Featuring: Jack Frost
Release: April 20, 1941
Cover: August 1941
10 cents
Story by: Stan Lee
6 pages
A bit of an interlude from our run of old Captain America Comics.
I’ve gotten in the habit of reading these Golden Age superheroes when their namesakes were introduced, but I missed this one. Iron Man fought the new Jack Frost in Tales of Suspense #45. Perhaps that would have been a good time to introduce the Golden Age superhero of the same name. But we didn’t.
I’d say I didn’t have the idea of going back to look at namesakes in my head yet, but that’s clearly not true. Our second post goes back to 1939 to meet the original Human Torch for no reason other than we’d just introduced the new one in Fantastic Four #1. And then a couple posts later, the introduction of the new Gorilla Man gave us all the excuse we needed to meet the original gorilla men. I guess I should admit that I just forgot about Jack Frost.
I thought of him now because we just read Stan Lee’s first Marvel story, and this features Stan’s first superhero co-creation.
Stan created Jack Frost along with the uncredited Charles Nicholas.
Also, I wanted to read the Captain America story from USA Comics #6, which had me anyway looking at the first issue of USA Comics.
And, man if that dude left suspended in a block of ice isn’t good foreshadowing for what’s coming…
Maybe this is a fine time to read this story. Or maybe I should rearrange things to place it back alongside Tales of Suspense #45. Plenty of time to decide that, I guess.
For now, let’s look to the comic.
USA Comics #1 introduces a number of superheroes. The most significant is the Whizzer. He’s a speedster like Hurricane or Quicksilver. I figure we’ll review his story eventually, probably when he gets reintroduced in the modern Marvel Universe. The rest we may just never get to.
Marvel had a lot of superheroes in the 1940s. Most have just faded into obscurity. The Defender. Mr. Liberty. Rockman. Young Avenger. All introduced in this issue. All forgotten by time.
Even Jack Frost is something of a footnote, notable for being an early Stan Lee work and sharing a name with a minor Iron Man villain.
By the standards of the era, it’s actually a pretty good superhero tale. It reminds me of the early Sub-Mariner stories in a few ways.
Jack Frost is an immortal being who has not seen a human in centuries. When the first human he does see is the victim of a crime, he is inspired to go into the world and fight against crime.
Jack Frost has various cold-related powers at his disposal.
Dr. Forbes had been murdered by Mike Zelby over a gold discovery in Alaska. Now Zelby has kidnapped his daughter Alice.
Jack Frost rescues Alice and defeats Zelby. But then we get a rather interesting ending. Alice tries to convince Jack he can’t kill Zelby, that Zelby should face justice. Jack disagrees and lets Zelby burn to death. For this, the police try to arrest him. Jack vanishes, angry at his treatment by humans, with ominous warnings about how he may retaliate. It’s possible he’ll be a villain the next time we see him.
Superheroes having moral debates about the ethics of killing bad guys will continue for decades to come. See any time Spider-Man and Punisher meet.
Jack Frost appears in the first four issues of USA Comics, and then that’s it for the Golden Age. Roy Thomas will attempt to revive some forgotten Golden Age heroes in the 1970s, and that’s when we will meet Jack Frost again, after a 35-year hiatus.
Another Stan Lee co-creation of the era is the Destroyer. I guess we could have checked out his stories when we met the Human Torch villain with that name. But a more famous Destroyer will be introduced soon enough. We may as well wait. I see some sources online claiming Destroyer is actually Stan Lee’s first superhero co-creation. In terms of publication date, at least, that is not correct. Jack Frost hit the stands 3 months earlier.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 56/100
I read this story in Golden Age Marvel Masterworks: USA Comics vol. 1.
It can also be found on Kindle.
Characters:
- Jack Frost
- Dr. Forbes
- Mike Zelby
- Police Commissioner Brian
- Hal Jenkins
- Alice Forbes
Story notes:
- Jack Frost emerges from an iceberg to help a dying man, the first voice he has heard in centuries; he refers to the man as, “Mortal”.
- Opening set in or near Alaska.
- Dr. Forbes asks Jack Frost to save his daughter from Mike Zelby in New York.
- Dr. Forbes placed in impenetrable block of ice.
- Hal Jenkins, Chief of Detectives.
- Jack Frost can apparently shoot cold, making things cold or creating ice. He can breathe cold winds.
- Jack Frost mistaken for a villain by Commissioner Brian.
- Jack Frost described as “Lord of the Storm” and the “King of Cold”.
- Jack Frost can vanish, perhaps teleport large distances.
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