wildly leaping to conclusions. “I seem to know for what purpose I was brought into this world. I won’t fail him!” He also demonstrates an instinctive knowledge of his powers: “I can see through walls, change my appearance at will, even create a magnetic field about me to enable me to fly!”
Events move ahead quickly. In the very next panel, a caption narrates: “The Dynamic Man, now curt Cowan, wastes no time in carrying out his mission. He is now taking an examination to become an FBI agent.” The “scientific” explanations for his powers are quite entertaining. For example, he can make his costume invisible by “electrolizing the atoms of his costume to an astounding velocity.” He can alter his facial features manipulating “the electro-automatic arrangement of his physical appearance.”
His costume changes from issue to issue, leading one to believe each of the artists were working from the same written description, but none had seen the others’ work. I don’t think Martin Goodman believed the quality of Timely’s efforts even mattered; he just wanted that next “Superman” and was desperately throwing concepts against the wall in hope something would stick.
Little from this title did.
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I'll put my money on "The Dynamic Man - Man of the Future, the Perfect Man of Today... devoting his super powers to the progress of civilization, and the extermination of all it's enemies, he constantly endeavors to bring closer the world of tomorrow."
Yikes! For years I've been citing Amazing Adventures #3 as the first "Marvel" comic (and it probably is the first one with "MC" on the cover), but that site lists Marvel Mystery Comics #55 (1944) as the first. (And I probably wouldn't have believed it had they not also posted the indicia.)
I suppose Marvel is both a company name and a brand, so you could understand the first Marvel comic as the first published by a legal entity named 'Marvel', or the first to carry a 'Marvel' (or 'MC') brand.
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Having just read the Commander's latest blog entry, I'm compelled to ask: Dell's Frankenstein vs Timely's Dynamic Man -- who wins?