One of comics’ most iconic Golden Age heroes is back in action as Stardust the Super Wizard is starring in Family Fun Comics #18 from Cosmic Lion Productions, with a story by the Coats Brothers (Dino Beasts).
Debuting in 1939 in Fantastic Comics #1 by Fletcher Hanks from Fox Feature Syndicate, Stardust the Super Wizard starred in sci-fi adventures about a special man who navigated the cosmos before coming to Earth to take on crime. Although an obscure comic at the time, over the years Hanks has gained fame as one of the most unusual comics creators of the era, both trippy and naive.
Now, Stardust makes a long-awaited comeback in Family Fun Comics#18 from James and John Coats in an all-new story that is both a radically modern (and violent!) take on the character and an homage to the weirdness of the Golden Age originals.
Check out The Beat’s exclusive preview of the comic and the blood-soaked adventures that await Stardust.
This spring, Stardust the Super Wizard returns to comics, courtesy of brothers James and John Coats and publisher Cosmic Lion Productions. The Golden Age hero, created by Fletcher Hanks in 1939, will once again fight evil in an oversized issue by the Coats brothers that captures the bizarreness of the original strip and pushes it into even stranger, more heightened realms of distortion and violence. Family Fun Comics #18, numbered to follow the original 17 installments of Stardust, adds new elements to the hero’s mythos while incorporating classic components from the Hanks material. It’s a love letter to a bygone superhero age, full of action, excitement, and gloriously unpredictable oddness.
“Golden Age superhero comics were wild, energetic, colorful, violent adventures,” says the Coats Brothers. “Anything could, and often did, happen. We love the storytelling spirit of those books, where you genuinely didn’t know what was going to happen on the next page. That’s the spirit we tried to put into this comic. Fletcher Hanks’ Stardust is one of the crazier heroes of the Golden Age, and that’s why he was the perfect vessel for Family Fun Comics. This book is a love-letter to the unhinged heroes of the past.”
“The distortion of our Stardust mirrors the distortion of his quest for justice. He interacts with his world through the bizarre lens of a super-man without peer who mingles with aliens, mutants, and monsters. The science of Stardust is beyond our understanding. And that’s why he is a Supreme Wizard, matched only by Galaxy, his turtle equivalent from another dimension. Stardust is both hero and destroyer. He is the ultimate vision of humanity.”
Family Fun Comics #18 can be pre-ordered from Cosmic Lion Productions now.
