THE FLAME #1 [Forgotten Golden Age Comic Book Superheroes] by Will Eisner and Lou Fine

Molten-hot action with this forgotten but legendary comic book superhero!

Will Eisner and Lou Fine created The Flame and he was instantly one of the hottest characters of the Golden Age of Comics. In fact, you could easily trace a lot of The Flame forward to many now-legendary comic characters.

Gary Preston was the only survivor of a flood that killed his father, Charteris Preston—a missionary in China.  Little Preston was saved by a benevolent order of Tibetan monks who taught him the mysterious power of heat and fire. Gary learned that power must be used for good—and thus The Flame was born. Like a lot of characters created around that time, The Flame's ability—and adventures—were so imaginative they were almost hallucinatory: The Flame can raise his body temperature high enough to melt bullets, control any nearby fire, and even travel through fire itself—including appearing out of a casually lit match. Naturally, The Flame's weakness is water—often used by the villains to try and snuff him out. Lonely at first in his burning pursuit of justice, in later issues Flame Girl, sporting almost identical powers, joins The Flame in his crusade against evil in all of its forms.

In this complete reprinting of all The Flame stories from the very first issue—over sixty pages of non-stop thrills—Eisner is at the helm, writing every story while his partner of the time, Lou Fine, produced the art. While concentrating on adventure and action, they work together to introduce many little embellishments that keep their work far out of the routine. Each panel and page leaps out at the reader—even decades later—with grace, composition, power, and even beauty.

Eisner went on to become a true legend of the comic world as an innovative writer and artist. He created the playfully noir strip The Spirit, and then to completely change the game of what a comic—excuse me, graphic novel—could be as he created A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories, following its critical acclaim with highly regarded graphic novels such as To the Heart of the Storm, Dropsie Avenue, and The Building.

With an introduction by comics fan and novelist M. Christian.