March 1940: Whiz Comics #3, Master Comics #1

Cover by C.C. Beck

'Capt. Marvel' (by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck): The mad scientist Sivana raises a supremely powerful army and declares war on the United States. Captain Marvel smashes a whole lot of tanks and confronts Sivana, but it is Sivana's own disgruntled troops that kill him. After the mythical tour-de-force of Captain Marvel's origin story, we're in much more mundane territory here, drawing on the Golden Age staples of mad science and implacable armies. The only thing I found really noteworthy is that Captain Marvel barely speaks at all. It gives him a very stoic, almost passionless vibe very much at odds with his more innocent modern portrayals.

'Golden Arrow' (by Bill Parker and Pete Costanza): Golden Arrow tackles a gang of cattle rustlers, who have put horseshoes on the cows to disguise their tracks. It's another story about cattle rustlers. Huzzah.

'Diamond of Death' (by Creators Unknown): This prose story was very blurry and difficult to read, but I persevered, as something of a nostalgic throwback to this project's early days. The story is about a detective investigating a Hindu cult that is killing wealthy men to retrieve a sacred diamond stolen from them years ago. It's all terribly cliched, and not helped by the fact that I couldn't decipher significant patches of it.

'Scoop Smith' (by Bill Parker and Greg Duncan): Scoop Smith goes to the South Pole in search of a missing explorer, and finds him in a castle lording it over the natives. You know, the natives of Antarctica? Like Eskimos? Because they're totally there! There's really not much story to this. The hero goes in search of a missing guy, finds him, then goes home. The end.

'Ibis the Invincible' (by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck): Ibis revives his ancient love Taia, retrieves his all-powerful Ibistick from a thief, and then must rescue Taia from an Arab bandit chief who wants the Ibistick. It's all getting a bit too repetitive, and the drama is really sucked out of the situation when it's revealed that Ibis can't be harmed by the stick's powers.

'Lance O'Casey' (by Bob Kingett): O'Casey goes hunting for giant pearls, and finds a guy with the awesome name of Death Dawson who is using natives to retrieve the pearls from inside deadly giant clams. O'Casey seems okay with the natives being killed in the jaws of a giant clam, but as soon as they turn the tables and force Death Dawson to retrieve the pearls it's O'Casey to the rescue. I can't say I like a story which places the life of an innocent native at a lesser value than the villain.

'Dan Dare in $500,000 Dollars or Else' (by Bill Parker and Greg Duncan): Dan Dare deals with a severely disfigured crook called Dynamite Davis, who is threatening to blow up the house of a wealthy man unless he is paid a lot of money. It's all very cliched stuff, but Dynamite Davis does look striking. He's probably the most grotesque villain I've seen in this project so far.

'Spy Smasher' (by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck): Spy Smasher must rescue an admiral's daughter from the villainous Mask. The only interesting thing here is that Spy Smasher's identity is still being played as a mystery. He reveals himself to the admiral's daughter at the end of the story, but the reader is still left in the dark. I'm still hoping that the Asian butler Zambo turns out to be the hero.

Cover by Harry Fiske

Apparently Master Comics has larger dimensions than other comics of the time.  That's not immediately apparent when reading it on a computer screen, but I did notice that the pages were a little more cramped than usual.  Now I know that it's because the pages were larger, and have been reduced even further than normal by my meagre monitor.

'Master Man' (by Newt Alfred): Master Man (who is given no other name in the story) was a weakling as a kid, but an old doctor gave him some good advice and some magic tablets called Vitacaps that made him super-strong. Now as an adult he lives in his mountain fortress and fights evil. With his origin out of the way, we get a story where Master Man stops an army of gangsters from invading the fake country of Ecalpon. And not just any old gangsters, but the kind who drop bombs on an orphanage. This is not very good, but I do admire a comic that has its villains threatening orphans; it's so ridiculously cliched and melodramatic that I have to love it. But other than that Master Man is insufferably heroic and wonderful, and I can't imagine that I'm going to enjoy reading about him.

'The White Rajah and the Jeweled Crown of Ramistan' (by Creators Unknown): David Scott is the son of a wealthy Englishman. He is lost in the jungles of India and survives with the help of a white elephant he calls Sin-Gee. After years of being awesome in the jungle he thwarts the theft of the crown of Ramistan, and the Rajah names him as his successor. The strip ends with David being crowned. This started as a pretty uninspired jungle boy story, but the ending promises something more interesting in the future.

'The Devil's Dagger' (by Ken Battlefield): Ken Wyman, wealthy heir and newspaper reporter, is really the Devil's Dagger, scourge of the underworld. His nemesis in the town of Carterville is Jeff Marlowe, the underworld leader. In this story Marlowe steals the plans to a diamond-making machine, and the Devil's Dagger must get them back. I wasn't engaged by this at all. The Devil's Dagger has nothing to distinguish himself from the other costumed vigilantes out there. The coolest thing about him is that his car is called the Speed Ghost.

'Morton Murch, the Hillbilly Hero' (by Newt Alfred): Morton Murch, a hillbilly as the title suggests, builds a hot air balloon and sails it over the ocean. He eventually lands on the mysterious island of Felicia, where he helps the native people fight off an invasion. The hillbilly-speak in this story is nearly indecipherable, and the story itself is not very good either.

'Shipwreck Roberts' (by Mike Suchorsky): Shipwreck Roberts is a deep sea treasure hunter. Together with his sidekick Doodle, he investigates the disappearance of a number of ships, and finds the evil Doctor Drown has been sinking ships by torpedo and looting them. This would be pretty tedious, but it has the good sense to add a couple of mutated undersea dinosaurs and a giant crab into the mix. And the cliffhanger has Shipwreck being menaced by the dreaded "Colostopus". It's not good, but cool monsters make up for many sins.

'Frontier Marshal' (by Creators Unknown): Bill Crane becomes the marshal of Big Savage when his father dies, and stops a crime wave led by the Trask Gang. Again this is a sub-par story. And since when is being town marshal a hereditary position anyway?

'Sooner or Later' (by Creators Unknown): Two crooks rob a bank. The younger idolises the older, but in the course of their escape he comes to realise what a jerk his partner is. Dying from a gunshot wound, he uses his final act to drive them both off the side of a cliff. This has a proper character arc and a good resolution.

'Mr. Clue' (by Creators Unknown): Mr. Clue is a detective, who boasts that he only needs one clue to solve any crime. In this story the chief of police murders the mayor, and Mr. Clue figures it out based in the fact that the chief is left-handed. The audience is not shown a vital piece of Clue's detective work, and so has no way of solving the mystery.

'Streak Sloan' (by Martin Nodell): Streak Sloan is a newsreel photographer and explorer. While in the Arctic he deals with a gang of pirates. It's rudimentary stuff, and with the pirates and the coast guard there's not much room for Sloan himself to stand out.

'El Carim, Master of Magic' (by Sven Elven): El Carim (miracle spelled backwards, geddit?) is yet another heroic magician. His first adventure sees him rescuing a millionaire. Strangely for this genre, El Carim relies more on gadgets than his own magic powers. He has a bulletproof monocle that attracts bullets, a powerful magnet, and a magic rope. It's a different take on the formula, but not a particularly interesting one. There are strips that do the magician angle better, and there are strips that do the gadgets angle better.  I'm also wondering what Sven Elven is doing working for Archie.  The guy has been a DC stalwart for years at this point.

'Rick O'Shay' (by Creators Unknown): Rick O'Shay, a soldier of fortune, is enlisted to take on the Arab chieftain Sidi-Ahmed, who has been terrorising the African colony of Franconia. This could have been a solid action-adventure story, except for one thing. There's a scene where Rick is tied by his wrists over a pit of fire, with seemingly no way out. In the next panel he's free, and the caption says "With the aid of his strong muscles, Rick frees himself". Nothing in the art or the narration indicates how this was achieved. It's just exceptionally weak story-telling, and a massive cop-out to a dramatic situation.

March 1940: Superman Daily Strip #289-354, Superman Radio Serial #9-21

SUPERMAN DAILY STRIP #289-354 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster):

This long-running story mashes up a lot of elements from previous Superman stories. It begins with the machinations of a group of foreign spies that is trying to manipulate the US into supporting their own country in a war. Clark Kent ends up entangled in their schemes, and pretends to go along with them, something he has done a few times before. Eventually he goes to Europe as Superman, and ends up kidnapping the two leaders of the warring nations and making them fight each other face to face, which is very reminiscent of one of his earliest stories. There's nothing particularly bad about this story, it's just a little too familiar to be enjoyable.

SUPERMAN RADIO SERIAL #9-21:

The Superman "transcription feature" covers a lot of ground in March of 1940. Episode 9 is the wrap-up to the Yellow Mask storyline, which sees the master criminal trying to destroy the Daily Planet building with a disintegrator ray. Following that is a six-part story in which two crooked businessmen are trying to cover up their involvement in selling worthless shares by murdering their secretary. After that is a two-parter in which the Wolf and Keno (the villains from the radio serial's opening story) stage a prison break and escape. Finally, there's a four-part story involving the Yellow Mask and his efforts to destroy the town of Dyerville. It's all mildly enjoyable, and a fairly accurate adaptation of the comics. The limitations of the form get a bit irritating; Superman talks to himself a lot about what he's doing, for instance. And the vacuum cleaner sound effect used to simulate Superman's flight gets a bit grating after a while.

March 1940: Action Comics #24, Superman Sunday Strip #15-18 and #1A

Cover by Joe Shuster

'Superman' (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster): Superman is asked by a wealthy businessman to save the life of his son, a problem gambler who has supposedly murdered a man he owes a large sum of money to. There's a decent redemption arc here, as the gambler goes from pathetic to admirable in the space of a few pages, but Siegel and Shuster do the necessary set-up to make it work.

Superman's Secret Message: LET STRENGTH COURAGE AND JUSTICE BE NOT ONLY A MOTTO BUT A TRUE WAY OF LIVING FOR ALL OF US IN THESE GLORIOUS UNITED STATES.

'Pep Morgan' (by Fred Guardineer): Much to my chagrin, Pep is back playing sports. This time he's trying out for a major league baseball team, and gets mixed up in a former player's revenge scheme on the coach. It's good so far as this genre goes.

'The Black Pirate' (by Sheldon Moldoff): Having been abandoned on an island by Captain Ruff, the Black Pirate relocates Ruff's treasure, and takes over Ruff's ship while the villain is searching for his booty. This is short and punchy, and enjoyable despite it's old-fashioned narrative style.

'Three Aces' (by Gardner Fox and Chad Grothkopf): The Aces are framed for bank robbery by a sheriff who is committing the crimes himself. It's passable.

'Tex Thomson' (by Bernard Baily): Tex and his friends investigate the island of a mad scientist who has invented an invisibility gas. This was solid enough to begin with, but in the end Thomson does nothing to defeat the scientist, leaving it to an inspector who they find in a dungeon. This can work if the one-off character is developed well, but this guy is a total cipher.

'Eleven Minutes' (by Guy Monroe): In this prose story, a pilot saves a train from going over a bridge that has just been blown up by a saboteur. There's nothing awful about it, but it's still fairly dull.

'Clip Carson' (by Sheldon Moldoff): Clip Carson goes to South America and defeats some rebels. Not bad.

'Zatara the Master Magician and the Magician Murder' (by Fred Guardineer): Zatara takes on Chalo, a black magician who has murdered his brother and plans to kill another magician to take his jewels. This is fairly subdued by Zatara's standards.

SUPERMAN SUNDAY STRIP #15-18:

Following up on the story of an archaeologist, Clark and Lois investigate a lost cavern that is home to a civilisation of haemophiliac giants. The giants have been kidnapping people for their blood. Superman fights a few of them, rescues Lois, battles some giant vultures and escapes, leaving the cavern sealed behind him. This is less of a story and more a collection of action set pieces, but entertaining for all that. It's a shame that a story like this only goes for four pages while something with gangsters or racketeers would probably be three or four times as long.

SUPERMAN SUNDAY STRIP #1A:

This is a one page strip, depicting the origin of Superman, that started appearing around March 1940. It was designed to be used as the opening strip for newspapers just picking up the Superman serial. There's nothing here that hasn't already been revealed elsewhere.

March 1940: Flash Comics #5, All-American Comics #14

 Cover by Jon L. Blummer

'The Flash' (by Gardner Fox and Everett Hibbard): The Flash takes on the Vandal, an art collector who is murdering artists to drive up the value of his collection. At the very least it's not a plot I've seen before in this blog, so it gets points for that. It's also light and peppy as usual, and makes inventive use of the Flash's powers (he spends a lot of the strip moving so fast that he is invisible, using his voice to confuse the crooks).

'King Standish' (by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert): The villainous Witch hatches a plan to bump off the King, but by the end of the strip it seems that the two have fallen for each other. It's quite sweet in a way, but I could do without the narrator constantly warning the Witch not to fall for her enemy.

'Hawkman' (by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff): The cult of Assassins is revived, and Hawkman must help a lady secret agent stop them from killing world leaders and taking their place. The setting moves from the USA to the Middle East, and I think that this sort of globe-hopping suits Hawkman very well. It's exotic, and there are some solid action sequences, but in the end there's little of substance to it.

'Johnny Thunderbolt' (by John B. Wentworth and Stan Aschmeier): Johnny, now a G-Man, foils a group of crooks who have stolen an entire bank vault. This story feels a lot more conventional than previous installments, and there's not a lot of humour involved either.

'Rod Rian of the Sky Police' (by Paul H. Jepsen): On the planet Mephis, Rod and his friends infiltrate the city of the Skeleton Men. Meanwhile on Earth, the head of the Sky Police has allied with Chan, ruler of half the planet, and they are raising an army to attack the pirates of Mephis. But watch out, because Chan doesn't have white skin!  That means he must be a treacherous baddie! This is all build-up, but it's hard to see what the diversion with the skeleton men has to do with the main plot. It's just lucky that it's got skeletons in it. Skeletons are rad.

'Cliff Cornwall' (by Sheldon Moldoff): Cliff Cornwall takes on the Snow King, a spy who operates only in Winter and has never been seen. His secret is that he uses sleep pills combined with a building's heating system to put all of his victims to sleep. It's a well-worn plot, but it's quite cleverly presented.

'Planet of the Metal Men' (by Evelyn Gaines): After marrying his fiancee Sally, Jack Raymond insists that they take their honeymoon on the nearby planetoid Vesta. Along with Sally's kid brother they rocket to the planet where they discover strange, metallic life-forms. To be continued! It's decent enough set-up, if you don't mind some completely bollocks science.

'You Can't Get Away With It!' (by Ed Wheelan): A judge's son is kidnapped, and threatened with death unless the judge lets gangster Tony Madera off the hook. The judge, with the help of his son's showgirl fiancee, rescues his son, and consents to their marriage. It's a decent enough story from Wheelan, though it's let down by the fact that we don't find out what happens to Madera.

'Whip' (by John B. Wentworth and Homer Fleming): A crooked judge is charging excessive fines for speeding, and using criminals as his personal servants. Huzzah for the Whip, who is sticking up for the rights of speeding motorists and hardened criminals everywhere!

Cover by Jon L. Blummer

'Red, White and Blue' (by Jerry Siegel and William Smith): My complaints are somehow beaming backwards in time, because we're getting a story without Red, who has been the main character of this strip for quite some time now. Whitey, Blooey and Doris go up against a gang of saboteurs and defeat them almost by accident, with a large helping hand from Blooey's pet parrot. Sadly, the whole point of this seems to be that they can't get along without Red. Even from a hospital bed he manages to take over the story somehow.

'Hop Harrigan' (by Jon L. Blummer): There's a story here about spies trying to sabotage Hop Air's first demonstration of its planes for the army, but of more interest is the custody battle between Hop's friend Prop Wash and his former guardian, Crass. It's pretty effective as a dramatic device, but in the end it falls down when the evidence that stops Crass's victory comes by pure coincidence. What luck that Hop's old school teacher just happened to stop by a certain farmhouse at exactly the right time! And that she has letters from Hop's father in her possession!

'Ben Webster' (by Edwin Alger): Having discovered a pool of magic mud, Ben and his friends set about selling it as a beauty treatment. Everything works out perfectly for them, and I'm struggling to see where the drama is going to come from.

'Adventures in the Unknown: The Infra-Red Destroyers' (by Carl H. Claudy and Stan Aschmeier): Ted and Alan struggle to convince Washington that the Earth is being invaded by invisible men from Venus. You have to appreciate a story that destroys both the White House and the Washington Monument.

'Scribbly' (by Sheldon Mayer): Scribbly's editor sends him to a dude ranch, where everyone has the idea that he's an expert rider. With the focus back on Scribbly's job this strip is starting to get funny again.

'Traitors' Treachery' (by George Shute): Passports and records are being stolen from the State Department, and Jimmy Stone goes undercover to stop the crooks. There's not much to this but set-up. 

'Popsicle Pete' (by Art Helfant): After collecting their reward money, the kids and Zeke buy suits, and Zeke's shoes squeak because there's a horn in one of them.  This is either some form of obscure 1940s humour that I don't get, or a poor attempt at comedy. I suspect the latter.

'Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man' (by Jon L. Blummer): Gary must foil a plot by his enemy Tor to take over the world with a lethal poison gas.  It's a solid enough action story, but wasn't this world at peace just a year ago?  It's been a mess ever since Gary took over from his dad.

March 1940: Adventure Comics #49

Cover by Sheldon Moldoff

'Tick-Tock Tyler the Hour-Man' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): At first glance this is a reasonably solid story of Hour-Man rescuing a kidnapped scientist, but closer scrutiny reveals that is has all sorts of holes. The most egregious is that the Hour-Man knows the kidnappers are in the hills, without anything alerting him to that fact. There's also a scene where he finds some cold pills, supposedly a clue dropped by the scientist, but that never ties back into anything. The crooks want the scientist to create a "formula", but we never learn what it's supposed to do. Luckily there's a scene where Hour-Man throws a bear off a cliff to distract me from the poor story-telling.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): This one starts promisingly, as Barry hatches a plan to entice Fang Gow to work for France as a means to have him killed. That plan really amounts to nothing, and the story becomes about Fang Gow's attempt to kill Barry with a bomb, and Barry tracking Fang Gow to his lair. It's a shame that an interesting idea was thrown away at the start of such a mediocre story.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): A wealthy businessman is being investigated for tax evasion, and a "criminologist" offers to help him out by murdering the former employee who has all of the info on his shady dealings. I was intrigued by this criminologist, and his claims to have studied crime so much that he knew how to outsmart the FBI. This being a Jerry Siegel story, the FBI can't be outsmarted, and track him down with little trouble. It's not like he was even particularly clever in his plan. They guy didn't even stop to check that his murder victim was dead!

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Chad Grothkopf): The Sandman must rescue a doctor who has been kidnapped for his cure for the common cold. This story is decent enough, but I can't help feeling that the premise is small potatoes. Sure, such a cure really would be worth a ton of money, but it's hardly the remedy for cancer, is it?

'Socko Strong' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko helps track down a financier who is wanted for embezzlement. The financier disguises himself by shaving off his beard, and the whole story reads like an excuse to build up to the "close shave" pun in the final panel.

'A Sleepy Capture' (by Frank Thomas): In this prose story, a lion escapes from the circus, and a man saves the local orphanage by knocking it out with chloroform. The sheer dramatic absurdity of a lion loose in an orphanage amuses me, so I rather liked this one.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): In India, Steve Conrad protects some plantation owners from a native tribe. To be honest, it wouldn't matter how good this strip is otherwise, because Steve's sidekick Chang is just shockingly racist in every single panel. It's also pretty hard to summon up a lot of sympathy for a bunch of upper-crust English plantation owners.

'Rusty and His Pals' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): Rusty and his friends find a treasure map, are told the story of the sacred Idol of Takal, and decide to set off in a ship to find it. It's a solid set-up that gives us at least three groups going after the treasure, and you can never have too many sides in a treasure hunt story.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): Don and Red track down a spy, who captures them and forces them to run through a snake pit. The villain does have an appealing sadistic streak, but the story isn't otherwise remarkable.

'Cotton Carver at the Polar Zone' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti): Last issue, Cotton and Deela reached the surface. In this story they are menaced by Red Mike and his band of Arctic traders. It's disappointingly banal; I really was hoping for something more interesting from Cotton's return home.

March 1940: Top-Notch Comics #5, Detective Comics #38

 Cover by Edd Ashe

'The Wizard, The Man With the Super-Brain' (by Edd Ashe): It's crossover central again, as the Wizard battles Mosconian agents while meeting the Shield, Keith Kornell (aka the West Pointer) and Lee Sampson (aka the Midshipman). To be honest, these cameos add nothing to the story. The Shield was utterly superfluous, and the other two could just as easily have been any random cadet or member of the navy. Even so, it's a good bit of fun.

'Galahad' (by Harry Shorten and Lin Streeter): This new strip features the titular knight of the Round Table. Galahad goes to King Arthur's court and is made a knight after defeating Sir Kay in a joust. Soon after he helps Lady Lynette stop the evil Sir Gilbert from seizing her lands. I am a sucker for any thing with a sword in it, and this does have a pretty good fight scene between Galahad and Gilbert. But in the end that's all it comes down to, and Galahad triumphs through his prowess and nothing more. I expect something a little more meaningful from a story drawing on the Arthurian mythos.

'Shanghai Sheridan' (by Joe Blair and Irv Novick): Jack Sheridan's father was killed by invaders in 1931, leaving him in the care of family friend Chan Sing-Tan. (The invaders aren't specified, but given that the strip is set in China I can only assume that it's a reference to Japan's invasion of China in 1931.) Sheridan vows to drive out the invaders, and so as he grows he dedicates himself to learning things like science, escape artistry and jiu-jitsu. In the main plot he takes on a warlord who has kidnapped the rightful ruler of China. This is all quite generic stuff, made remarkable only because of some questionable portrayals of the Chinese characters.

'Streak Chandler on Mars' (by Harry Shorten and William Wills): Streak is captured by the Gas Men, but after a few days of slavery he overthrows their ruler and restores their rightful king. This is all done with the aid of the ultra-creepy Brontauris from last issue, a horse-headed octopus that gives me the heebie-jeebies. I want to post a picture of it, but there aren't any really good ones here. There's a good deal of imagination here, but the storytelling is so choppy that I can't enjoy it.

'Wings Johnson of the Air Patrol' (by Joe Blair and Ed Smalle): Wings Johnson is still trying to kill the German U-boat commander Von Schiller, as vengeance for the murder of his childhood friend. I swear that he has killed him at least twice so far, but the guy just keeps coming back. This time he dies again, riddled full of bullet holes. Johnson even inspects the corpse, but I don't believe it for a second. To be honest, I don't even care. Johnson has taken his vengeance so many times already that it no longer matters.

'Dick Storm in the Island of the Devil Devil Doctor' (by Harry Shorten and Mort Meskin): Dick Storm is fishing for pearls, but a member of his crew blows up their boat and flees into the jungle, intending to keep the pearls for himself. Dick pursues him, and they must both deal with the native tribesmen. It's all standard island adventure stuff.

'Bob Phantom, Scourge of the Underworld' (by Harry Shorten and Gerry Thorp): Bob Phantom foils a kidnapping plot. Not even a scene where he wrestles a pride of lions can save this.

'The West Pointer' (by Ed Wexler): This story follows on from 'The Wizard' strip earlier in the issue, in which Keith Kornell had helped that hero defeat the Mosconians. Now Keith must stop another Mosconian plot to blow up a whole load of US officials. I did like the way this dovetails out of the Wizard's story, but the rest of it is utterly generic.

'Kardak the Mystic Magician' (by C.A. Winter): Kardak helps the Fishtails to invade the supposedly villainous Mochans. Just based on this story, the Mochans never do anything particularly evil, and it seems as though the Fishtails are just attacking for the hell of it. It's not even a very exciting invasion.

Cover by Bob Kane

'The Batman Presents the Sensational Character Find of 1940.... Robin - The Boy Wonder' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): As that understated title may have clued you in, this is the first appearance of Robin, and it marks an instant change in tone for the strip. The story starts with Robin's origin: kid trapeze star Dick Grayson, parents murdered by racketeers, taken in and trained by Batman, you know how it goes. It's a classic origin that echoes Batman's very well. From there we go to Batman and Robin taking on Boss Zucco, the gangster in charge of the racketeers who killed Dick's parents. Batman spends a few pages smashing mobsters and wrecking a casino, and he's exceedingly polite during the whole affair, always sure to apologize before punching some crook's teeth in. We even see him smile for the first time. The skulking Batman that stuck to the shadows is gone, replaced by an adventurous swashbuckler who seems to be really enjoying his work. Robin then takes his turn, with an acrobatic battle in a construction site, where he takes on Zucco's goons before he and Batman team up to get the evidence they need to put Zucco away.

But it's not all light-hearted adventure. During his battle, Robin kicks a thug off a building, and the height of the fall leaves little doubt in my mind that the guy is killed. Batman even allows ZuccoZucco, but will happily allow another crook to be murdered in the name of gathering evidence.

This is a fun story, though. As much as I enjoyed the stories with Batman as a grim loner, I think I'm going to enjoy them more now that the focus is on action and adventure.

'Spy' (by Jerry Siegel and Maurice Kashuba): Bart takes on a mad scientist who has invented a machine that can hit targets with lightning. I quite enjoyed seeing Bart dodging lightning bolts wherever he went. I was also surprised at the end that the US Defense Department takes control of the machine. It will never be referred to again, but usually these types of machines get destroyed before anyone can get their hands on them.

'Red Logan' (by Ken Ernst): Red investigates a murder that appears to have been the work of a vampire. It's actually just a mad scientist who is trying to use the blood of the living to resurrect the dead. The premise is a good one, but it never follows through on the creepiness.

'The Crimson Avenger' (by Jack Lehti): The Crimson Avenger deals with some jewel thieves, and discovers that their victims have paid them off to steal the jewels so that they can collect the insurance money. It's a very tired plot, and telegraphed the instant that the insurance was mentioned.

'Speed Saunders Ace Investigator and the Kidnapped Singer' (by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer): Speed investigates the kidnapping and ransom of a singer, and discovers that the culprit is a man pretending to be her fiance. It's solid enough, and rather than Speed Saunders being the hero, that honour goes to the pilot who was flying the kidnapper's plane.

'Steve Malone, District Attorney' (by Don Lynch): Steve tackles gambling racketeers and the crooked politician who is protecting them. It's decent enough.

'Cliff Crosby' (by Chad Grothkopf): Cliff and his friend Dr. Broussard are explorers. They inexplicably find a tribe of African natives in the Arctic, who are surviving due to a serum that protects them from the cold. Cliff helps the rightful king regain control of the tribe, and along the way he fights a polar bear (breaking its jaw with his hands) and a cobra (covered in the serum as well, I guess). This is pretty crude stuff, but fun all the same.  It never does explain how those tribesmen got to the Arctic, though.

'The Case of the Vanishing Train' (by Richard Martin): A train robbery is foiled by an FBI agent. Dull.

'Slam Bradley' (by Jerry Siegel and Dennis Neville): Slam and Shorty rescue a whole bunch of people from a fire, and capture the janitor who set it deliberately. New artist Dennis Neville can't quite draw Shorty correctly, which is an essential part of the comedy for this strip. The story itself is pretty humourless, and lays the Slam Bradley hero worship on very thick. It's one of the weakest installments of this series.

March 1940: Zip Comics #4

Cover by Charles Biro

'Steel Sterling, Man of Steel' (by Charles Biro): The plot here is exceedingly average, as some crooks steal a hospital's supply of radium. The only real twist comes when their leader is revealed as the Black Knight, Steel's arch-nemesis. (At this point, it will be a twist if he's not involved in a story.) Despite the plot, the story is full of small touches that make it great. There's a heavy dose of slapstick in the fight scenes, even a bit where a crook is punched through a wall, leaving a perfect outline of himself behind. The crooks show some remarkable overkill when delivering a message: they write it on a safe and drop it from a building. Most bizarrely of all, Steel now has the ability to pick up radio transmissions by setting up a contact between his teeth and tongue. But perhaps what really makes it is the triangle set up between Steel, his girl friend Dora Cummings, and Steel's brother John (who is actually Steel in his civilian identity). It's a shameless riff on the Superman formula, with Dora loving Steel and despising the cowardly John, but it's still done well.

'The Scarlet Avenger' (by Harry Shorten and Irv Novick): Last issue we left the Scarlet Avenger about to be killed by the crime queen Lexa, but here she makes the classic criminal mistake of letting him live, because "he might be of use". Her hypnotism fails against the Scarlet Avenger, and he foils her plot to kidnap the president. As the strip ends, the Scarlet Avenger and his operatives are being overwhelmed by Lexa's forces. This is decent, but the failure of Lexa's hypnotism irked me. There's no reason for it given, and no particular struggle against it on the Scarlet Avenger's part. It just doesn't work, which is not good enough for me.

'Nevada Jones, Quick-Trigger Man' (by Creators Unknown): Nevada goes up against Slade Bowman, a notorious railroad bandit. This started well, with Slade as a charming yet ruthless killer, but the ending confused me. Nevada figures out that the sheriff is in league with Slade, but there's nothing I can see in the story to support his theory. Certainly nothing that would evidence enough to put him in jail.

'Kalthar the Giant Man, King of the Jungle' (by Harry Shorten and Lin Streeter): The jungle is invaded by the people of Shem, and Kalthar must drive them out. This is a nice change of pace for this strip. It's not high art, but it does have Kalthar throwing an elephant.

'War Eagles, the Devil's Flying Twins' (by Ed Wexler): Tom is still wounded from last issue, and Tim is called in for a solo mission to bomb a munitions factory. The two are still complete jerks to each other, but even so Tim decides to come to his brother's rescue, and both of them are shot down behind enemy lines. I do keep mentioning what assholes these two are, but to be honest that's the best part of the strip. If they were nice it would be terribly dull. I should also single out the artist, because that guy really knows how to draw planes. It's obvious that he's done a lot of research.

'Captain Valor' (by Abner Sundell and Mort Meskin): Captain Valor is captured by Yat Sing, brother of a Chinese villain named Hop-Lung that Valor killed in a previous story. The strip ends on a cliffhanger, as Valor and his friends are surrounded while trying to escape. It's an unremarkable story, though I am left puzzled by one thing. Yat Sing's female accomplice claims to be Hop-Lung's quarter-sister, and I can't quite figure out what that means. Half-sisters I understand, but what exactly is a quarter-sister?

'Mr. Satan' (by Ed Ashe): Mr. Satan deals with a gang of diamond smugglers who are hiding the diamonds inside corn cobs, feeding the corn to the cows, moving the cows across the border and removing the diamonds from their stomachs. It all seems a little too complicated, and the story is much too close to cattle rustling for my tastes. The best bit comes at the end, when the main villain is karmically gored to death by a maddened bull. Like 'Steel Sterling' above, this serial features a hero who masquerades as a coward in his civilian identity, but Mr. Satan takes it too far when he, as Dudley Bradshaw, tells a girl who has just been kidnapped that he went to a party instead of getting her help. There's protecting your secret identity, and there's making everyone you meet hate your guts.

'Zambini the Miracle Man' (by Joe Blair and Ed Wexler): When Mermen drag a woman into the sea to become their queen, Zambini goes underwater to rescue her. This has just enough of the sort of craziness that I like in Golden Age stories. The only thing I felt let down by was that Zambini never has a proper duel with the merman wizard Magi.

March 1940: Pep Comics #4

Cover by Irv Novick

'The Shield, G-Man Extraordinary' (by Harry Shorten and Irv Novick): The Shield must stop a plot by Mosconian spies to destroy Pearl Harbor, but he has a little help: The Wizard! And Keith Kornell, the West Pointer! This is a good adventure story in its own right, even without the crossover cameos. The Wizard's appearance is disappointingly short, and Keith Kornell's is inexplicable. What is a cadet doing leading rescue missions in Hawaii? But the novelty of the whole affair outweighs any such concerns, and the crossovers continue in the next issue of Top-Notch Comics.

'The Comet' (by Jack Cole): After his killing rampage while mind-controlled last issue, the Comet is a wanted man. He spends the first half of the story on the run from police and angry mobs, but the second half diverts into a plot about miners being denied adequate ventilation by their unscrupulous boss. It's a decent enough story, but has little relevance to the Comet's mission to clear his name.

'The Press Guardian' (by Abner Sundell and  Mort Meskin): The Press Guardian takes on a graft ring that has threatened his father's newspaper. This is solid stuff, although it's let down a bit at the end when the main villain commits suicide off-panel.

'Fu Chang, International Detective' (by Joe Blair and Lin Streeter): Fu Chang goes up against Princess Ling Foy, a black magic sorceress. First she attacks with an army of brass robots, then she resorts to sticking knives in a voodoo doll. In the end it is Chang's fiancee Tay Ming who saves him, with the help of Chang's magical chessmen. This is fairly enjoyable, but the stereotypically honourable nature of Chang gets a bit tiresome after a while.

'Sergeant Boyle' (by Abner Sundell and Charles Biro): Boyle foils a Nazi plot to destroy London, saves a cornered battalion, and kills a shitload of Nazis.  In the Archie universe, I'm pretty sure that this guy marched on Berlin all by himself.

'The Midshipman' (possibly by Bob Wood): It's crossover time again, as the Wizard makes a cameo to help Midshipman Lee Sampson foil a Mosconian plot to destroy the US naval academy. The law of diminishing returns is setting in already, because I wasn't particularly thrilled to see these two characters meet. More likely it's the characters themselves, because I don't care at all about Sampson.

'The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds' (by Lin Streeter): The Rocket and the queen befriend a Hawkman, and are pursued through the Dark Forest by an army of Lizard Men. What follows is a story of survival, as the three are threatened by giant monsters, the environment, and the Lizard Men themselves. It all falls apart at the end, though, when a hitherto unmentioned tribe of Ape Men comes out of nowhere to defeat the Lizard Men. Weak.

'Kayo Ward' (by Bob Wood and Phil Sturm): Kayo Ward takes on some crooks who are collecting protection money from his father. The story makes a big deal about Kayo having been shot in the arm last issue, but it never plays into this story.

'Bentley of Scotland Yard and the Hunchback Horror' (by Joe Blair and Sam Cooper): The Earl of Crackenthorpe is killed by a legendary demon from an old family story, but the demon turns out to actually be his cousin, trying to get the Earl's title for himself. I enjoyed this while I was reading it, but on closer scrutiny it falls apart. The cousin's plan hinges on someone investigating the legend of the demon, but that is done totally on a whim, one that he has no part in encouraging. And I have to say that the Earl's fiancee is pretty fickle. She displays no emotion at his death, and within hours is shacking up with his brother.

February 1940: Whiz Comics #2, Smash Comics #9, Feature Comics #31

Cover by C.C. Beck

Officially this is issue number two of Whiz Comics, but in actuality it is the first proper comic in the series. The first issue was a promo comic with no real content to speak of.

'Capt. Marvel' (by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck): This is the first appearance of Captain Marvel, a very significant piece of comics history. It gets off to a cracking start, as orphan Billy Batson is whisked away by a mysterious man in a subway train to visit the wizard Shazam, who gifts him with awesome power. When Billy says the magic word SHAZAM he becomes Captain Marvel, with the following abilities: the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury. The origin is really powerful, and rich with mythological symbolism. It really does feel momentous, and the sense of deep history is hinted at very effectively.

The main plot is a little weaker, as criminal mastermind Sivana invents a ray that will disable all radio broadcasts, and uses it to hold the world to ransom. Captain Marvel's ingenious solution is to wreck the machine, but I guess it gets the job done. It also serves as a way to get Billy Batson a job as a radio announcer, something that I'm sure will be a vital part of this strip's storytelling engine.

Despite the weaker second half, this is still a strong first outing.

'Ibis the Invincible' (by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck): Ibis is an Egyptian pharaoh who wakes up in the year 1940. Why he wakes up is never explained, but it's not super important. He owns a powerful wand called the Ibistick, which can pretty much do anything, including clothe him in the standard Golden Age magician's attire of suit and turban. Ibis's first instinct is to resurrect his lost love Taia, but before he can find her he spends a lot of time wandering the world righting wrongs, including an extended stay in Europe where he helps out during the war. By the end of the story he has brought Taia back to life, but his Ibistick has been stolen by a common crook. In many ways this is a variation on the 'Zatara' formula, although Ibis's magic tricks are not very imaginative. He also displays very little personality, and is very conversant with the modern world for an ancient Egyptian. It gets by on pace alone, with Ibis finding a new wrong to right every few panels. For all of its flaws, it's quite enjoyable.

'Golden Arrow' (by Bill Parker and Greg Duncan): Roger Parsons is the son of a millionaire, but his parents are murdered while flying a balloon across the country, and Roger is raised in the wild by an old prospector. He grows up and becomes skilled with the bow, earning the name Golden Arrow, and avenges the murder of his parents. It's a weird mash-up of the cowboy genre with a bit of the jungle hero archetype thrown in. But other than that it's rather bland.

'Spy Smasher' (by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck): Secret plans are stolen from a US admiral by the villainous Mask. The mysterious Spy Smasher gets them back. Great pains are taken to obscure Spy Smasher's identity, and the same goes for the Mask. There are two real suspects: Filipino houseboy Zambo, and wealthy young sportsman Alan Armstrong. No answer is given in this chapter, but surely Armstrong is the hero and Zambo the villain. I'll be delighted if I'm wrong.

'Scoop Smith' (by Bill Parker and Greg Duncan): As you may have guessed, Scoop Smith is a reporter. In this story he investigates Doctor Death (aka James Kirk!), who has invented a ray that can bring back the dead. Of course, he must murder someone before he can test it. Scoop gets the doctor arrested, and everything wraps up very neatly, except that there is now a ray that can bring back the dead in the hands of the US government.  It's the sort of thing that demands a follow-up, but I'm certain it will never be mentioned again.

'Lance O'Casey' (by Bill Parker and Bob Kingett): Lance O'Casey is a very Irish sailor, who must rescue a scientist and his daughter from island natives, and the white man in charge of them. The story's not very good, but the sheer Irishness of O'Casey is somewhat endearing. And he does fire his monkey sidekick from a tree like a catapult.

'Dan Dare in Seals of Doom' (by Bill Parker and Greg Duncan): No, not that Dan Dare. This one is a private detective, travelling with his girlfriend Carol. A millionaire hires them to try and pin a murder on someone, which is all tied into a dope smuggling operation. It's relatively complex, and done better than most stories of this type.

Cover by Gill Fox

'Espionage starring Black X' (by Will Eisner): Eisner's European war montage openings get more and more ludicrous. This time, in addition to the usual war imagery, we're treated to Jesus on the cross, a skeleton forging weapons at an anvil, and the Four Horsemen of Death.

But that has nothing to do with the main story, which sees the Black X taking on Proxoff, a warlord who has built his own private army with which he plans to take over the world in the aftermath of the war. His soldiers don't fear death, and when caught they ingest a drug that turns them into skeletons. This is another solid outing.  Not only does it work as a great action adventure story, but it displays an understanding of the horror and senselessness of war that many other similar strips lack.

'Abdul the Arab' (by Vernon Henkel): Abdul is tasked with capturing the bandit Khabib, but as usual Abdul gets captured and his sidekick Hassan comes to his rescue. He even survives getting shot before punching Khabib right in the mouth. Seriously, why does Abdul get all the credit? The guy does nothing!

'Flash Fulton, Newsreel Ace' (by Paul Gustavson): Flash, working in the European war zone, smuggles the information in some vital papers across the border by making a newsreel of them. There's very little here of note, except for a joke in the last panel that falls completely flat.

'Clip Chance at Cliffside' (by George Brenner): With his coach's job on the line, Clip wins every event in the decathlon and beats up some crooks who try to steal the gate receipts. He's just so wonderful!

'Wings Wendall of the Military Intelligence' (by Vernon Henkel): Wings stops a group of spies that is taking photographs of Hawaii's military defenses. This story has nothing of interest.

Captain Cook of Scotland Yard: The Case of the Roving Taxicab' (by Stan Aschmeier): A man is murdered in a taxicab, and Captain Cook proves that the culprit was the cab driver. No shit Sherlock, he was the only other guy in there!

'John Law, Scientective' (by Harry Francis Campbell): Last issue John Law figured out the identity of the Avenger, but was not able to capture him. This time the Avenger is menacing the owner of a bus company, making his buses disappear in a strange fog. Law tracks him down to an unfinished subway tunnel, gets captured, and McGuyvers his way out by making home-made thermite. Yes kids, with some aluminum filings, rust and camera flash powder, you too can make a substance that burns at 5000 degrees! This is pretty average, but I really did enjoy that potentially dangerous little home chemistry lesson.

'Chic Carter, Ace Reporter' (by Vernon Henkel): Chic Carter smashes a marijuana ring in a very pedestrian story.

'The Cat Men' (by Robert M. Hyatt): A bunch of trains race to the Norton Mine, with the winner to gain the lucrative freight contract on offer. One of the train drivers cheats mercilessly and gets his comeuppance in a relatively satisfying fashion. It's alright so far as these prose stories go.

'Invisible Justice' (by Art Pinajian): The Invisible Hood takes on a small band of pirates.As often happens, sleepiness set in around the time I was reading this story, and it wasn't exciting or interesting enough to keep me awake.

'Hugh Hazzard and his Iron Man' (by Wayne Reid): Hugh and Bozo take on a dictator named Motler, who is totally original and nothing like Adolf Hitler at all. I've only just realised it, but now that Hugh can climb inside the robot, he is very much in the same vein as Iron Man (the Marvel character).

Cover possibly by Ed Cronin

'The Dollman' (by Will Eisner and Lou Fine): The Dollman tackles a weird hunchback who is murdering diamond salesmen and stealing their wares. It's a very basic story, and I still feel like this strip isn't making the most out of its premise.

'Jane Arden' (by Monte Barrett and Russell E. Ross): Jane is still getting entangled in soap opera romance and the like, but as the strip is ending it looks as though one of the men she's been dating is a crook. Pretty much everyone here is acting like a jerk this month.  I'll never get to find out what that maybe-crook's deal is, because this is Jane Arden's final appearance here.  It was never interesting enough to be missed.

'Captain Fortune' (by Vernon Henkel): Captain Fortune rescues his friend the Earl of Essex from a rival duke. The duke vows revenge as a set-up for next month's story. In theory this all sounds quite exciting, but on the page it's quite staid and flat.

'Rance Keane, the Knight of the West' (by William A. Smith): Rance Keane helps a supposed FBI agent against a gang of cattle rustlers, only to discover that this agent is actually their leader.  I could write about whether this was good or not, but instead I'd like to share my opinion of cattle rustler stories in general: they suck and I hate them.

'The Clock Strikes' (by George Brenner): The Clock takes on a spy who has stolen the formula for a new type of poison gas. He survives an attack with the gas because his mask got wet, which is pretty weak.  This appears to be the last we will see of the Clock for many decades. It's a fairly ignominious finale for the first costumed hero in comics.

'Spin Shaw of the Naval Air Corps' (by Bob Powell): Spin goes undercover in a gang of arms smugglers. It's another incredibly generic and boring story.

'Slim and Tubby' (by John J. Welch): Benton tries to get another boxing match, but because he's a hero nobody wants to fight him. I liked that one twist in the ongoing storyline, but otherwise this is pretty dull.  This is the last appearance of this strip, and Slim and Tubby have yet to come up with the money to save their ranch.  I can only assume that it goes out of business and they die penniless on the streets.

'Ned Brant' (by Bob Zuppke and R.W. Depew): Ned loses a relay race, then comes back and wins the race that decides the whole athletics meet. Because he's awesome.  This is the last appearance of Ned Brant, to which I say good riddance.  The sooner these sport-themed strips die out the better.

'Charlie Chan' (by Alfred Andriola): Charlie investigates a kidnapping and the attempted theft of some rubies. The story ends with him accusing a man who is still vehemently claiming his innocence, and his evidence is pretty tenuous.  This is the last we see of Charlie in Feature Comics.  I won't miss him.

'Magic on the Rink' (by Robert E. Jones): A crook tries to fix an ice hockey match by putting heating units into one team's skates, but he screws up and puts them in the skates of his own team. I'm not sure what this story is trying to say, except for "criminals are dumb".

'Reynolds of the Mounted' (by Art Pinajian): Two escaped crooks hole up in a cabin, but the boy who lives there notifies the Mounties by arranging the washing in Morse code.  It's terrible, and has Mounties in it.

As you may have guessed, Feature Comics is in for a big overhaul in the next issue.  I'm looking forward to it, because this is one of my least favourite comics to read for this blog.  Any change will probably be an improvement.

February 1940: Mystic Comics #2

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Master Mind Excello' (possibly by Arnold Hicks): Society playboy Earl Everett is also Excello, agent of the Naval Intelligence Department, who solves plots against the US with his mental and physical powers. Sound familiar?  It should if you've been paying attention, because this is exactly the same set-up as the Wizard over at Archie. Excello even has the power to visualise things that are happening elsewhere, just like the Wizard does. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Excello leaves his calling card behind, complete with a patriotic message.  Just like the Wizard!  This is the most shameless rip-off I have seen in the course of this blog, in a medium that is rife with shameless rip-offs. The only thing this character has going for him is the name "Master Mind Excello", which is truly great.  It's too bad they never refer to him by that full title in the story.

'Flexo the Rubber Man' (by Jack Binder): Flexo and his creators take on a group of spies who have stolen a new machine designed to repel torpedoes. I didn't particularly enjoy this, although the scene where the spies try to run Flexo down in their car, only to bounce back over the cliff to their doom, is priceless.

'The Dynamic Man' (by Gus Ricca): The Dynamic Man is Curt Cowan, who has all sorts of powers related to magnetism. In this story he takes on a gang of spies and saboteurs led by Doctor Vee. This is about as dull and generic as a Golden Age super-hero tale can get. The Dynamic Man displays no memorable traits whatsoever.

'Space Rangers' (by Creators Unknown): In the year 2300 AD, Bob and Nibbs are Space Rangers, tasked with protecting interplanetary travellers and merchants. In this story they take on Blackhawk, a space bandit who lives with his ape men on an inexplicably pleasant asteroid near Mercury. The resolution is simplicity itself, as the Space Rangers just get in their ship and blow Blackhawk to smithereens. The only interesting part of the story comes from Blackhawk's relationship with his daughter. Says Blackhawk: "You're worse than your wretched mother was!" Says the daughter: "He is mean, and I hate him!" Complexity, thy name is Golden Age.

'The Blue Blaze' (by Newt Alfred): The Blue Blaze goes up against an inventor who is sabotaging mine shafts so that he can sell his own safety devices. This is terribly bland. The Blue Blaze is a lot less interesting now that his back-from-the-dead angle doesn't play into the story. Except when he's strangling dogs, then he's rad.

'Murderer's Mistake' (by Eddie Herron): "It was a swell night to murder the boss." Now that is how you open a prose story. This one's about a gardener who murders his boss, but is caught because he is careful not to tread on his flowers as he makes his escape. With relatively rounded characters and a satisfying wrap-up, this is very good for a comic book prose story.

'Taxi Taylor and his Wonder Car' (by Creators Unknown): Taxi Taylor invents a special car that can turn into a plane or a submarine, but when he presents it to the US government they think he's a crackpot. Determined to show them up, Taylor uses his car to stop a plot by agents from the totally-not-German country of "Swastikia". I like the premise here, and the car does have some impressive gadgets, but ultimately the story is just too dull.

'The Invisible Man known as Dr. Gade' (by Newt Alfred): Some thugs send an assassin to kill Dr. Gade by pushing him into a furnace. Gade survives, and thanks to a combination of chemicals he can now turn invisible. He seeks revenge on his would-be killers, and the dude is bloodthirsty. Not only does he throw one guy out of a window, he grabs another guy's arm and makes him shoot his friend. The last crook he throws into a disintegrator, and he is "blown into atoms forever!" The ruthlessness of the hero made this a more compelling read than some other stories. I've complained about invisible heroes in other strips (notably 'Invisible Justice'), but it's all in the execution. The artist here uses light and shade to effectively convey the lead character's invisibility without sacrificing mood or dynamics.

'Zara of the Jungle' (by Newt Alfred): Captain Graves goes into the jungle to stop two warring tribes, and encounters the white goddess Zara. This is the first instance of the "jungle girl" genre I've seen in the course of this blog. It has the usual racial unpleasantness that permeates jungle comics, but Zara makes for a refreshing change from the likes of Ka-Zar. And I did like that she refused to return to civilisation with Graves.

'Dakor the Magician' (by Creators Unknown): Dakor rescues a British consul from Chinese bandits. This isn't bad for a bargain bin Zatara knock-off. I have no idea why the Chinese bandits are coloured green, though.

February 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #6

 Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): Some crooks set a forest fire, and rob the local bank while everyone is distracted trying to put it out. The crooks steal plans for a bomb, and plan to sell them to foreign agents. The Torch tracks them down and destroys the plans. It's not a great story, though it's far from short on incident. The strangest bit comes when the Torch has been knocked unconscious, and the forest fire comes to his defense. Is fire sentient in the Marvel Universe?  Probably not, but it's an intriguing scene nonetheless.  It's exactly the sort of thing that the Official Marvel Handbook would spend a paragraph explaining away.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel rescues a woman named Mary Edwards, who has been kidnapped for her valuable necklace. It's a perfectly adequate story, but that's the extent of it. Mary comes across as a rounded character, which is unusual for the token hostage, so it does have that going for it.  We also learn the Angel's real name (Tom Holloway) for the first time.

'Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Despite his best efforts to prove that he is not a menace to humanity, Namor is placed on trial for murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death. His food is drugged to make him weak, but his stint in the electric chair only serves to return him to full power. Which is great, because it brings us back to a point where Namor can be an enemy of mankind. He escapes to the ocean, vowing to return, and I'm really looking forward to it. This is an exciting, compelling read that gets the character back to his roots.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider takes on a crooked rustler who has stolen a ranch that borders the Rio Grande, so that he can send cattle across the border to Mexico. Not only were rustlers a menace to the US cattle economy, they were responsible for hundreds of shitty westerns for years afterwards.

'The Shrinking Spy' (by Andrew McWhiney and Frank Thomas): Two FBI agents put a stop to a foreign agent who has invented a shrinking formula. This prose story features the absurd notion that American spies are all about fair play and sportsmanship: "We prefer to do our spying in a nice, clean, healthy way!" It would be amusing if I believed for a second that this was tongue-in-cheek.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): Professor Zog decides to destroy America's dope trade, so he sends his operatives out to investigate. In each major city, they are to find the head dope peddler and summon Electro to take him out. Normally I'll take any excuse to watch a robot smash things, but this is pretty lacklustre. It doesn't help that the villains only appear for a few panels each. It's hard to make the reader care about their defeat when they barely qualify as characters.

'Ferret, Mystery Detective' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): The Ferret investigates the murder of the head of a cosmetics company. The killer then masquerades as the victim's brother in order to collect a lot of money, but the Ferret figures out what's going on with some very dodgy evidence.  Apparently, the brother of the head of a cosmetics house could never have a bad complexion.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): Ka-Zar takes on an evil ivory hunter, arranging it so that he gets trampled by an elephant herd. This story is notable only because it depicts a tribe of Africans in a positive light, and not as man-eating savages.  I'll take the small victories.

February 1940: Daring Mystery Comics #3

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'Dale of the F.B.I.' (by Phil Sturm): Dale, as you may have guessed, is an ace FBI investigator. He's only ever called Dale, so who knows if it's his first or last name; he's just Dale. In this story he takes on a gang of crooks whose leader has just escaped from jail. It's pretty tedious stuff, except for one bit where Dale snatches a girl hostage away from them while surfing on the wing of a plane, then shoots the gang's leader through the heart. It's a rad maneuver in an otherwise terrible story.  It's also probably the absolute zenith of Dale's career, as we never see him again.  I picture him sitting in the FBI office, constantly reminding his colleagues about it.  "Hey, remember that time I rode the plane wing!  Wasn't that super?  Hey, who wants a coffee?"

'Breeze Barton in the Miracle City' (by Jack Binder): In the far-flung future of 1945! World War 2 is still raging, and Breeze Barton is an American pilot. He is shot down in the desert, and stumbles through "The Spot", a portal to another dimension where time has no meaning. There's a city there full of creatures from all through time, as nothing ages there. There are also the Demon People, who want to destroy Earth for no readily apparent reason, and Breeze gets caught up in a war between the Miracle City and the Demon People. There are some fun concepts here to go along with a pacy adventure story. It still don't know why they bothered to set it in 1945, though.

'The Purple Mask' (by Will Harr and Maurice Gutwirth): In the last issue, Dennis Burton appeared as the slightly creepy Laughing Mask.  In this issue, he has changed his identity to the ultra-generic Purple Mask.  The Purple Mask takes on a gang of crooks who are searching for a wealthy man's treasure that is hidden in an underground vault. I'm a sucker for underground vaults filled with traps and treasure, but beyond that there's very little to recommend in this story. The Purple Mask has zero personality, and the villains are no better.

'The Phantom Reporter' (by Robert O. Erisman and Sam Cooper): I cannot keep track of these early Marvel heroes.  I was sure the Phantom Reporter had appeared already, but this is actually his first appearance.  There's a rash of murders on the East Side, and the Phantom Reporter sets about putting a stop to them. Pretty much everybody is in on this murder plot: two newspaper publishers, the chief of police, and even the commissioner of parks. The Phantom Reporter has got to be pissed about it, because he punches one of the murderers so hard that he dies. Otherwise this is an average story. I do like that the Phantom Reporter maintains identities as both a cub reporter and a playboy; it's like he's got both of the most cliched super hero professions covered.

'Powdersmoke Showdown' (by James P. Olsen): Yes, Jimmy Olsen wrote this prose story. It's about two former partners who have a shoot-out over a widow woman. Only the guy who wins isn't interested in the woman; he only wants to get his socks back from the man he shot. It's a bizarre tone shift.

'Trojak the Tiger Man' (by Joe Simon): Trojak battles a gigantic prehistoric monster, and rescues a girl from a Nazi encampment. Both stories are solid, though there is little to connect them.

'Marvex - the Super-Robot' (by Creators Unknown): Marvex is a robot created in the Fifth Dimension, but he refuses to be a slave and so he escapes to Earth. On Earth he meets a girl named Clara, gets caught up in the theft of some important plans, and puts a stop to the crooks by completely wrecking them. And then we see the weirdest exchange of the whole story. After Marvex returns the plans to a grateful Clara, he tells her that they can never be more than friends, because he is Marvel the Super-Robot. The last line of the strip reads "The Super-Robot quickly disrobes, showing his metal body." I was all set to dismiss this as a story of no particular interest, but those last couple of panels are brilliant.

'Captain Strong of the Foreign Legion' (possibly by Jack Alderman): An Arab tribe is plundering caravans, and the Foreign Legion must stop them. This is a good eight pages of Arabs and Legionaries straight-up killing each other, which is great if that's what you're into. The action scenes are quite well done, which is a good thing when your whole story is an action sequence. Still, there's no story to speak of, and Captain Strong never appears again.

February 1940: Superman Radio Serial Episodes 1-8

Superman's radio serial started in February 1940, and I have listened to the first eight episodes. The types of stories told hew quite closely to the comics, but there are some significant deviations that I'll mention later.

The first episode is set on Krypton, and tells the familiar story of Jor-L and Lara trying to save their people from the imminent destruction of their planet. It's very similar to the version of the story that appeared in the newspaper strip. It probably has the worst voice acting of the episodes I have listened to, but that's understandable, because these characters aren't going to appear again. There's a lot of bellowing, and declaiming, and it's all rather stilted and lacking in emotion. But for all that, it's quite striking to hear it dramatised. I don't think I ever realised exactly how grim Superman's origin story is until I listened to this.

Episode two is where the story deviates significantly from the comics. Little Kal-L makes his rocket trip to Earth, but instead of landing as a baby and being found by a passing motorist, he is fully grown by the time he reaches our planet. Ma and Pa Kent are nowhere to be seen. Superman saves a man and his son from a car crash, and they help him decide how to acclimate to Earth. They give him the name Clark Kent and suggest that he get a job as a newspaper reporter. I'm guessing here that the creators of the show wanted to get into the action quicker, and so dispensed with Superman's childhood, but I feel like a vital part of the story is missing here. Superman's desire to do good is just there, rather than being the product of a good upbringing.

When the newly named Kent goes to get a job as a reporter, he goes to the Daily Planet, and the editor there is not George Taylor from the comics but the much more recognisable Perry White (at least to modern audiences).  Both of them are cut from the same "gruff editor" template, so I'm not sure why there was a change.  I guess someone just disliked the original name.

The rest of the episodes deal with a villain known as the Wolf, who is making trains disappear under the orders of a mastermind known as the Yellow Mask.  I didn't find it particularly enthralling.  The most enjoyment I got was from the tidbits of Superman lore that kept cropping up.  The opening, with the "It's a bird! It's a plane!" lines was an obvious one that sent a chill up my spine to hear it in its original appearance.  Another unexpected one came in episode 6 or so, when Superman shouted "Up! Up! And away!" just before taking off.  And that reminds me of something else: Superman seems to be flying here.  In the comics at this time he still jumps everywhere, but although the radio show hasn't explicitly stated it yet, it has Superman doing things in the sky that sound a lot more like flight.

If you want to listen to these they can be found here: http://www.archive.org/details/superman_otr.  They're an enjoyable bit of historical curiosity.

February 1940: Superman Sunday Strip #9-14, "How Superman Would End the War"

SUPERMAN SUNDAY STRIP #9-14:

In this series of strips Superman investigates the disappearance of a number of men via a job agency. It turns out that the men hired out are being hypnotised and used to commit crimes. Superman puts a stop to it in one of the most boring and straightforward stories he has ever been in. His attitude in this story is much more pro-establishment than it has been, as he protects the perpetrators from their victims so that they can go to trial. I'm not so sure that the Superman of the 1930s wouldn't have abandoned them to their fate.

"HOW SUPERMAN WOULD END THE WAR"

This two-page story was created by Siegel and Shuster especially for Look Magazine, and it's probably the most famous of Superman's Golden Age adventures.  Quite simply, Superman busts into Germany and grabs Adolf Hitler, busts into Russia and grabs Josef Stalin, and drags them both before the League of Nations.  It's the ultimate expression of Siegel and Shuster's ultra-simplistic political views, but satisfying for all that.  It harkens back to Superman's earliest days, even though he does resist the urge to punch out Hitler.  I'm still not sure why the colourist made Superman's legs bare, though.

 

As a side note, we also get the sales figures for the two comics featuring Superman on an earlier page of the article.  Action Comics sells approximately 600,000 comics a month, while the quarterly Superman averages one million.

February 1940: More Fun Comics #54

Cover by Bernard Baily

That is a seriously great cover.  It's probably the first Golden Age cover that I really love.

'The Spectre' (by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily): The Spectre takes on a phony psychic, who has been fleecing the mother of the Spectre's former fiancee. This was all quite uninteresting, until the scene where the Spectre is summoned back to Heaven and offered a choice between eternal rest, or fighting evil on Earth as a ghost forever. With his fiancee's life in danger he chooses to remain Earth-bound. It's a great moment trapped in an otherwise mediocre story.

'Biff Bronson' (by Al Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Biff and Dan take on the Wizard and his robot army, which is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds. It mostly involves them running away while the robots' batteries run out.

'Captain Desmo' (by Ed Winiarski): Desmo and Gabby anger a group of assassins in India, and must beat them before they are killed. Which they do in a straightforward manner that elicits no excitement.

'Radio Squad' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): Sandy and Larry must guard a wealthy man who is being targeted by "The Cloak", a mysterious killer who ends up being the wealthy man himself. The first part of the Cloak's plan makes perfect sense, but I can't see exactly what he was trying to achieve after that.

'Lieut. Bob Neal of Sub 662' (by B. Hirsch and Russ Lehman): A female spy after the US defense plans? Seen it. A spy ring with a ray that can stop a plane's engine? Seen it. Story with no original elements, told in a boring fashion? Definitely seen it.

'A Wet Wager' (by Paul Dean): A seaman makes a bet that he can stay underwater longer than his friend, but must be rescued when his oxygen line is cut. I'm almost certain that this is a reprint from an earlier comic.

'King Carter' (by Paul J. Lauretta): King and Red are stranded by pirates on a tropical island. Red befriends a tribe of apes that helps them defeat the pirates. There's a certain absurd charm of it all.

'Detective Sergeant Carey and the Policy Murders' (by Joe Donohoe): Carey and Sleepy track down the killers of a wealthy old recluse. It's all to do with an insurance scam, which is as worn out a motivation as there is.

'Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol' (by Jack Lehti): O'Malley takes on a gang of crooks that is trying to steal a mine from an old prospector. Predictably, dynamite is the answer to all of their problems.

'Bulldog Martin' (by Bart Tumey): Bulldog Martin uses an invisibility pill to wreak havoc on some crooks who are trying to make a transaction. In the course of setting the crooks against each other, he scatters eleven million dollars into the crowd below. Thus the day is saved, and the economy is ruined, by Bulldog Martin!

February 1940: Action Comics #23

Cover by Joe Shuster

'Superman' (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster): This is the real first appearance of Luthor, at least in story terms. There's a house ad for Superman #4 after this story, meaning the on-sale dates are pretty close, so there's no telling which of them came first.  In this story Luthor is fomenting war between two European nations so that he can step in and take over once they are weakened. He's not particularly more interesting than any of the other criminal geniuses that have appeared so far. Superman stops his plan in a story that feels very much by the numbers. I'd love to write more about this, because it's significant historically, but there's not much to say. Luthor does get to maintain a bit of mystery, as he communicates to his lackeys through a great stone face. And it was a change of pace seeing Clark and Lois as war correspondents. But it doesn't feel much different from a bunch of other Superman stories that had a bit more zip to them.

 Lex Luthor, red hair and all.

Superman's Secret Message: IF WE REMEMBER THE SLOGAN OF OUR CLUB AND MAKE IT A PART OF OUR DAILY LIVES, WE CAN THEN TRULY DESERVE THE NAME OF SUPERMAN.

'Pep Morgan' (by Fred Guardineer): Pep takes on a group of mine workers who are really saboteurs encouraging the workers to strike. Now, as presented the guys who are forcing the other workers to strike against their will are bad guys, and get what they deserve. But I get a definite anti-Union, anti-strike vibe from this story that goes beyond that. It's weird from a modern perspective to see it presented that way.

'The Black Pirate' (by Sheldon Moldoff): In this new strip, Jon Valor is the Black Pirate, on the trail of the evil Captain Ruff. This is terribly old fashioned even for 1940, with the whole thing being told in narrative captions. It robs the story of its immediacy, and it's not a style that I've ever been fond of.

'Three Aces' (by Gardner Fox and Chad Grothkopf): Gunner, Fog and Whistler go in search of a lost city, and find a crazy Aztec priest who is using zombies to pilot planes. Quite why he's doing this is never explained, and the protagonists just bugger off, leaving a whole bunch of guys to their zombified fate.

'Tex Thomson' (by Bernard Baily): Tex and his crew crash land near a spooky castle, the inhabitant of which is a mad scientist whose flesh and bones are made of synthetic rubber. It's a novel enough premise, though I think the villain's ability to mould his face to look like anyone could have been put to better use.

'Spy's Return' (by Jack Anthony): A man escapes from the dreaded "Green Shirts" and is then revealed to be a prince. It's probably no coincidence that I started to nod off at around this point.

'Clip Carson' (by Sheldon Moldoff): Clip takes on some South American revolutionaries. This strip has become incredibly banal.

'Zatara the Master Magician and the Treasure Tower' (by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer): Zatara goes in search of a treasure hidden by a builder named Kartzoff. During the course of his search he is opposed by the Tigress, and must navigate a house full of deathtraps administered by Kartzoff himself. This one wasn't terribly exciting, but once again Zatara and the Tigress team up, and my hunch about them having an affair is hinted at once again.

February 1940: All-American Comics #13

Cover by Ben Flinton

'Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man' (by Jon L. Blummer): The armies of Warlord Tor attack America, and Gary Concord and his forces fight back. This is a six-page war, but somehow Blummer has managed to give it a grand sense of scale, with fighting in the Arctic and along the Equator, as well as the main offensive in America. Concord's attack plan goes off without a hitch, which is usually something I don't care for, but what I liked here is that he has more than one plan. He has his sleep foam, and his ray that disintegrates metal, and his special jungle tanks. It all culminates in a great panel when Tor is defeated, and crawls from the wreckage of his ships saying "Look! Blood! Blood on my hands!" It's not the most subtle of symbolism, but symbolism of any sort in the Golden Age is a thing to treasure. And let us not forget Gary's sidekick Guppy, who dies here during the conflict. I hated him, and he had a stupid comb-over, but at least he died well.

'Hop Harrigan' (by Jon L. Blummer): With Hop now a national hero, his friend Wash starts up a new company, All-American Aviation. Their mechanic Ikky celebrates by dragging Hop along to the closest thing a comic for kids can get to depicting a strip club. Ikky leaves with a girl, and because Hop doesn't like the looks of her he steals their bankroll from Ikky's pocket. He doesn't warn Ikky, doesn't try to get him to leave the girl, he just takes the money and leaves, and of course Ikky gets jumped by thugs. Hop Harrigan: terrible friend. Then there's an interlude with some spies who try to steal some aviation plans, which is the most boring part of the strip. And then the cliffhanger, in which Hop's legal guardian, the crook he ran away from all the way back in issue #1, tries to regain custody of him. This is a damn busy comic, and all the better for it.

'Ben Webster' (by Edwin Alger): Ben and Taffy have been abandoned by Sidewinder Pete, and captured by Mexican bandits. The bandits take them to their "Big Boss", who ends up being Sidewinder Pete, who ends up being Abner Mattix, the very man Ben and Taffy were looking for. It's all very implausible, and I really don't understand the reasons for such a hoax at all. Anyway, it turns out that Abner has found some magic mud that can heal any wound (even a gunshot wound to the head!), but the well he found has dried up. The three of them must find the source, which is a decent enough premise to go on for the next few installments. This would have been okay without the nonsense at the beginning.

'Adventures in the Unknown: The Infra-Red Destroyers' (by Carl H. Claudy): Now this is a mess. The main plot seems to be that mysterious meteors are bombarding Earth, then disintegrating into powder. But around that a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated things are going on. A kid is framed for murder by a mad scientist. Eleven people are murdered at a radio station. A guy is attacked by something invisible, and Alan gives a lecture on infra-red light. The most inexplicable scene is one where Ted stops some boys from teasing a dog. There are even more unexplained goings on than I've mentioned here, and it's just too much. It's possible that the next chapter will have a brilliant explanation for it all, but at the moment it's just unfocused and terrible.

'Scribbly' (by Sheldon Mayer): Scribbly's little brother Dinky has fallen in love with Sisty Hunkel, and they get engaged. This is firmly in the camp of humour that thinks that kids acting like adults is inherently funny, which isn't really my thing.

'Death's Playground' (by George Shute): Jimmy and Phil finally capture the saboteurs, but I was pretty lost through the whole thing. This story started quite a few issues ago, and I really can't remember much of the first few chapters. Perhaps if I sat and read it all in one go it would come together, but as a serial it just stretched out loo long.

'Popsicle Pete' (by Sheldon Mayer): Pete and his friends have found a pot of gold that turns out to be stolen, and then they catch the crooks responsible by accident. The strip ends by asking what the reader thinks the kids should do with the money. Perhaps they could actually open the radio station that they were trying to raise money for for like a million strips?!?

'Red, White and Blue' (by William Smith): This story sees the return of Mr. Glib, the villain from a couple of issues ago who has the power of invisibility. He supposedly died in a car crash, but here he is alive and well, helping in a plot to spoil America's food supplies. It's a pretty lacklustre story, not helped by a scene where Blooey gains the power of invisibility through some very hazily defined means. It also raises the possibility of the heroes being court-martialed for going AWOL, then hastily wraps that up in the closing caption, which is pretty weak.