Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Their Final Golden Age Appearances... A Retro Review Thread!

So I recently discovered the existence of Sir Butch of Beeler's Alley, sidekick of the Shining Knight towards the very end of his Golden Age run, and, while reading some of the stories featurning him, it occurred to me that an interesting idea for a thread would be to look at the very final appearances of various characters in the Golden Age. So that's what I hope to do with an occasional series of posts on this thread.

And so we begin with:

The Shining Knight

Final GA Appearance: Adventure Comics #166, July 1951

"The Secret Kingdom!"

This story begins with Justin and his pal Butch in Mexico looking for remnants of lost civilizations for the museum that employs him. After finding evidence of an Indian village nearby, a mounted Aztec warrior named "Quetza" suddenly appears and warns them off. Rather than completely abandoning their mission, Justin and Butch seek a higher trail from which they might be able to catch a glimpse of the mysterious village, but instead see outlaws waiting to ambush Quetza! Donning the armor of the Shining Knight and removing the packs from his horse to reveal the wings of Winged Victory, Sir Justin speeds to aid the Aztec Warrior! After sending the crooks on their way, Sir Justin is led to the "tiny, concealed kingdom" where he discovers that Quetza is a prince and that the natives consider him the return of an ancient hero. Meanwhile the outlaws, under the command of Pecos Parker, wanted in both the U.S. and Mexico, regroup and discuss the fact that the Shining Knight is now after them! Remembering that SK travels with a kid, they hatch a plan where if they can capture his youthful companion, they can use him as bait for SK. This plan is overheard by Butch, who then promptly slips and falls so that he is conveniently captured. The crooks threaten to dynamite the kid unless the Shining Knight stands down and the native agree to work as slaves to mine nearby gold for the outlaws. Buying time to discuss the matter with the native king, The Shining Knight uses his magic sword to dig a hole and come up behind the crooks. However, they still have Butch prisoner, and, unlike the Shining Knight's armor, Butch isn't bulletproof. Butch, however, leaps off the side of a cliff! The Shining Knight attacks the criminals, and is soon joined by Quetza, who together with Winged Victory caught Butch as he lept from the cliff, and they all join the battle against the bad guys. At the victory party, Justin meets the Princess Ixtla, future ruler of the Kingdom, but is unable to find Quetza. After they have some fun at Justin's expense, Butch reveals that Quetza was, in reality, the Princess Ixtla all the time!

This is a decent story, I like the idea of Sir Justin as an archeologist, ala Indiana Jones, searching for lost civilizations. I'm not sure how common that was as a plot device in SK stories, as the other "Sir Butch" stories I read were mostly them travelling back in time to Camelot. Butch is basically your typical "Brooklyn orphan" character, but he makes an interesting foil for SK, even though he doesn't come off that great in this particular story. The whole "Quetza is really a princess" bit kind of comes out of nowhere at the end. My new theory is that the Shining Knight's GA adventures end because he falls in love with the native princess and goes on to rule by her side in the Secret Kingdom, while Butch takes over his role as a crimefighter in NYC!

Great idea EDE.

I noted your interest in this era, when the alternate JLA:1953 was put up on Bits.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts on other characters.

The next three entries will be linked, as we look at the final GA appearances of the Star-Spangled Kid, Stripesy, and Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmicks!

I actually read all of the Merry stories awhile back, so this is a re-read for me, but they a lot more fun than the story I was going to next, so I'll save that one for the future.

Stripesy

Final Golden Age Appearance: Star-Spangled Comics #83, August 1948

"The Adventures of the Rope!"

Professional criminal The Rope, so-called because he specializes in rope tricks, is all set to swing into the First Federal Insurance Building... but he finds the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy waiting for him! He eludes them by the clever trick of swinging back, but when SSK and Stripesy try to pursue him using his own rope, they find that it is a "trick rope" designed to only hold the weight of one person. Not sure why that's really a rope trick rather than a matter of just buying a cheap rope, but whatever. The rope snaps and, while SSK catches hold of a ledge, Stripesy falls to a lower ledge and breaks his leg! And thus ends the GA career of Pat Dugan, as the last we see of him is his lying in a hospital bed recovering from his injuries. He says that he will be "hobbling around in good shape before you know it", but apparently the injury was bad enough that continuing to pursue a hobby of fighting criminals with acrobatic routines just wasn't going to happen anymore.

As SSK mopes around his workshop in his secret identity of Sylvester Pemberton, he laments the fact that the Rope will have free reign since his team is "broken up". His kid sister Merry, adopted two issues ago and who debuted as the Girl of 1000 Gimmicks in the previous issue, volunteers to help, but that idea is just crazy. After all, she's a girl! And crime-fighting is dangerous! Nonethelss, she sneaks out after him when he goes on patrol that night. Meanwhile, the Rope attacks an armored car with by hanging ropes that transmit an electrical charge in the car's path! But the colorful figure of the Star-Spangled Kid shows up to stop him, only to be knocked out by the bags of gold that the Rope swings tied to his rope! Just as he's about to tie up SSK, he hears the sound of a siren! Is it the police? No! It's a wind siren, a gimmick of Merry, Girl of 1000 gimmicks, designed to attract the attention of the cops! She hits him with a jack-in-the-box glove, and then blows some sort of chemical bubbles at him. The Rope flees up a rope, but Merry is ready with an indian rope trick, sending a rope straight up in the air that explodes in a smoke screen that blind the Rope! And so... the Rope is captured!

After explaining to SSK how she did the trick, she and Sylvester return home where later he says she was just lucky and that girls should stay home rather than going out fighting crime!

And that's it! A decent little story, and there's a nice logical reason why Stripesy would hang up the striped shirt after this, even if it isn't blatantly said that he will be retiring. It's kind of interesting to watch them transitioning the feature from the SSK/Stripesy team to the Merry feature, rather than just replacing the older feature with a new one. Sylvester is such a jerk in these issues, however.

The Rope is an okay villain, though I'd rank him well-below earlier SSK villains like The Needle or Dr. Weerd, and of course the irony of Merry using a "rope trick" to defeat him is a pretty classic story device.

The Star-Spangled Kid

Final Golden Age Appearance: Star-Spangled Comics #84, "The Return of the Rope", September 1948

So this issue opens with Sylvester Permberton and his father leaving on a deep-sea fishing expedition. Does this reflect the fact that Syl has changed his chauvinist views and now trusts Merry to guard the city? Nope! It reflects the fact that deep-sea fishing trips aren't for girls! And with that, the GA appearances of the Star-Spangled Kid are at an end. Not the most noble end for a character who was once the starring feature of this title, with two stories in some of the earlier issues, only have the Newsboy Legion and then Robin usurp his place as the lead feature and now Merry take over his own strip, but that's the comics business.

Anyway, we turn to prison, where the Rope escapes with the help of a rope that he's stolen from the prison packing room. In his hideout, he learns of a charity costume contest in which participants dress as famous women from history! Using his gang and his ropes, the Rope steals the jewels of a contestant dressed as Cleopatra. Merry enters in borrowing the judges' chariot, but is felled by an invisible plastic rope. The second night of the contest, the Rope enters concealed in a giant spool and steals Marie Antoinette's necklace! The third night features that famous woman of history, Snow White! The Rope and his henchmen swoop in to steal Snow White's bag of gold! The judges even mention how true to the Snow White story her having a bag of gold is, because the dwarves mined gold! Anyway, the bag of gold actually contains exploding fireworks, courtesy Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmicks! She captures the crooks by conking them on the head with a giant apple, and the police haul them away.

And Syl and his dad do actually show up in the final page of the story, and Syl brags about the fish he caught, though Merry is much happier with her own "catch"! And, yeah, he's gone with this issue, even though in the next couple of issues the feature wil be title "The Star-Spangled Kid starring Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmicks".

This is fascinating! Not having read these stories, it had never occurred to me that the reason SSK flopped in the Golden Age was that he was so unappealing. I was spoiled by his 70s and 80s appearances in JLA, JSA, and Infinity Inc.

Thanks for this thread, EDE. Looking forward to your next review.

In the early stories he acts the part of an "insufferable brat" (basically a spoiled rich kid) as a way of throwing off his parents about his secret identity, but his last few stories seem to depict that as his actual personality. The goal is to make the reader sympathetic to Merry, but he definitely doesn't come off well, and is generally a jerk towards her from her first appearance.

Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmick

Final Golden Age Appearance: Star-Spangled Comics #90, "The Duel of the Gimmicks", March 1949

Alas, Merry's solo adventures were not to last long, as her own final GA appearance occurred a mere 6 months after SSK's. Her final story begins with her foiling a gold robbery by a gang of crooks using her bullet proof catcher's mitt and some dusting powder! Unfortunately, the crooks escape, and their leader is inspired by this encounter to devise his own gimmicks to rival the young super-heroine. And so he becomes her opposite number, Gimmick Guy! At his next robbery, he is armed with stuff like exploding dolls and chloroform perfume! But he is no match for Merry, who out-gimmicks him and captures him! He is not in custody for long, however, as it turns out the police have handcuffed a false arm! And so the next night, the Gimmick Guy and Gimmick Girl meet once more, and he tries to gain the upper hand by stealing Merry cape, where many of her gimmicks are stored! But, it turns out Merry anticipated this, and has actually booby-trapped her gimmicks, which backfire on the villain! And so Merry is able to capture the bad guy with a net concealed in her pocket vest! And her victory is recorded in the newspaper!

With only 6 pages, this is a pretty bare bones story. No reflecting on the fact that her crusade against crime has literally inspired an arms race with a copycat criminal, but also no room for SSK to berate her for letting the crooks get away because she's a girl or something. Clearly, all this happens off-panel and cause a mental breakdown leading to her marry Brainwave!

Seriously, though, Merry's stories are serviceable at best, so it's not a huge surprise that she never really took off as a successful feature, but she has a nice costume, and while the "1000 gimmicks" gimmick isn't really that interesting, it reminds me a lot of later Bat-family characters like Kathy Kane or Duella Dent, and I can only think it might have been fun to team her up with the series lead feature, the GA Robin!

I wonder how many gimmicks they eventually came up with - I don't think Merry has appeared enough times to actually have 1000!

I actually thought about counting her gimmicks! Maybe if I ever do a complete series review...

I would read your reviews for sure!

I would, too!

I've actually thought about picking one of the GA anthology series and reading it from beginning to end, it's just a matter of choosing which one and actually making sure I have the time/energy to commit to it.

Johnny Quick

Final Golden Age Appearance: Adventure Comics #207, "The Courtship of Tubby Watts", December 1954

This story begins at an exclusive seaside resort, where several swimmers are preparing for a race, when they are interrupted by a young woman falling into the water! Her dad screams for help, while Tubby Watts remarks that only a ditzy dame would hold up a race by falling into the water. Then Tubby himself falls in, creating such a massive wave that the woman is pushed onto shore! It turns out the rather hefty young woman is Hilda Hupp, daughter of the owner of town's swellest eating joint, and her father offers Tubby a banquet in exchange for saving Hilda's life! Tubby is initially more interested in the banquet than Hilda, but becomes jealous when she is flirting with Johnny and then anoth"glamorous" guy cuts in while he's dancing with Hilda. Then, two crooks enter the restaurant and proceed to rob the guests! Johnny quickly changes to Johnny Quick and foils the crooks, who escape by setting a fire! Now Hilda is infatuated with her new saviour, Johnny Quick! Tubby tries to impress Hilda by telling her Johnny works for him, but she's tries to kiss Johnny, who promptly speeds out leaving Tubby as the recipient of the intended kiss! Hilda demands Tubby bring JQ to a party on her father's yacht the next night, or she will never speak to him again! Tubby argues with Johnny, who maintains he has no interest in Hilda, because she's "too fat" to be his type, which angers Tubby even more! And so Tubby "breaks up" with Johnny and attends the yacht party alone, drawing scorn from Hilda, who demands he summon JQ immediately. Then the two crooks from the previous night show up, and Tubby admits to Hilda that he can't summon JQ because they fought because he was afraid JQ was trying to take her away from him! Hilda laughs and says Tubby had no shot with her anyway, because she only dates tall, slim, and handsome guys, and not little fat men like him. Then JQ shows up, stops the robbers, and take Tubby back to shore before Hilda can corner him! Back on shore, Tubby tells JQ that Hilda broke his heart, and JQ administers the appropriate cure... all-you-can-eat hamburgers!

So obviously this is a sort of story that wouldn't be published today, but putting aside the use of people's weight/body shape as a joke, it's not a terrible story. There's an interesting bit of social commentary embedded in the fact that Hilda, despite her chubbiness, manages to attract handsome men because of her wealth, and this causes a certain amount of vanity that that leads her to dismiss Tubby. So, Johnny Quick doesn't exactly end his GA run with a bang, but it's an okay story.

Johnny, Aquaman, and Green Arrow had all been alternating issues for a bit since the page count of Adventure had been cut down to where it only had room for two back-ups. It's not clear why Johnny was the one that was chosen to be cut, but I did like this story a lot better than the GA story in the same issue (GA and Speedy somehow travel to Wonderland after being exposed to tear gas?). The Superboy story features Clark accidentally helping the "Smallville's Worst Athlete!" earn a place on the high school football team.

Anyway, a little less than two years later DC would introduce a new version of their other major GA speedster, the Flash, ushering in the Silver Age. As has often been pointed out, one wonders what would've happened if JQ had maintained his series a bit longer! Maybe it would've been Johnny Quick who would've been revamped and given a tryout for a new seres in Showcase #4?

Dr. Mid-Nite

Final GA Solo Story, All-American Comics #102, October 1948

So this isn't really the final GA appearance of Dr. Mid-Nite, as he would continue to appear as a member of the Justice Society until 1951, but this is the last issue of All-American Comics, and therefore the last story featuring Charles McNider on his own. Western Hero Johnny Thunder had taken over the lead spot in the title with #100, and would continue as the main feature when it converts to All-American Western with the next issue, though JT would move to All-Star Western after the title converts to All-American Men of War with #127. The other remaining super-hero in All-American, the Green Lantern, would actually continue solo adventures in his own title for another year, though his adventures had already begun to shift to a heavy focus on his canine pal, Streak the Wonder Dog.

The first thing I will note is that I absolutely love the title of this feature, "Rx, from the Casebook of Dr. Mid-Nite". I'm not sure when Dr. Mid-Nite's features began being billed this way, usually with the pretence that his nurse/secretary Myra Mason was typing up an account of his adventures, but it is actually super-cool. Unfortunately, Myra herself is absent from this story. It starts out with kind of a nice hook, though, as we begin in total darkness with luminescent surgical tools floating in the air. It turns out that Dr. McNider's friend Dr. Ewhall is demonstrating his latest invention, a phosphorescent material that can be applied to surgical equipment so that doctors can operate in the dark in case of power failure. This whole scene makes very little sense to me, though. Why is he demonstrating this to Dr. McNider, whom as far as he knows is blind and can't actually see the demonstration. Also, I'm a little dubious about the usefullness of the invention itself, because even though you can see the surgical instruments, you apearnetly won't be able to see the patient, so operating under these conditions still doesn't seem viable. Not to mention concerns about sterilization. But, anyway, it makes for a pretty dramatic opening.

Anyway, Dr. Ewhall is scheduled to give a demonstration at the Museum of Science and Industry that night, but first he has more work to do in analyzing a mysterious new form of compressed paper that someone has sent him in the mail, with particular instructions to note its properties when exposed to water. When exposed to water, the paper turns into a toy battleship and its firing canons blind the professor! This is the plan of a set of crooks to steal the Professor's new invention and apparently use it to coat burglary tools. But, a quick blackout bomb and Dr. Mid-Nite is on the case! He first removes Dr. Enhall from the scene, and then goes back in to save Dr. McNider fight the crooks. He does quite well even after his blackout bomb disperses, but then slips on a puddle of water from the broken aquarium in which the compressed paper battleship was tested. The villains take him to their hideout, where they put into place an elaborate plan to do away with him with magnets and toy tanks (apparently the criminal leader, Revelk, is a Toyman wannabe?). Dr. Mid-Nite escapes in another pretty elaborate method involving a coat hanger and luring the tanks to blow up the door of the hideout. Anyway, the crooks head to the Museum after Dr. Ewhall, but Dr. Mid-Nite shows up and foils their attempted kidnapping using some of the inventions featured at the Museum. It turns out he had trailed the crooks using phosphorescent salt they had gotten on their shoes, which is probably the most sensible use for the material proposed in this story.

The next day Dr. McNider again visits Dr. Ewhall, who tells him the story of his terrifying experience, commenting that it is lucky Dr. Mid-Nite had gotten Dr. McNider to safety when the gangsters attacked!

So this is another story that's pretty decent, but nothing to write home about. Dr. Mid-Nite's basic gimmick of the blackout bombs and ability to see in the dark don't really come into play except in the inital encounter with the gangsters, and the whole story is definitely a bit of a letdown after very dramatic opening panels.

I'll eventually do the final GA JSA story, which is the actual last appearance for not only Dr. Mid-Nite, but I believe every JSAer except Wonder Woman, but I'll go ahead and do the last solo adventures for the individual members as well.

The Black Pirate

Final GA appearance, All-American Comics #102, "The Man in the Mills"

So the final issue of All-American does contain the actual last appearance of one GA character, the Black Pirate. This character started out in Action Comics as an historical comic strip with a story told purely by narration, ala Prince Valiant or other newspaper strips, but had morphed into more of a conventional comic book format with word balloons, but still with a highly serialized, ongoing storyline, in time for it to appear in the first issue of Sensation Comics, and by the end of its run in All-American it was basically "Batman in the 17th century".

Anyway, we open with Jon Valor and his son Justin riding towards the town of Ashendon in Merry Olde England in the midst of a mighty windstorm, intent on investigating reports of highwaymen in the area. Justin spies something strange, however, as a windmill is seen turning against the wind! Stopping at a nearby inn to investigate, Jon Valor finds himself mistaken for a ghost. The reason for this is that Jon bears a remarkable resemblance to his ancestor, Ruthven Valor, who lived in the area and whose portrait just happens to be hanging in the inn. Jon then tries to prove to the frightened villagers that he is not the ghost haunting the mill and causing the strange phenomena of it moving against the wind by commanding the windmill to stop. To his surprise, the windmill actually does stop! So he and Justin, changing to the costume of the Black Pirate and... er... his unnamed sidekick, flee the villagers who now want to burn them, though I don't really get why they think that would be effective against a ghost. Anyway, they flee to the mill, where they encounter the highwaymen they were looking for in the first place, round them up, and then, after a bit of investigation, are able to prove that the innkeeper is in with the highwaymen. The innkeeper could control the direction of the windmill through some sort of mechanical device connecting the inn to the windmill, and it was he who had stopped the windmill when Jon Valor had commanded it to stop.

So, this another solid story that isn't really anything to get too excited about. I'd be up for reading more Black Pirate adventures after reading this, though, so that's about as successful as one could expect it to be. The fact that it is entirely set on land is apparently fairly typical of the late period Black Pirate stories. According to DC canon, established in DC Comics Presents and then Starman, while on a seafaring adventure shortly after this Justin would be seemingly killed and lost at sea, only to re-emerge five years later as an adherent of the dreaded Puritan sect that Jon was called back into duty by the crown to hunt down. After meeting each other again, Justin would sail to the new world, where he would be murdered, and Jon would end up unjustly hanged for the murder. So... not a particularly happy ending. Apparently, a grandson showed up in a recent Batman comic as well?

Hop Harrigan

Final Golden Age Appearance: All-American Comics #99, July 1948

"Skyjack!"

Moving back a couple of issues of All-American, we get the final appearance of one of DC's most popular Golden Age characters, Hop Harrigan, America's Ace of the Airways! Hop had first appeared in the very first issue of All-American, and fell just short of making through the entire run of the title!

Our story opens with a large passenger aircraft being hijacked by a female sky pirate armed with a gas gun. This all a plot to kidnap and hold for ransom one of the passengers, and when the crew awakens and begins making in their way home in their aricraft, they briefly catch a glimpse of what they believe to be the Sargasso Sea. So, back in Washington, D.C., the case is assigned to Hop Harrigan and his partner, Tank Tinker, who fly to the Sargasso Sea with the ransom money, but land nearby and take a raft into the sea proper. There they find the pirate's base on an old pirate ship, and meet "Jolly" Roger, the female pirate whom Hop expected to see, as apparently he'd encountered her before? Despite putting up a good fight, Hop and Tank are captured and imprisoned in the hold of the pirate ship, along with their previous hostage. But Jolly's men betray her and decide to keep the ransom money for themselves! And so they tie Jolly up and punch a hole in the ship so that it will sink. But Hop manages to get loose from his bonds and free everyone else, who then escpae in the raft, only to find that the pirates are taking off in their plane! Hop pursues in Jolly's plane, which creates confusion, as a squadron of Navy planes that Hop had pre-arranged to show up after a certain amount of time doesn't know they have switched planes! The pirates radioing the pirates from Hop's ship fools the Squadron leader for a bit, but he soon comes to realize that the "outlaw" pirate is really Hop by his superior flying skills, and they shoot down "Hop's" plane instead. So the pirates are captured, but Jolly Rogers has escaped in the meantime. Hop has a hunch that they will meet for a "third time", but alas, it is never to be, as an advertisement announces the premiere of Johnny Thunder in the next issue, which means we will not see Hop again in the Golden Age.

For that matter, he's rarely been seen since, despite having been popular enough in the Golden Age to not only appear in 99 issues of All-American, but a number of other titles, as well as in his own radio series and movie serial. Like many of these final appearances, his run seems to end on a bit of a whimper rather than a bang. Earlier stories would often feature cool and futuristic gadgets as a central part of the plot. The only real gadget in this story is the gas gun used by Jolly Rogers. The bit of a cliffhanger promising a future encounter with his new antagonist suggests that the end of the run came quite unexpectedly. It really is a shame that he's not been used much since then. A Hop Harrigan/Blackhawk teamup might be kind of cool.

A quick look at Hop Harrigan's Wikipedia entry shows that Mark Waid used him in the first arc of the Brave and the Bold revival from the noughties.

I wonder if Harrigan liked to dance the Bunny Hop? Or if the Captain Carrot universe could use a Hop analog, maybe a cousin or uncle of the good Captain?

Agreed on the potential awesomeness of a Harrigan/Blackhawk team-up.

Also, Hop was played for most of his radio show run by Jackson Beck, aka Bluto, aka Perry White, aka King Leonardo, aka the GI Joe narrator!

^^You know, I noticed the fact that the Hop Harrigan entry mentioned Jackson Beck as having played Perry White, but I think that's a mistake. It's possible he may have filled in as Perry White on occassion, but the main Perry White was Julian Noa. Beck did the Narration ('It's Superman, strange visitor from another world, who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men... As we join Superman today...) and also played Daily Planet copyboy Beanie Martin and numerous thugs. He also played the lead on Philo Vance, alongside Joan "Lois Lane" Alexander. The first few episodes of Philo Vance, I kept expecting Superman to show up!

I'm not sure I ever knew he narrated G. I. Joe, though. I don't think I've watched a full episode of that shown since the 80s!

Good to have you back, Ann!

Thank you for the nice welcome, EDE.

Jackson Beck not only narrated GI Joe, he also sang the theme song.

And I'm wondering if maybe he played Perry White in the Filmation Superman cartoon of the 60s? After all, that show did have Bud Collyer reprising his role as Superman.

Wow! He sung the theme song? How did I not know this?

Hmm... a quick check of IMDB suggests your guess about him voicing Perry White in the Filmation series is right. Still, it seems like a bit of weird thing to cite when Noa's portrayal is really the defining one.

That's OK, I don't think Lon Chaney actually had 1000 faces either.

Green Lantern, Part 1

Final Golden Age Solo Appearance, Green Lantern #38, October 1949

1st Story, "The Murdered Clues"

So, next up, I'm going to do all three stories from the final issue of the GA Green Lantern series. All three stories feature Alan Scott, but only two in a starring role.

The first story begins with Alan Scott arriving at his office at Station WXYZ to work on a script for the Green Lantern radio show, only to find his office furniture removed, and a single swivel chair with ropes tied around it and a knife stuck in it. Later, John Blake, nephew of wealthy financier Justin Blake, reports his uncle has been tied to a chair and murdered! GL, who is at the police station when the call comes in, quickly realizes that the murder of the "chair" of so many corporate boards must be tied somehow to the "murdered chair" he had found in his office. Returning to Alan Scott's office, GL catches several crooks who are just leaving, having left a copy of Shakespeare's "Tempest" with bullet holes in it. The crooks manage to escape before he can question them. A bit later, GL is doing an interview on his radio show with the captain of the exploration ship Stormy Weather, who is murdered by gunshots while on air! GL then realizes that the copy of the Tempest {"stormy weather"] was a clue to this murder! The next clue left are two Japanese lanterns, one blue and one yellow, hanging from scaffolds! Before GL has much time to think about this, he has to rush to a show at an orphanage, where a plane suddenly appears and drops a noose around GL's neck. He easily escapes via using a power ring generated sword to cut the ropes, and forntunately the kids think it was all a part of the act. GL suddenly realizes the identity of the killer, the artist John Blake, because "only an artist would think of ,ixing blue and yellow to get green" as in the clue. That seems like a bit of a leap, but GL is right! John Blake had stolen bonds his father had held for the sea captain, explaining why he had to kill them both. Fortunately, GL makes short work both of John Blake and his thugs.

This is a pretty decent story, despite the only explanation for his sending clues to Alan Scott's office being "to prove how clever he was". The bad guy is pretty psychotic, though: "My uncle thought I was a failure-- but I showed him! He always laughed at me-- at my paintings-- now he's dead!" We end with GL telling his radio audience of the case, and the moral of the story: "Crime does not pay!" I'm kind of intrigued by the device of GL having his own radio show at the station at which Alan Scott works. He seems to both talk about his own cases as well as interviewing interesting guests. I believe this story also gives us the final GA appearance of Molly Mayne, seen in a few panels at the office, though I'm not finding anything confirming that.

Interesting. I've never read much of Alan's Golden Age appearances so hearing this story was intriguing. Did we see anymore of his radio show in his GL identity or was it just for this story?

There's nothing to indicate that it's a one-time thing, so I assume it was recurring part of the plot, though I don't believe it's used in any of the other stories I'll be reviewing.

Streak the Wonder Dog

Final Golden Age Appearance: Green Lantern #38, October 1949

"The Double Play"

I was reading a post on FB the other day that was discussing as evidence of the enduring popularity of Alan Scott the fact that he tended to dominate both the later covers and stories in All-Star Comics right up to the end of the JSA's GA run. Ironically, by the end of his solo series, he was actually alternating covers with the other big feature of the series, Streak the Wonder Dog! And so, we find that in the final cover of the GA GL series, GL himself is only seen in the logo, but we get a nice, prominent appearance of the Wonder Dog. Streak had been introduced in Green Lantern #30, with a convoluted backstory of how he ended up in the care of Alan Scott, and he would generally narrate his own stories, with Alan and/or GL serving as a background character. He was the creation of Robert Kanigher and Alex Thoth, who were later the creators of Rex the Wonder Dog, so I would assume these stories serve as a prototype of that series, which I've never read.

The story begins with Alan and Streak waiting for the light to change to safely cross the street, when suddenly Streak rushes out into traffic! He saves a kid who was jaywalking, who learns his lesson. Alan and Streak reach WXYZ studio, where a rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet is taking place. The problem is that while the current actors sound really good in the part, the sponsor wants to have the show televised, and the actors don't look the part at all! So as Alan ponders how he might be able to locate young, talented Shakespearean actors who might be right for the show, Streak brings him a newspaper featuring an ad for a performance of R&J with newly discovered leads that might be appropriate. So, Alan and Streak drive to a nearby town to pinch their Rome and Juliet from their Spring Festival. When they arrive, Streak notices the size of the local bank, which he deems would be a safe place to keep one's bones, and the famous Wonder Dog is greeted enthusiastically by the two young actors Alan is interested in, but not so enthusiastically by the self-proclaimed famous actor Gregory Gayne, who refuses to be in same space as anyone else who is famous, which I would assume explains why he's in this podunk town doing a Spring Festival instead of on Broadway or in Hollywood if he's as famous as he claims to be. Anyway, "Juliet" takes Streak to the catwalk to watch the performance, which proves to a bit dangerous, as the famous Gregory Gayne fires off pistols during his performance of the "To Be or Not to Be! Silence, Peasants!" speech. This confused me for a bit, until I went back and realized that the Festival also featured a performance of Hamlet as well as Romeo and Juliet. Anyway, it's still weird that a) he's using live pistols, b) no one's calling him out on the fact that they are incredibly anachronistic in a performance of Hamlet, and c) he's firing them off and yelling at the audience to be quiet in the middle of this supposedly intense, brooding scene. Anyway, this all serves as an excuse for Streak to leave the catwalk to investigate funny goings-on backstage, where some of the extras are disappearing down a trap door. He also smells the scent of Nina/Juliet. Streak figure out how to use a button to open the trap door, and then follows the mysterious extras into a mysterious tunnel which leads to the bank vault! They also have Nina/Juliet tied up, as she had apparently discovered their plan. Streak manages to take deftly take down the criminals while dodging bullets from both their guns and rescues and earns a nice hug from Nina/Juliet. Streak shares a headline in the next day's newspaper with Gregoy Gayne (which I'm sure thrills Mr. Gayne, though we're not shown his reaction), and Alan Scott gets his perfect Romeo and Juliet for his television show! And everyone lives happily ever after, except for the original Romeo and Juliet radio actors, who are now out of work. Maybe they should hit up Gregory Gayne for a job? I'm sure he'd be happy to work with people who are too ugly to upstage him.

So, this was a suprisingly fun story, as are the other two or three Streak stories I've read (I believe there's only about a dozen total, mostly in GL, but also in All-American, Comic Cavalcade, and three issues of Sensation). The "wonder dog" idea was clearly an attempt to find an alternative type of story in the waning days of the popularity of super-heroes, and while it never quite took off in the way that military and western comics did for a while, Rex did have a respectable run in the 50s, and reading Streak's adventures makes me more interested in checking out that series at some point. We're promised another adventure of Streak the Wonder Dog in the next issue of GL, but as it's the last issue, it's never to be. Streak himself is rarely mentioned after the end of his GA run, though he is apparently revealed to be dead in an issue of JLA Classified from the noughties, which shouldn't be at all surprising for a dog from the 40s. I guess Rex didn't share his secret Fountain of Youth with his fellow Wonder Dog?

EDE, I've seen a few panels from Rex the Wonder Dog stories, and they look decent. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they were drawn by Alex Toth and Gil Kane -- the former had really come into his own by then, and the latter was on the verge of finding his unique style.

I was reading that the later issues lean heavily into sci fi, with Rex visiting subatomic worlds and such, and so it also has a lot of thematic connection to Gil Kane's later work on The Atom.

Green Lantern, Part 2

Final Golden Age Solo Appearance, Green Lantern #38, October 1949

2nd Solo Story, "The Impossible Mr. Paradox"


This story begins at the office of WXYZ, where Alan Scott is discussing with Doiby Dickles the fact that the president of the radion station, Mr. Mears, wants to cancel one of their radio programs featuring Clay Chalmers, the Paradox Man. Hoping to save the program, Alan invites rich manufacturer C. K. Nevins to the next taping of the show, hoping he'll sponsor it. The show basically consists of Chalmers presenting riddles, brainteasers, and paradoxes to the audience. The night in question Chalmers is presenting Zeno's Achilles and the Tortoise paradox, which they they spend basically a whole page explaining. I like to imagine that at least some kids were inspired by this to actually study the mathematics of infinity and convergent series and weren't convinced by the goofy editor's note that the paradox fails to take into account the idea of rate of speed, which doesn't really solve it at all. Anyway, Nevins isn't impressed enough to sponsor the show. Chalmers is devastated by the news, and despondently claims that there is only one thing left for a failure like him to do now. Worried, Alan asks Doiby to follow Chalmers, but he loses him near Nevins manufacturing plant. Worried that perhaps Chalmers planned to get revenge, Doiby investigates the plant, only to find everyone in a trance, but they are asleep with their eyes open! "Dis is impossible!" exclaims Doiby. "Impossible-- but true!" responds a strangely dessed fellow calling himself "Mr. Paradox"! This vile villain and his gang are in the process of robbing the vault, and they capture Doiby and tie him up in his cab. Fortunately, Doiby is able to activate Goitrude's "rocket signal" to alert the Green Lantern! Seeing the splotch of green in the sky that serves as the Green Lantern signal, Alan quickly switches clothes and charges his ring at the ancient lantern using his sacred oath (which is notably the one that would later be used by Hal Jordan, rather than the older one that most people would associate with Alan Scott). Arriving at the scene, GL confronts Mr. Paradox, who responds with the genius strategy of running away! But even though GL is flying and should be able to catch Mr. Paradox easily, he isn't able to, and the villain gets away! Doiby proclaims "Mr. Pair-o-ducks" to be a tricky character, and when GL hears the name of the villain and Doiby's story of losing track of Chalmers shortly before the villain shows up, GL is worried that the villain might be the troubled radio show host.

Gl and Doiby return to the radio station to find Chalmers's address, and heading there, find Mr. Paradox and his gang there, and proceed to confront them! GL easily dispatches the ordinary crooks, but gas from Mr. Paradox's wand knocks him out. Rather than just shooting them like one of his thugs suggests, Mr. Paradox decides to create an elaborate paradoxical death trap so that the fates of GL and Doiby can serve as a lesson to all those who might challenge him in the future! Imprisoning them in glass balls suspended floating above some water fountains (which the editor explains is possible because of air pressure), while a machine gun is set to automatically start firing at the heroes while Mr. Paradox and his men make their getaway. Fortunately, while GL's physically weak from the gas, his willpower is still strong, and he is able to use his ring to free himself and Doiby. Noticing Mr. Paradox's tracks lead in the direction of the Gotham freight yard, GL and Doiby are once again in pursuit! There they once again find Mr. Paradox robbing a freight car that belongs to C. K. Nevins. Mr. Paradox proclaims their presence there is "impossible", to which GL responds, "But true!" Mr. Paradox says that he is not beaten yet and begins rotating his jeweled wand! But GL responds by closing his eyes, thus making himself immune to Mr. Paradox's hypnosis, which was what was behind all of his tricks. Unmasking the villain, GL reveals him to be not Chalmers, but Nevins himself, whom GL had suspected as the only person who would actually know the arrival time of the precious metal shipments Mr. Paradox was stealing. It turns out this whole thing was an insurance scam, whereby Nevins would steal goods from himself and collect the insurance as well. Nevins had taken inspiration from Chalmers and decided to throw suspicion on the failed radio host (which seems like it would've taken much more time than he had available, but whatever). Soon, Alan and Doiby receive a letter from Chalmers, who fortunately hadn't committed suicide or anything while they were busy suspecting him of being a super-villain but had simply taken the desperate action of returning home to Indiana!

I liked this story a lot. Looking through synopses of the later Green Lantern stories, they really seemed to be pushing to come up with interesting super-villains for GL to battle. The Red Domino, White Star, the Fool, and the recurring Knodar, criminal from the future. You can definitely see a lot of continuity between what John Broome and Julie Schwartz were doing in a story like this and some of what they'd be doing a decade later with the Hal Jordan version of the character. I believe this may be Doiby Dickles final Golden Age appearance?

Next up: But, wait... there's more! Special bonus GA GL content!

Green Lantern Extra!

Golden Age Story Not Published Until the Silver Age: from Green Lantern, Vol. 2, #88

"The Menace of the Marching Toys"

So while GL's GA solo series ended with #38, a script for a story intended for publication in #39 was published in the early Bronze Age! It has artwork by Infantino and Sachs, which definitely gives it a bit of a different feel from Irwin Hansen's GA artwork, though it's less jarring than I would have expected.

We do, however, get a bit of artistic weirdness on the first page of the story, where Alan Scott's secretary, who should be Molly Mayne at this point, is both drawn and colored to look a lot more like his pre-war secretary, Irene Miller. I wonder if there's an issue regarding references? Anyway, she's greeting two young lads who have written prize essays on the topic of tolerance (very much a late 40s theme!), and they are there to meet Green Lantern, who will be taking them to the circus. They also receive two special statues of GL by master toymaker Eric Knowles. So GL flies them to the circus, where they get to see a really funny clown, before a bunch of giant toys led by a tin soldier show up and start robbing people. GL swoops into action and starts mopping up the toys, until the Tin Soldier hits him with a giant yo-yo! The Tin Soldier gets away with some of the loot, but even though they have seen him fail, the two boys still have confidence that GL will make short work of the Tin Soldier once he catches up to him again. So, the next night Alan broadcasts a story that the Tin Soldier has struck again, this time at Miffany's jewelry store, but mentions that that a rare emerald owned by Genghis Khan, the prize jewel of the store's collection, was overlooked in the robbery! This is, however, a plant to lure the Tin Soldier into a trap. The Tin Soldier takes the bait but spots the trap as his toy minions break into the store, and then detonates his toy soldiers to provide a distraction while he escapes. GL is able to save one of the toy soldiers, who turn out to be robots, and figures out that the Tin Soldier is controlling them by remote radio waves. Using his radio engineering expertise, GL is able to trace the signal from the robots to their source. Unfortunately, he didn't count on the Tin Soldier having a giant jack-in-the-box shaped like a fist, which leads to his being tied up to a deadly giant spinning top death trap. I'm guessing John Broome was really disappointed that he didn't actually get to use this scene in the Golden Age, and thus created the Flash villain The Top just to get the opportunity to do so. Anyway, GL escapes by bouncing power ring beams off mirrors. GL rushes again to capture the Tin Soldier, who has one final trick up his sleeve, as his robot try to hold GL in place while a giant piece of metal machinery crashes down on him, but a quick power beam projected hand stops that from being a problem. And so GL captures the Tin Soldier who turns out to be Eric Knowles. And so, before taking Knowles to the police, he takes him to the window of the bedroom where the two contest winners are having a sleepover. GL shows them that he has successfully captured the criminal, vindicating their faith in him, and also helping them to learn the valuable lesson that any toymaker who gives out lame statuettes as prizes instead of fully articulable action figures is not to be trusted!

So, this was a respectable story. The fact that the villain using giant toys to commit crimes turns out to be the toymaker randomly introduced at the beginning of the story is a bit obvious compared to the Mister Parados story's deliberate throwing of suspciou on the innocent red herring. It kinds of suffers from that annoying plot device where the hero repeatedly almost captures the villain, only to be stopped by some trick/trap of the villain until the story runs out of pages and so they have to successfully catch the crook. The entusiasm of the two contest winners for their hero Green Lantern is pretty endearing, though! I hope they continued to be best friends and continued to fight for tolerance as civil rights lawyers or something when they grew up!

Sargon the Sorceror

Final Golden Age Appearance: Green Lantern #37, April 1949

"The Secret of 13!"

So, Sargon the Sorceror had debuted in All-American in late 1941, where he spent a couple of years before switching over to Sensation Comics for about another four years or so, but, for some reason, his final story just kind of randomly appears in the penultimate issue of Green Lantern.

This story begins with Sargon, in full costume weirdly enough, on his way home from a fishing trip, when he decides to stop at a roadhouse. He decides to play a song on the jukebox, and he asks the bartender for a recommendation. The bartender sugests #13, which no one has played yet, and Sargon decides to try it out. Suddenly a voice comes over the record demanding that the patrons leave all of their valuables on their tables, or else! Everyone assumes it's a gag, until the shooting begins! So the patrons comply with the record, and then flee the roadhouse, all except for Sargon and the bartender. Sargon asks the bartender what the deal is with the record he'd suggested be played, he the bartender tells him some guys had installed the jukebox that afternoon, and, hey, it's those guys that are coming in from the rear of the restaurant now! The crooks decide to plub Sargon and the bartender, but a little magic thwarts their plans! But one of the baddies that Sargon has left hanging upside down from the ceiling manages to sock him. But instead of just shooting him now, they decide to get rid of Sargon and the bartender by tying them to a reindeer statue outside the roadhouse to which they attach wheels and send it rolling down the road towards a lot full of bulls.

Then we switch to a scene at an indoor skating rink, where two teens are about to play #13 on a newly installed jukebox, but just as the crooks from before rush into to pull their crime again, Sargon emerges from the jukebox and defeats the bad guys by creating men made of ice to subdue them, and otherwise using the ice against them. It turns out he had woken up in time to change the reindeer statue into a real flying reindeer to save himself and the bartender from crashing into the bull lot. And we are told that we can read about the magical adventures of Sargon every month in Sensation Comics, except we can't, because he'd already stopped appearing in Sensation a few months before.

I've never read any GA Sargon before, but this story was pretty weak overall. He'd next show up as a villain on Earth-1, which is eventually explained as due to the corrupting influence of another shard of the Ruby of Life, and would later aid the JLA a couple of times before being killed off around the time of Crisis. He had a comic sidekick for awhile, Maximillian O'Leary, who doesn't appear in this issue and I don't believe has made any appearances since the Golden Age.

I love the basic idea of a Ruby of Life and that most of his 'magic' is using the stone to animate inanimate objects (and have designed and played a character based on him for a superhero RPG, just using an animation power with a magical power source, rather than 'magic'), but in the comics he quickly degenerates into just doing whatever the plot calls for, like most characters with 'magic' as a super-power, which is boring to me.

Sadly his most distinctive comic appearance that I can remember is his death in Swamp Thing. "You are scaring my daughter. Die like a sorcerer." Wow!

He's definitely wasted going after ordinary crooks with overly elaborate robbery schemes. Which, unfortunately, seems to be most of his stories based on a quick scan of their plots.

His major recurring foe is the villainess Blue Lama, Though I'm actually more intrigued by one-off foe Lightning Bug.

Interesting that his 'rogues gallery,' such as it is, includes multiple women. Heroes seem to have a lot more villains of the same gender, making the rare woman villain for Superman or Batman an outlier (and, in Batman's case, a potential romantic partner, like Talia al-Ghul or Catwoman...).

Perhaps something to do with Sargon not being the standard two-fisted adventurer from that era who pops people in the jaw (since dudes punching ladies, even if they are super-crooks, is a bit 'yikes'), but a magical type who wraps them up in an animated carpet or something.

Dr. Mid-Nite Extra!

Golden Age Story not published until much later: from Adventure Comics #418

"The Sight-Steelers"

Since I did this with Green Lantern, I suppose I should take a look at one more Dr. Mid-Nite story that was intended for publication in All-American #103 but didn't actually see print until the 1970s. Both story and art were complete for this one, and it only needed inking, for which enter Sam Amendola, whom the editor notes was born in the 1948, the same year the story was written.

We begin with Charles McNider phoning philanthropist Mr. Lacey about his new invention, an "echo-flashlight" that will allow blind people to navigate by means of echolocation. Walking to Lacey's place, Dr. McNider encounters a man up a telephone pole, who reveals that he had tapped his phone and listened in on his call to Lacey. As more mobsters make the scene, Dr. McNider trips and falls into the bushes! From the bushes emerges Dr. Mid-Nite! Fisticuffs ensue, and Dr. Mid-Nite has basically won when Murvis, the gang's leader, shows up on a Penny Farthing and takes the good doctor out. Murvis is the secretary of Dr. Lacey, who is also a collector of antique wheeled devices, whcih explains the Penny Farthing. I totally missed this the first time through the story, so it was kind of weird. Anyway, they tie Dr. Mid-Nite to the Penny Farthing and send him rolling down a dangerous incline! Fortunately, they didn't search him, or they would've found the echo-flashlight which they just assumed Dr. McNider had taken with him when he "left". So, despite being tied on backwards, Dr. Mid-Nite is able to use his feet to steer the Penny Farthing using the echo-flashlight to navigate where he's going! The gangsters rob Mr. Lacey's antique exhibition, but Dr. Mid-Nite shows up riding a horse-drawn chariot. He slashes the gangster's tires, Ben-Hur style, but gets oil splattered all over his goggles! So, it's the echo-flashlight to the rescue again, as Doc Mid-Nite uses it to tell where the gangsters are in the subsequent fight. We end on Dr. McNIder giving a lecture about his new invention to the crowd at the exhibition.

This story follows a very similar pattern to his actual published final appearance, but I actually liked it quite a bit better. It feels like it was a bit constrained by the limited page count, so you get things like what must have been an extremely quick costume change in the bushes, but overall, it's pretty good. I'm a little iffy on the practicality of the echo-flashlight (but, hey, it's comics!), but I absolutely love the idea that Dr. McNider is actively working on ways to help improve the lives of blind people, and that there are all these inventions for the blind on Earth-2 that don't exist on other Earths because of his presence there.

Yeah, one of my favorite things about both McNider and his modern-day legacy successor (I'm embarrassed to say I forgot his name) is how they try to help others not just by fighting crime but also by trying to better the lives of innocent civilians through their scientific talents.

Sounds like a fun story. The Echo-Flashlight reminds me of how some blind people do actually use echo-location quite successfully to find walls, doors, and other objects. I was quite impressed when I watched this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08smCjKWNL0