 | Lando, Man of MagicOriginal Medium: Comic books Published by: DC Comics First Appeared: 1941 Creator: Howard Purcell image: © DC Comics. |
Lando, Man of Magic, was as obscure a superhero as DC Comics published in the early 1940s. He was so obscure, he not only was never so much as mentioned in All-Star Squadron, where all the company's '40s super-guys were supposedly to be found — he wasn't even mentioned in the 1985-87 first edition of Who's Who in the DC Universe, where an attempt, at least, was made to list every "serious" DC character who ever appeared under his own logo, and that's obscure!
And yet, he had a couple of minor distinctions that made him
stand out, at least in his own obscure way. One was, he appeared
exclusively in a publication that existed to provide an extra venue
of exploitation for DC's most exploitable characters —
World's Finest Comics, where the major headliners were
Superman and Batman themselves. And he did so right from the
beginning — Lando debuted in World's Best Comics (as
World's Finest was called for one issue only) #1, dated
Spring 1941. DC stars sharing those pages during his brief tenure
included The Crimson Avenger, The Sandman and Green
Arrow, but only Lando was a superhero without another
series.
The other was, for a short-lived guy, he had a lot of changes in creative personnel. It's tempting to say he had the highest-ever ratio of artists to adventures, but it's impossible to know that for sure. His first three were drawn and possibly written by Howard Purcell, whose other magical heroes include Sargon the sorcerer and The Entchantress, but after that it was a new one every issue. The fourth was by Chad Grothkopf (Marvel Bunny), #5 by Louis Cazeneuve (The Dart), #6 by Mike Suchorsky (Hurricane Hansen) and #7 by Lee Harris (Air Wave), a total of five artists for seven appearances.
Being a "man of magic" put Lando in a category with DC's Zatara, Fawcett's Ibis the Invincible and a host of other contemporaries. He wore a stage magician's outfit (in his case, a green tux and a red turban) even tho he was never seen performing on a stage, and used real magic to fight crime and/or evil.
After World's Finest #7 (Fall, 1942), Lando didn't appear again.
— DDM
