April 1940: Adventure Comics #50

Cover by Bernard Baily

Hey look, Adventure Comics has reached a milestone!  This being the Golden Age, there is no special celebration.  It's just another normal issue.  But for me, a child of 90s comics, there's no escaping the significance of a nice round number.  And this time, unlike with More Fun Comics before it, I can legitimately say that I have read them all.

'Tick-Tock Tyler the Hour-Man' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): The Hour-Man gets involved in my favourite type of story: a horse-racing tale with crooked gamblers! Not only do I have this nonsense to deal with, but the Hour-Man, in his civilian identity as Rex Tyler, is one of the most insipid characters of the Golden Age. Not only does he allow the thugs to beat the hell out of him and put him in hospital, but he doesn't lift a finger to help a horse trainer either. I know he's protecting his secret identity, but there are limits.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Barry and Inspector Le Grand are tasked with escorting some American bombers into France, while Fang Gow plots to steal them. It's all very routine, though I was surprised to see that Fang Gow is captured at the end, and scheduled for execution.

It only occurred to me just now, but for a strip set in France in 1940 there is absolutely no mention of the war. The main villain here is Chinese, which seems like an anachronism to me given the country's situation at the time.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): Steve investigates a series of mysterious plane crashes, and discovers that they're the work of a crazed inventor using a newly created hot air ray. Steve stops him from selling the plans to a foreign nation in a mediocre story.

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Creig Flessel): This starts intriguingly, when the Sandman witnesses a hit-and-run accident, only to discover that both parties were already dead beforehand. It's the work of two crooks who are out of jail and going after the judge and jury who put them away. While all this is going on there's a lot of stuff about the Sandman being a wanted man. After he stops the crooks he's offered a pardon if he reveals his secret identity, but he refuses. It's nice to see one of the staple elements of the genre being used well, and it adds some interest to an otherwise average tale.

'Socko Strong' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko must convince a gifted violinist that he shouldn't become a boxer just to make a quick buck. Which he does by punching the hell out of him. Thankfully it all ends quite sweetly when Socko organises for the kid to play a concert at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps I'm going soft, but I rather liked it.

'Dead Reckoning' (by Tex Horton): In this prose story a US Marshall investigates the source of guns being smuggled to the Indians, and discovers that the local undertaker (and mayor) is transporting the guns in coffins. This is short and to the point, and gets the job done adequately enough.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): Steve must stop a foreign spy from uniting the native tribes on a South Seas island and attacking the US military base situated there. He does this by tricking the tribes into fighting each other again, but it's okay. Everything is fine as long as white people aren't being killed.

'The Adventures of Rusty and His Pals' (by Bob Kane): Rusty and his pals sail for Malay in search of a hidden treasure, but the guide that they hire is also after the treasure for his temple. I wasn't engaged by this at all, but it's just set-up.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): In the Philippines, Don has a fever that drives him crazy. He rides wildly away and wakes up in a pit full of political prisoners. He finds a map to an escape route, but one of the prisoners knocks him out and escapes. Red comes along and rescues Don, and the story ends, with the betraying prisoner presumably having achieved his goal. It's all very haphazard and unsatisfying.

'Cotton Carver in the City of Glass' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti): The last issue ended with Cotton and company falling down a crevasse. Here they arrive in a strange land occupied by the descendants of the lost colony of Roanoke, where the king takes a liking to Princess Deela. This is average stuff, made interesting only by Cotton's declaration that the underground kingdom of Barlunda is now the place he thinks of as home.

April 1940: Detective Comics #39

Cover by Bob Kane

'Batman' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): A Chinese tong kidnaps two millionaires and holds them for ransom. It's also been selling opium, and Chinatown's unofficial mayor Wong calls Batman in to deal with the problem. Wong appeared once before in Detective Comics #35, where he helped Batman, but his return is an ill-fated one; he ends up being murdered with a hatchet buried in his head. Batman and Robin track the tong down to its waterfront hideout, and solve the case with a whole lot of punching. It's all topped off by a great closing scene, in which a young Chinese boy is told by his mother to pray for Batman, who delivered them from the evils of opium. This is seriously entertaining stuff.

There's more significant Batman stuff on the way. In the next issue of Detective Comics we get the debut of the villain Clayface, and there's also a house ad for Batman #1. Good times!

'Spy' (by Jerry Siegel and Maurice Kashuba): Bart is assigned to discover who is stealing papers from an inventor who has just created a top secret weapon. All evidence points to Carlgart, the office manager, and Thorpe, a shifty-eyed draftsman, but in the end the culprit turns out to be the inventor's chauffeur. It almost makes sense, except that it's never explained how the chauffeur gets into the inventor's safe. And the sheer amount of evidence piled up against Carlgart and Thorpe isn't adequately explained away either. I can see what Siegel was going for here, but those two were just acting too shiftily for them to not be up to something.

'Red Logan' (by Ken Ernst): Red Logan tackles a man who is trying to kill his niece before she gets married, so that the family inheritance will remain with him. His method is to release a cobra into her room, but after she screams the cobra returns to the man's room and kills him. I'm not entirely sure that Red accomplished anything at all in this story.

'The Crimson Avenger' (by Jack Lehti): The Crimson Avenger tackles a group of spies who destroyed a battleship in the New York harbour with some mines. The mines were placed there during World War I, and are remotely detonated from a top secret control room; the story spends a lot of its time setting up the mystery of exactly how the spies did it. The resolution is a good one, with all of the relevant clues available to the reader, and this is a very solid story that makes good use of the Crimson Avenger's super-hero identity as well as his job at the newspaper.

'Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator and the Case of the Siva Statue' (by Fred Guardineer): Speed helps a man who has been threatened by a cult for his possession of a sacred Siva statuette. The story is unremarkable. The most interesting thing about it is the introduction of Danny, a kid who Speed uses to help him track the cult down. Apparently he's going to be a regular cast member, which doesn't bode well. Kid sidekicks so very rarely work, and this one's as bland as they come. Also, the presumably Indian cultists all have blue skin for some reason.

'Steve Malone, District Attorney' (by Don Lynch): Steve tackles a gang of hijackers who are stealing cargo trucks and selling the goods through a wholesaler. Steve manages to hold them off in a tense shootout, but all of his success happens through lucky coincidence.

'Cliff Crosby' (by Chad Grothkopf): This story begins with Cliff Crosby angrily campaigning for kids to be able to play on vacant lots, and it only gets more absurd from there. The son of Al Larsen, the main guy who is against the playing kids, is kidnapped and held by Indians. Cliff goes to the kid's rescue, and their escape attempt has all of the jungle cliches: an alligator, a boa constrictor, quicksand, you name it. After the kid is rescued Larsen agrees to build playgrounds, and everyone is happy. Crosby is quite entertaining in this, as his first answer to any problem is a swift punch in the face. And the jungle scenes are gloriously cliched, but so rapid-fire they get away with it.

'White Trap' (by Whitney Ellsworth): A criminal commits a murder, but his escape plan is thwarted by a snowstorm; the footprints he leaves will lead right to him, so he gives himself up. It's quite a clever story, but I can't help thinking that he gives up too easily. Surely he could just walk to where there's a crowd, and obscure his footprints that way?

'Slam Bradley' (by Jerry Siegel and Dennis Neville): Slam is hired by a Frenchman to protect a valuable diamond from some crooks. It all turns out to be a hoax, to test Slam's competence for the French government, which wants to hire him to protect a shipment of gems in Paris. Slam ends up getting captured and impersonated by a gang of thieves, but manages to escape, clear his name and defeat them. This was all mildly entertaining, with some good banter from Slam and Shorty, but it falls short of the mark compared to other Slam Bradley stories. At least Dennis Neville has figured out how to draw Shorty now.

April 1940: More Fun Comics #55

Cover by Bernard Baily

'The Spectre' (by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily): The Spectre is confronted by Zor, a powerful spirit who has been trapped on Earth for centuries, who uses his vast powers to promote evil. The ensuing battle is a cracker, with both combatants growing so large that they fight in outer space. Zor ends up kidnapping the Spectre's old lover and escaping to another dimension, and the Spectre must petition God so that he can track him down. The final confrontation isn't quite so epic, but this is a great story. It's chock full of elements that I always associated with the late 1960s cosmic books, not the Golden Age. And Zor is a very intriguing villain for the time. Siegel is a long way ahead of his contemporaries.

'Biff Bronson' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Dan Druff is framed for stealing some pearls by fake detectives, who then demand hush money from him. Biff dresses as Dan's mother to deliver the money, then beats the hell out of the crooks. Dan and Biff are entirely too into the whole scenario.

'Bob Neal of Sub 662' (by B. Hirsch and Russ Lehman): Foreign saboteurs try to blow up the Panama Canal with a convoluted plan involving a ship loaded with dynamite that is being guided by a radio signal. It's all quite garbled. The plan of the saboteurs isn't revealed until the end, when a hasty infodump informs the reader what's happening and it all gets wrapped up in a couple of panels.

'Brand New Gun' (by Brittin Quigley): The local sheriff has a shoot-out with a killer who is armed with a new-fangled automatic pistol. Predictably, the killer loses because he doesn't know how to work the thing properly. It's quite well told for what it is, and the killer's inability to understand the gun ties well into the idea that he is impeding progress in the town.

'Doctor Fate' (by Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman): Once again I have been surprised by the debut of a DC Universe staple. In this story, the mysterious Wotan tries to kill Doctor Fate, reasoning that he is the only one that can stand in the way of his plans for world conquest. Fate is a strange figure in this story. He's presented very much as a mystery. We learn that he's a master of science and the occult, but very little else. His face is constantly hidden by his rad helmet, and we never learn his true name. It's a shame that the final battle with Wotan descends into fisticuffs, but the rest of the set-up is very intriguing.

'Captain Desmo' (by Ed Winiarski): Desmo and Gabby help a man who is being blackmailed for money by assassins. It's actually quite tedious, which is an achievement for a story with assassins in it.

'Radio Squad' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): Sandy and Larry must stop a mad scientist from murdering the people he believes stole his invention. The killer is convincingly insane, and makes for a great villain.

'Detective Sergeant Carey in Death Stalks the Campus' (by Joe Donohoe): Carey takes on a mad scientist who is posing as a vampire and killing college students. I have no idea why any of this is happening.

'Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol' (by Jack Lehti): O'Malley goes up against the Wolf Man, a bandit who commands wolves and dresses in their skins. With his combination of overblown villainous dialogue and understated all-grey colour scheme, the Wolf Man is certainly an interesting villain. It's too bad that he has no interesting protagonist to strive against, or this might have been great.

'Bulldog Martin' (by Bart Tumey): A man is framed for the murder of his uncle, in a manner that can best be described as desperately thorough. The sheer volume and precision of the evidence piled up against the kid is ridiculous. The story is hackneyed and obvious, but the true murderer's frame job was amusing to me.

April 1940: Zip Comics #5

Cover by Charles Biro

'Steel Sterling' (by Abner Sundell and Charles Biro): Steel tackles a crooked senator and his plan to destroy a munitions factory and steal all of its defense contracts for himself. But even after Steel smashes up the bad guys and gets the senator to confess, he still has to rebuild the destroyed factory in a single day. His knowledge of building leaves a lot to be desired, and involves a lot of tying knots in steel girders. And then the Black Knight, Steel's nemesis and habitual cheater of death, shows up in a cameo to try and destroy the plant; he is promptly and hilariously crushed by a truck full of TNT, but I expect he'll escape somehow.

'The Scarlet Avenger' (by Harry Shorten and Irv Novick): The Scarlet Avenger is still battling against Lexa, Queen of Crime. In this issue she plans to free a whole bunch of criminals for her private army, but the Scarlet Avenger stops her and blows up her dirigible. She escapes, of course, by means of her giant pterodactyls. I cannot hate a story with dirigibles, death rays and dinosaurs.

'Nevada Jones, Quick-Trigger Man' (by Creators Unknown): Nevada Jones takes on a gold miner who has killed his own brother for the gold and disguised himself as an old prospector. It's about as exciting as any of the westerns get (i.e. not very), and I feel like strangling someone every time Jones says "Yippee Yay, Blaze Away!" It's the first unbearable catchphrase in comics.

'Kalthar the Giant Man, King of the Jungle' (by Harry Shorten and Lin Streeter): Kalthar must do battle with a tribe of leopard-men and their chief, who turns out to be a slave trader that Kalthar spared in an earlier story. It all feels pretty tired and uninspiring.

'War Eagles, the Devil's Flying Twins' (by Ed Smalle): Tom and Tim stop a Nazi attack on a supply train, bomb some new Nazi guns into oblivion, and rescue an English spy. It's certainly eventful, but now that the protagonists have stopped being jerks to everybody it's not as much fun to read.

'Captain Valor' (by Abner Sundell and Mort Meskin): Captain Valor and his friends are captured by Yat Sing and his half-sister Tania, who want China's defense plans against the Japanese invaders. As a continuing serial, this is something of a throwback to comics of the mid-1930s. It's not a style that I'm much enamoured with; I'll almost certainly have forgotten what happened by the time I read the next installment.

'Mr. Satan' (by Harry Shorten and possibly Ed Ashe): Mr. Satan and Doris stumble across a counterfeiting operation. This starts promisingly, as a man is killed with some carefully aimed fireworks, but then drifts into some tedious material. Mr. Satan's costume, is noteworthy, though; he looks almost exactly like Daredevil.

'Zambini the Miracle Man' (by Joe Blair and Ed Wexler): Zambini takes on a Voodoo priest. It's not great, but I am amused by Zambini's magic spells. Much like Zatara, his spells are cast by the way he speaks. "Babecabome Pabarabalabyzabed" is one example. I think he just throws an "ab" in at the start of every syllable.

April 1940: Top-Notch Comics #6

Cover by Edd Ashe

'The Wizard, the Man with the Super Brain' (by Edd Ashe): We're back with the modern day Wizard, who is still foiling plots by the Mosconians. First they try to kill him with a bombing raid on his rocket car, then they try to destroy Boulder Dam in Colorado. Both sequences are action-packed, and I found myself quite impressed to see the Wizard hold up the breached dam all by himself. It's the sort of thing I wouldn't bat an eyelid over in a modern super-hero comic, but over the course of this blog I've become accustomed to the very low key powers of the Golden Age.  I think that I prefer it this way.

'Galahad' (by Harry Shorten and Lin Streeter): Galahad must retrieve the stolen Golden Chalice from the Earl of Pellam. There's plenty of derring-do and sword-fighting to keep me entertained, but it all feels a little hollow. There's a plot strand about the Earl's wife wanting the Chalice so that it can make her more beautiful than Queen Guinevere, and that's a set-up for a proper story if ever there was one. But it goes nowhere, and what we get instead is pages and pages of Galahad fighting other knights.

'Shanghai Sheridan' (by Joe Blair and Irv Novick): Sheridan meets an American named Scary Dee, saves the crew of an American yacht from the Japanese, and survives an attack from the evil Wu Fang's men. This is very piecemeal, and never gels coherently. It also has some terribly primitive speech patterns for the Japanese. I don't mind this so much in situations where they are obviously speaking in English, because a lot of people have trouble speaking foreign languages. But when they're talking amongst themselves? It's unforgivable.

'Streak Chandler on Mars' (by Harry Shorten and William Wills): The tyrant Kalox was deposed by Streak Chandler in the last issue, but in this story he steals a powerful radium crystal, capable of destroying planets. Not that he does much with it; Kalox spends most of the strip fleeing from Streak, before Streak destroys his ship with a disintegrator ray. It's always disappointing when a villain doesn't live up to the hype.

'Wings Johnson of the Air Patrol' (by Joe Blair and Ed Smalle): Having finally killed his mortal enemy Von Schiller, Wings is reassigned. He helps fight a naval battle against the Nazis, then helps defend attacks on South American military bases. I appreciate his dedication in having two adventures in one issue, but it does make things very cramped and unsatisfying.

'Dick Storm' (by Harry Shorten and Mort Meskin): In this story Dick topples a South American dictator who has taken over a region in Honduras. One of the central points of the story is that the dictator has no ammunition for his guns. And I'm supposed to believe that he led and maintained a successful coup? It's preposterous.

'Bob Phantom, Scourge of the Underworld' (by Harry Shorten and Gerry Thorp): The villainous Ah Ku is back, leading an opium smuggling operation. Bob Phantom takes down her operation in a terribly average story.

'West Pointer' (by Harry Shorten and Ed Wexler): This strip is supposed to be about army cadets, but somehow it always ends up as a sport comic. In this story Keith Kornell is chosen to pitch in a baseball match against Midvale, but ends up getting in a fight with the opposition's star hitter. Later on he saves the same guy from a fire, then goes on to pitch a winning game despite an injured leg. I'm just happy that there were no crooked gamblers involved.

'Kardak the Mystic Magician' (by Harry Shorten and C.A. Winter): Kardak goes up against Hindu mystics who plan to release a plague of locusts in the Mississippi delta for reasons that are not entirely clear. The cliffhanger ending has Kardak and his fiancee trapped in quicksand, which is about as exciting as the rest of the story.

April 1940: Shield-Wizard Comics #1

 Cover by Irv Novick

Archie/MLJ has moved into the venue of solo super-hero titles, but without a star on the level of Superman they've been forced to merge their two biggest names: the Shield and the Wizard.  I'm quite happy to be getting another comic that's exclusive to my favourite genre, and it helps that the material so far is quite good.

'The Shield, G-Man Extraordinary' (by Irv Novick): The Shield gets an origin story for the first time here. In his first appearance in Pep Comics #1 we learned that he was inspired to become the Shield after his father was killed in the infamous Black Tom explosions. That story is adhered to, but greatly expanded upon. The Shield's father, Lieut. Tom Higgins, was a chemist and an army intelligence agent. His death was arranged by German agents who were after his secret formula, but they were only able to discover half of it. His son Joe vows to avenge his father, and becomes a great chemist himself, determined to finish his father's research. He discovers the secret of the S-H-I-E-L-D formula, which is laid out in a great diagram, and after applying it to himself he becomes the eponymous super-hero.

The rest is a standard tale of the Shield rounding up the spies that killed his dad and gaining his revenge. It's amazing what a bit of backstory can do, though. Before this the Shield felt like just another generic hero, but now he has a history and a motivation, and feels like a genuine character.

'The Shield, G-Man Extraordinary' (by Irv Novick): This is the Shield's first adventure. After passing  the test to become an FBI agent with a perfect score, Joe Higgins takes his first assignment: a steel mill that has been taken over by crooks who have kidnapped the owner. There's some decent humour with the Shield's partner, Ju Ju Watson, who sincerely believes that Higgins needs his help to become a good agent. The setting is also made good use of, with a lot of action set pieces and molten ore being flung about.

There is one problem with the story, though. Early on the crooks throw Joe Higgins into a furnace, where he is presumably killed. He emerges as the Shield, and shows up later as Higgins again after the crooks are beaten. But nobody even wonders how he is still alive! They all saw him thrown in that furnace, and I was looking forward to seeing him explain how he survived. No such luck, as it's just ignored.

'The Shield, G-Man Extraordinary' (by Irv Novick): The Shield and Ju Ju investigate a string of murders, in which all the victims are potential witnesses against the alleged head of a murder syndicate. The Shield stops the murders and produces some more witnesses with little trouble. It's a mediocre story, but it's amazing what the addition of an inept comedy sidekick can do. Ju Ju Watson isn't an original character, but he's cut from a template that works, and he gives the Shield somebody to play off.

'The Vampire Murders' (by Writer Unknown): In this prose story, the Shield fights a vampire. This is textbook vampire slaying. Step 1) Punch its teeth out; Step 2) Shoot it with silver bullets; Step 3) Stake it through the heart. The Shield knows what he's doing, and I have to love a story that features J. Edgar Hoover seriously discussing the undead.

'The Wizard, the Man with the Super Brain' (by Harry Shorten and Edd Ashe): Whereas the Shield gains an origin story in this issue, the Wizard gains something else entirely: a legacy. This story is about the original Wizard, who was born in 1750 and fought in the American War of Independence. This version of the Wizard was born with exceptional powers, and used them to predict Indian raids and the British invasion. But eventually the eerily accurate predictions drew suspicion, and the Wizard's father was burned for witchcraft. The Wizard later fights in the war, using technology such as a glider and a rapid fire pistol. This is pretty rad. The historical setting gives it some authenticity, and the whole concept of the Wizard becomes much more interesting with the addition of a lineage. I'm sure that I'd enjoy it even more if I knew about American history.

'The Wizard, the Man with the Super Brain' (by Harry Shorten and Edd Ashe): It's another tale of the original Wizard, who is helping George Washington fight against the British. By attacking them on Christmas Eve, the bastard! Some hero.

'The Wizard, the Man with the Super Brain' (by Harry Shorten and Edd Ashe): More from the original Wizard, as he tries to capture Benedict Arnold, then helps America to ally with the French. Now I'm really sure that I need to know American history to fully appreciate this. References to people and places and battles are rife here, but they hold very little significance to me. At least I can enjoy seeing the Wizard blast English troops with an honest-to-god cannon tucked under his arm.

April 1940: Pep Comics #5

Cover by Irv Novick

'The Shield, G-Man Extraordinary' (by Harry Shorten and Irv Novick): The Mosconian plot continues, as enemy agents try to kill the Shield and also blow up the White House with tanks. There is a lot packed into this story. The Shield is extra-vicious; in one scene he uses a battery to create chlorine gas to poison a submarine full of Mosconians. "There wasn't a life lost, Shield, thanks to you!" Yeah right, tell it to the bad guys. They get their vengeance by sealing the Shield in a steel coffin and burying him under tons of rock, but two panels of straining is all it takes him to escape. The Wizard shows up yet again for a token cameo. I'm getting annoyed with these pointless crossovers, because the character never do anything together. But this is entertaining stuff, and Irv Novick is producing some powerful, dynamic art.

'The Comet' (by Jack Cole): The Comet, still wanted by the police, goes up against a crook named Stinger Lee. Lee has stolen a ray that creates darkness, and is using it to aid in his robberies. The Comet obliterates him with his eye-beams, as is his habit. This is poppy and energetic as usual.

'The Press Guardian' (by Abner Sundell and Mort Meskin): The Press Guardian deals with a senator who is protecting a notorious criminal. The story is mediocre, but I was amused when the Guardian turned to a group of teenagers to print a story in their amateur newspaper.  Sure, the legitimate newspapers had been shut down, but it's a humbling thing for a super-hero to do.

'Fu Chang, International Detective' (by Joe Blair and Lin Streeter): Fu Chang buys a farm, but his workers start being killed by a man-eating plant. The plant is the work of Yen Fat Sing, a criminal who is after some treasure buried on Chang's land. The plant made an effectively gruesome villain in a decent story.

'Sergeant Boyle' (by Abner Sundell and Charles Biro): Boyle gets a new commanding officer who tries to straighten him out. They must go behind enemy lines together, and their escape results in all manner of   hijinks. This is another strip that has gone from Nazi-killing propaganda to actual storytelling, which I greatly approve of.

'The Midshipman' (possibly by Bob Wood): Argh. There's a Navy/Army baseball game, and you'll never guess, but some crooked gamblers try to get Lee Sampson to throw the game! The hackneyed set-up was almost too much, but the ending saved it a little. Navy wins the game due to the crooks' interference, but Sampson's sense of fair play makes him demand that the Army batter gets another go. This decision costs Navy the game. It's stronger than most stories of this type.

'The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds' (by Abner Sundell and Lin Streeter): Last issue the Rocket and the Queen were captured by Ape-Men. The Rocket defeats an attacking bat-serpent, and so becomes the Ape-Men's chief, but the old chief plots against him. This is decent pulp adventure, and the Rocket's devotion to the queen is quite endearing.

'Kayo Ward' (by Harry Shorten and Bob Wood): After being set upon by some rivals, Kayo develops amnesia. He must then fight his opponent Slick in a boxing match, even though he can't remember any of his skills. The story isn't resolved by the end, but the novel set-up has me interested.

'Bentley of Scotland Yard' (by Joe Blair and Sam Cooper): A foreign agent and his unexplained pet monster try to intercept a message that is vital to the British Empire. The monster certainly livens things up, but he has no real reason to be there. And he's the only interesting thing in this story.