The Legion Of Dustbin Heroes: Dynamic Man

Now this one may get a little confusing. First off I need to explain that there were two different characters published in the GA with the same name. The earliest was a 1940 Timely hero, who like the Human Torch was an android created by a brilliant scientist. The champion I’ll discuss today came out in DYNAMIC COMICS, a Chesler title that started in 1941. Now this guy was an android created by a brilliant scientist… hey now… wait a minute! Plagiarism aside it’s this character that had the longer publishing history

Here is his debut from the first issue of DYNAMIC COMICS in October of 1941.

The scripter for the tale is unknown but the artist is believed to be Charles Sultan. Sultan was a veteran of numerous publishers. For Fawcett he did Minute Man and Spy Smasher, at DC he worked on Johnny Quick and for Quality, the Black Condor.

In the following issue Al Plastino takes over on the artwork

I’m most familiar with Plastino via his Silver Age DC work and I’m quite surprised by this early stuff. He was channeling art-god Lou Fine to the max.

The original run of DYNAMIC COMICS only lasted 3 issues. Chesler stopped publishing comics for a couple years but in 1944 resumed issuing the 4-color mags and returned the title to the newsstands. Curiously he restarted the numbering at issue 8. In the mid 1940’s Dynamic Man added the ubiquitous boy sidekick, Dynamic Boy. A battery of talents that included Newt Alfred, Tony Cataldo and Stan Aschmeier took up the art duties during this period. But the most interesting to me was the Puerto Rican émigré, Ruben Moreira. Here is the job he turned in for issue #14 in April 1945.

Chesler ceased publishing the title with issue 20 in 1946. The following year the Canadian publisher Superior took the comic up and put it out through issue 24. Silver Age fans may remember Dynamic Man from the IW/Super reprints in DARING ADVENTURES.

Pat