Mystery Men & Women:

The J's

Jack of Spades: 1944?, Tops Comics (Lev Gleason). Jack of Spades has no origin story. When there's trouble nearby a deck of cards, he arises out the deck's Jack. Presumably it's different decks of cards, or maybe it's just one mystical deck drawn to places of trouble. Jack can fly and fight with the best of them.
  "Solid" Jackson: 1944, Jeep Comics #1 (R.B. Leffingwell). Professor Xerxes Herakles Jackson aka Solid Jackson is a scientific detective but also good in a fight.
Jaguar Man: 1944, All Great #1 (Fox). Steve Lane is the Lion House Keeper at the zoo where his pet black jaguar Ebony is housed (able to leave when needed via a secret exit at the top of her cage).. Ebony is incredibly intelligent, able to understand human speech and Lane is able to communicate with her (other animals such as birds seem to be aware that Ebony won't hurt them and such as well, suggesting possibly able to communicate with other animals). Lane also shows some signs of superstrength, able to bend small steel bars and he and Ebony are able to tow a boat themselves in the water.
  Jaguar Man II: 1946, Zoot Comics #2 (Fox). This Jaguar Man is also a zoo keeper. He is Murray Mane and his pet jaguar is Ja-Go. They help the beautiful lady scientist Dr. Carol Topaze capture some radium thieves.
  Jaruga: 1938, Crackajack Funnies #2? (K. K. Publications, Inc/Dell). Jaruga is an orphaned lad raised in the jungles of South America (and whose parents before they died buried a secret cache of gold). He is befriended by Captain Hutchins of the ship Maya, Captain Bill Adams, and African servant/mate Sunshine. They are taking him back to civilization when a hurricane sinks their ship and they find themselves marooned on an uncharted island with cannibals and other Europeans marooned in the past. As your typical jungle lord, Jaruga has heightened senses, a good fighter, and quick thinking mind. Serialized text story.
  Jaxon of the Jungle: 1940, Prize Comics #1 (Prize). AKA Mike Jaxon, adventurer, jungle guide, great white hunter in the jungles of Africa.
Jeep and Peep: 1940, Prize Comics #1 (Prize). Jeep and Peep travel around in a jeep (that might fly if we believe the covers) and have adventures. One story actually concerned Peep's ability to continue fighting crime as he had started putting on weight!
  Jim Giant: 1940, Planet Comics #4 (Fiction House).In the future, Jim Giant is "the strongest man in the universe" and pits his super-strength against the ray guns and technology of an invasion force.
  Jimmy and Jean: 1936, Funny Pages v1#6 (Centaur). Seeking shelter from a storm, Jimmy and Jean enter an old house and run afoul of a gang of crooks who have kidnapped Billy Benson, the son of wealthy folks.
Jo-Jo: 1945, Jo-Jo Comics #7 (Fox). Jo-Jo and girlfriend Tanee do the Tarzan and Jane thing in the jungles..
  Joe Spook and the Boy King: 1941, The Eagle #3 (Fox). In the small prosperous Balkan country called Luzano, the young lad Nickolas Robertus Christopher Alexander Paul Danilo Danilovitch is the boy king of the otherwise democratic nation. American Joe Devaney was a friend of the lad's dead father and promised to keep watch over him and train him physically and philosophically of the American principles of life. However, the Nazis want the boy king to abdicate and to this end comes agent Von Zuppe and officer Sutzel. While Joe and Nicky are out riding, they are waylaid and Joe is shot multiple times. He is on his way to his reward when he realizes Nicky needs him and he returns to Earth to protect him. As a ghost, he can appear and disappear at will and fly. His costume is made up of the flamboyant formal clothes he was wearing at the time of his death.
Johnny Canuck: Dime Comics #1 (Bell). Johnny is one of Canada's premier heroes. He's an Air Force Captain and a secret agent in the European theatre of WWII. He's a good fighter and a top ace pilot.
  Johnny Danger: 1946-7, Movie Comics 1-3 (Fiction). Johnny Danger is works for the Screenland Patrol, presumably a private police force in Hollywood.
  Johnny on the Spot: 1945, Punch Comics #13 (Chesler). Johnny Jenkins is around High School age, usually trying to figure out how to raise some money to romance his gal and such things. However, he tends to always find trouble and crime, no matter how innocent his motivations, hence his nickname as “Johnny on the Spot.” His girlfriend is the brunette Birchie, her friend is the blonde Gloria and what would a kid strip be without a portly good-natured chum, this one named Roger. Written with a tendency of the characters to speak a bit hip and jive. He's old enough to drive and be a volunteer fire-man!
Johnny Rebel (I): 1943, All New Comics #1 (Family/Harvey). Teen-age Johnny Bailey is Johnny Rebel, a fighter for good in the Antebellum South. He is assisted by a family slave Rufus.
Johnny Rebel (II): 1941, Yankee Comics #2 (Harry "A' Chesler). This Johnny Rebel fights crime in the modern-day South, wearing an almost duplicate costume. NOTE: Obviously the same character with only minor tweaking and not the only time that Harvey & Chesler swapped characters (see Firebrand). Chesler was equal opportunity, since this issue also had a Yankee Boy and Chesler would also publish Yankee Girl and Yankee Doodle Jones.
  Buck Johnson: 1941, Speekd Comics #13? (Harvey). Sounds suspiciously like the one below, both coming out in the same year. He's billed as explorer and wild animal dealer. Wears red shirt and jodhpurs. He travels with brunette camera woman Helen, a native boy named Jibu and usual assortment of native bearers. He's good with a rope and crack shot with a pistol. Credited to Frank Lawrence.
  Buck Johnson II: 1941, Great Comics (Great Comics Publications/Dell). A great white hunter. He travels Africa with love interest and camera woman Irene. Irene happens to also be a quick draw and crack-shot.
  Lt. Dick Jones: 1940, Rocket Comics #1 (Hillman). The year is 1960, and Lt. Richard "Dick" Jones is stationed on Monango Island when the Steel Shark attacks and kidnaps the governor's daughter and possibly his girlfriend.
  Leatherneck Jones: 1940, O.K. Comics #1 (Worth Carnahan). Sgt. “Leatherneck” Jones and “a couple of hard-boiled U.S. Marines” are sent to the interior of Tibet to protect American lives and property when Tartar chieftain Mogli-Khan is leading tribesmen intending re-establish the Mongol empire. They are helped by the exotic Fan Lan. NOTE: While the captions id the villain as Mogli-Khan, the villain they face is called Sin Ling.
  Navy Jones: 1940, Science Comics #1 (Fox). Navy Jones is an undersea hero, equipped with special submarine and able to breathe underwater, he helps out Princess Coral and her undersea kingdom.
Judge: 1945, Red Circle Comics #1 (Rural Home). Jim Lawson not only witnesses his father's death but sees the murder go free due to frightened witnesses. He grows up wanting to avenge his father and so devotes himself to law and becomes a strict judge. However, when he sees the law as insufficient, he puts on a mask and delivers his own justice.
  Judy of the Jungle: 1947, Exciting Comics #55 (Standard). Her father is a naturalist who distrusts all men and raises her alone in the jungle. When she reaches adulthood, he regrets this decision somewhat and gives her the option to see the wider world. She refuses and shortly later he is gunned down by the international gangster Kurt von Saber. He lives just long enough to tell Judy to live for revenge and trust no man. Meanwhile, Kurt’s crew come across a tired young man with a wanted poster in his shoe identifying him as a wanted man known as Pistol Roberts. It turns out Roberts is actually a special government criminal agent trying to track down Von Saber and Judy’s interference initially fowls that up. Over the course of several issues, they save each other several times over and Judy learns to trust at least one man. Von Saber in trying to avoid Judy’s knife falls from a cliff bridge into crocodile infested waters. She keeps peace in the jungles with her pet black panther named Kala.
Juggernaut: 1944, Terrific Comics #1 (Holyoke). Despite having an interesting code name, Juggernaut is a non-costumed two-fisted adventurer normally found in the logging camps of the North Woods though he does occasionally take jobs that take him away from that setting.
  Jun-Gal: 1944, Blazing Comics #1 (Enwill Publishing). In 1926, Professor John Teal discovers a source of radium in the jungles of Africa. Mounting an expedition that includes his wife Marion, daughte Joan, and nanny, they travel into the heart of Africa where they are beset by the warriors of the Tagoma tribe. All are slain but the toddler Joan and Mammy, the nanny, who shields the little girl with her own body. Taken in by the tribe, it is revealed that the radium stores are in the center of the tribe, a pit of radioactive fire, the Pit of Death. Joan is renamed Jun-Gal and grows up to be the white goddess of the tribe and when the witch doctor/leader dies, she becomes the leader. Thanks to growing up in proximity of the radium, she is physically more capable than others, strong as a lion. Of course, the logic then would be that she'd be no more stronger than the other women of the tribe... NOTE: An interesting strip of conflicting nature. The artwork is mostly wonderfully detailed pulp style illustration, with organic lines and cross hatchings. While it's not quite bizarrely racist as the Rulah strips (and a few others) where the native men are black but the women are all caucasians, the artwork does portray the natives with the inflated big lips. Yet, the story doesn't play them up for laughs. Likewise, Mammy speaks in that caricature servant style: "Laws a'mercy, chile!" Again, this stereotype doesn't automatically mean prejudice, keeping in mind her character is that of a not highly educated African-American servant of the 1920's. More importantly, despite her manner of speech, she's shown to be faithful and brave. In more than one story, she risks her life to protect Joan/Jun-Gal, taking action when others don't as opposed to the stereotype of being superstitious and highly exciteable.
Jungle Prince: 1941, Arrow #3 (Centaur). Carnov attempted to take over the throne of Balkania in the Siamese jungles; he kills King Banok but Prince Kelo, his grown adopted white son (the text is clear on that point, though everyone is drawn and colored white), escapes with the aid of his faithful servant Sik. The legend of Balka, a tiger guardian, is inscribed on a statue of the tiger, that whenever the ruler of the country is dead due to the planning or deeds of another, at sundown of that day, the statue will come alive to avenge the ruler's death. True to the legend, the stone statue disappears at dusk and a flesh and blood tiger appears. Though he calls the tiger off and presents the case to the people, when they go to bring Carnov to face justice, he's gone, the meat given to placate the tiger is untouched and the tiger has returned to being a statue, the implication that it ate Carnov, thus fulfilling its duty.
Jungleman: 1939, Champion Comics #2 (Harvey). Jungleman and Keeta, his albino tiger, roam the jungles around Angkor Wat. He falls for the beautiful Louise Carson daughter of Professor Carson. Early on, she is kidnapped by natives who also slay Keeta and he leads apes, tigers, elephants and snakes to war against them. He has several adventures with them, against Oriental pirates, being stranded with castaways on an island, etc. NOTE: GCD lists a Jungleman in Spitfire Comics #132 who is active in Cambodia. Don't know if it's the same character or not.
  Jungo/Jungol: 1946, Sparkling Stars #13 (Holyoke). Phil Gant is the star of the the movies of Jungo and he travels to Africa to prove that he could really live the life of a jungle lord. However, a blow to his head gives him amnesia and he thinks he's really Jungo, the Man-Beast. His friends from Hollywood and his fiance Gloria Dean try to rescue him and restore his memory. He eventually does discover his memory and he and Gloria (who alternates calling him Phil and Jungo) become rulers of a tribe on some lost tropical looking island. After his memory is restored, anytime he scents his own blood, he reverts for a short time to the animalistic, angry, savage and thus incredibly strong Jungo. NOTE: Jungo is definitely the name of the character in issue 15. The idea has similarities to the plot of ERB's The Lion Man only in that case the actor thinking he's Tarzan is a complete coward which his amnesia does nothing to alleviate.
  Junior Patrol: 1945, Witty Comics #1 (Irwin H. Rubin).  "Three English boy scouts have become expert fliers. They are known as the Junior Patrol." Despite their talent, the government insists on them staying in school and leaving the air to the R.A.F, even when their friend, the eminent Lord Roslyn pleads their case. The boys are Tommy, Curly, and Blimpo. NOTE: I believe that like the Ted Kane story in this comic, this is a reworking of another strip. The art and set-up looks familiar. May be a new story of "Eagle Scouts of Rosedale" as the basic set up is similar or vice versa.
  Junior Rangers: 1943, Headline Comics #1 (Prize). The Junior Rangers are kids of various ethnic groups and backgrounds that gang together in order to do good. In this case they were Smokey, Roger, Chan, among others.
  Jupiter: 1940, Prize Comics #1 (Prize). Jupiter is a great magician sent from his planet to Earth to wipe out crime.