Key Comics #1 (January 1944) is the debut issue of a short-lived Golden Age anthology from Consolidated Magazines, a small wartime publisher. Like most comics of its era, it's a grab-bag of features built loosely around its title — most notably the first appearance of Gale Leary, the Will O' The Wisp, a superheroine who channels the glowing power of a willow branch to avenge the murder of her mother and the crippling of her district-attorney father. The 52-page issue also introduces The Key and runs wartime adventure (Dick Dash "In Nazi Occupied Europe"), a ration-book mystery, the horror tale "The Curse of the Fortune Teller," and lighter funny-animal and humor fillers.

The book is a snapshot of the crowded, fly-by-night publishing scene of the mid-1940s, when dozens of small outfits rushed anthologies onto newsstands to ride the superhero boom. Its art reflects that churn: the Gale Leary feature was originated by Chu F. Hing — one of the very few artists of Asian descent working in American comics at the time, and creator of the pioneering hero The Green Turtle — with a cover by Walter T. Johnson and interior work by a rotating cast of Golden Age journeymen.

For collectors and historians today, Key Comics #1 is a public-domain curiosity prized chiefly as the origin of Gale Leary, an obscure but distinctive willow-wielding heroine recently revived in reprint collections. Its connection to Chu F. Hing, its wartime-propaganda content, and its status as the flagship of a barely-remembered publisher make it a rewarding dig for fans of forgotten Golden Age heroes.