Posted in: Comics | Tagged: jack kirby, joe simon, Novelty Press
Simon and Kirby Enter Blue Bolt #5’s Fourth Dimension, at Auction
Simon and Kirby begin to hit their stride in Blue Bolt #5, with a story blending cosmic horror, science fiction and superheroics.
Article Summary
- Blue Bolt #5 marks the first joint Joe Simon and Jack Kirby printed credit.
- Blue Bolt #5 blends cosmic horror, science fiction, and superhero action through the Green Sorceress’s fourth-dimensional plot.
- The story gives Blue Bolt an interesting Golden Age fourth-dimension twist, altering his vision and relationship to space itself.
“I’ve traveled far, great one! I’ve trod forbidden roads beyond space! I have looted vaults whose guardians and their great cities had become dust long before the first ape stood erect to fight.” In Blue Bolt #5, cover-dated October 1940, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby turn the fourth dimension into an invasion route by introducing a Lovecraftian element to a story that sees the Green Sorceress draw on methods described in an ancient, obscure book in an attempt to unleash her power into the world at large. This is the first Blue Bolt installment to credit Simon and Kirby together, although they had already been collaborating. The developing partnership is clearly beginning to hit its stride here as Blue Bolt steps into a domain that threatens to break its own containment.
Simon and Kirby Enter the Fourth Dimension
Simon had created Blue Bolt before the development of his partnership with Kirby, and the previous issue’s splash still names him alone. As comics historian Harry Mendryk explains in his study of their early Blue Bolt collaboration, the “Joe Simon and Jack Kirby” credit begins with this installment, making issue #5 a milestone of sorts. As Mendryk noted, their working relationship was still developing here.
The Green Sorceress sets the adventure in motion with an ancient book delivered by a supernatural messenger. Her minions then use this pulpy knowledge to construct a gateway into the fourth dimension, and the initial plan here is to seize the world’s radium supply. But a scientist has a plan to fight this, and sends Blue Bolt on an intercept course. The journey makes the hero transparent, but the more interesting complication is what happens to his vision. Seeing every side of objects simultaneously leaves him unable to make useful sense of his surroundings. Special goggles restore a three-dimensional view. The fourth dimension isn’t just a vague science fiction concept here: it changes the relationship between the hero, the objects around him, and the information his eyes can handle.
That sort of concept has roots beyond comics and even beyond pulps. In his 1884 essay What Is the Fourth Dimension?, Charles Howard Hinton explored how an additional spatial dimension could permit access beyond an enclosure without crossing its boundary, and to parts of a solid normally hidden from view. The subject had even become a wider popular media subject by the Golden Age era. A September 1939 syndicated commentary, headed “Fourth Dimension Once An Aid to Spiritualists,” described the concept in a way that has since become familiar in science fiction, noting, “extension in times is extension into unknown space and therefore time is the fourth dimension of space.”
The cover has the signature of W.E. Rowland. There is some uncertainty about whether this is an actual artist, a house name, or a pseudonym for Larry Antonette, though as far as I can tell, the Blue Bolt #2 cover credit evidence is not quite as conclusive as the GCD note indicates, at least for both pencils and inks. In any case, this Blue Bolt #5 cover is obviously not Simon or Kirby, though the creature here is generally in the mold of some of the Lovecraftian elements of the Blue Bolt story. This one is quite a bit tougher than one might think. The CGC population of this issue includes 11 Universal copies, with two at 6.5 and two higher, plus one Restored copy. For a look at Simon and Kirby making their partnership visible in this series, there’s a Blue Bolt #5 (Novelty Press, 1940) CGC FN+ 6.5 with cream to off-white pages up for auction at the November 5, 2026 Golden Age Century Comics Showcase Auction VI #40378.
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