BUCKET LIST: 13 Fabulously Fun Tales of the GOLDEN AGE RED TORNADO
A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the late Shelly Mayer, who was born 108 years ago, on April 1, 1917… By JIM BEARD I loved her from the first moment I saw her. I was younger then, but I knew I’d never seen anyone like her, and likely never would. She dressed differently, she spoke differently, she even moved differently. She wore long johns. She said things like “By th’ Great Horn Toad!” She offered to “wrassle” people. She was an iconoclast. She railed at convention. She could not be contained. She was one of a kind. She was unique. She was there before others. Sheldon “Shelly” Mayer was no dummy. He was shrewd and clever. He also knew it was good to be king of his little corner of the world. When the opportunity presented itself, he threw caution to the wind and introduced her to me. He changed my life. She changed my life. It would never be the same. Now, all these many years later, I see she was there, at my side, every step of the way, even when she wasn’t. I never forgot her, and when I would come close to forgetting her, she would reappear and I’d be in love all over again. Her story is intertwined with mine, and, dare I say it, I even played a few very small parts in increasing her siren song. Today, I must share her with others who have seen what I have seen, heard what I have heard, and felt what I have felt. Jealous as I am, I cannot truly blame them. Her name is Abigail Mathilda “Ma” Hunkel, but she’ll always be the first, the original Red Tornado to me. This is my ode to her and to Shelly, her creator — 13 FABULOUSLY FUN TALES OF THE GOLDEN AGE RED TORNADO: — All-American Comics #20 (Nov. 1940). Shelly had introduced Ma as herself the previous year but when the superhero craze could no longer be denied he brought out the one, the only Red Tornado, and poor Scribbly Jibbet’s strip would no longer be solely his. As the Tornado, Ma became not only one of the very first costumed heroines ever, but the first superhero parody and the first cross-dressing crimebuster. — All-Star Comics #3 (Winter 1940). I want to be very clear about...
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