Saturday, August 23, 2014

DAREDEVIL COMICS #37 (JULY 1946)

From Lev Gleeson Publications comes a pre-Marvel Daredevil.  This Daredevil is named Bart Hill and his head-to-toe costume is a two-toned vertically bisected one -- the right half is in blue and the left in red.  Issue #37 boasts "2 FULL LENGTH DAREDEVIL STORIES."  Well, not quite.  The first features The Little Wise Guys, a young group of street kids who often assist Daredevil.  This time out The Little Wise Guys are basically on their own with Daredevil making only a token appearance, touting the importance of justice.  Yorky Tate, a kid who plays ball with the Wise Guys, gets involved with burglary, an act that escalates to murder, and the Wise Guys feel it their duty to see the case to its end.  Daredevil takes a more active role in the second care, involving embezzlement, blackmail, and tax fraud.  Both tales were written by Charles Biro, who also edits the comic.  Aside from his costume, I can't see much of the superhero in this Daredevil, certainly neither the acrobatic prowess and extrasensory "radar" that Matt Murdock displays in the Marvel series.

Also included in this 68-pager are stories about Sniffer (a homely tough thug who decides to go to charm school and is targeted as a patsy by a pair of crooks), Go-Along Gallagher (a young  fighter who looks disturbingly like Joe Palooka), and Dickie Dean (the boy inventor who uses his latest invention, the terraplane, to foil some baddies out to steal a silver mine).

One ad in the issue really impressed me.  Shilling copies of Betty Lee's instruction book "Dancing," also including two free books ("Tip Tip Tapping" and "Swing Steps"), is "Dale Evans, talented young dancing star of Republic Pictures.)  Yep, take a tip from lovely Dale Evans:  "It's Easy To Learn Dancing!"

Click on the link to take a look at a comic that's (marginally) older than I am.

http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=46977

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