Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Saturday, December 1, 2018

POLICE COMICS #1 (AUGUST 1941)

There's very few police in this issue but it is jam-packed with heroes and superheroes:
  • The Firebrand (Rod Reilly) is a masked crime-fighter with a see-through shirt and great athletic ability.  A millionaire playboy socialite, Rod Reilly becomes crime's greatest enemy when there is evil afoot in Reed Crandall's "Introducing the Firebrand."
  • 711 was not a chain of convenience stores back in 1941, but it was the prison number of Daniel Dyce, a young attorney who took the rap for a friend who wanted to stay free until he saw his soon-to-be-born baby.  When his friend dies without confessing, Daniel decides to remain in jail and fight crime from the inside in George Brenner's "The Origin of #711.".  Daniel may have severe judgement issues.
  • Super Snooper is a comical in trench coat and slouch hat.  In Gil Fox's untitled vignette, the evil Dr. M. Balm sends a man-eating plant after our hapless hero.
  • Eagle Evans, Flyer of Fortune, and his camera-toting sidekick Snap Smith arer sent to investigate reports of enemy armored divisions within the quarantined Middle Eastern city of Cyranis.  In Clark Williams' (a house name) "The Attack of Ali Harid," Eagle is arrested for violating a treaty, yer somehow he must stop an evil Nazi plot.
  • The Sword is really reporter Chic Carter who stumbles on a murder plot by the Black Baron in "The Legend of the Black Baron."   Whennot reporting, Chic wears a black mask and carries (what d'ya know) a sword.  This ep[isode may have been written and drawn by Will Eisner.  Or maybe not.
  • Jack Cole's legendary Plastic Man makes his debut in this issue.  Criminal Patrick "Eel" O'Brian has a vat of acid spilled on him while fleeing a crime scene, giving him the ability to stretch...and stretch...and stretch.  He forsakes a life of crime and joins the other side in "The Origin of Plastic Man."
  • Steele Kerrigan, wrongly imprisoned, saves the life of the warden and is paroled but criminals try to pin another rap on him in Al Bryant's "The Redemption of Steele Kerrigan."
  • DA Bill Perkins dons a mask and cape to investigate aliens smuggled in this country in the carcasses of fish as The Mouthpiece, pitting him against Peg-Leg Friel in "The Alien Smuggling Racket" by Fred Guardineer.
  • The Phantom Lady is really Sandra Knight, the daughter of a senator.  Aided by the mysterious black light and her own athletic ability, the Phantom Lady (clad in a yellow one-piece and a green cape) is the bane of spies and neer-do-wells.  In Arthur Peedy's "the Coming of the Phantom Lady," Sandra rescues a kidnapped scientist who has developed a new type of explosive.
  • Young hillbilly Dewey Drip reacts to a draft notice in a one-page vignette by John Devlin.
  • And, finally, Roy Lincoln is The Human Bomb in Paul Gustavson's "The Origin of the Human Bomb."  Roy is helping his scientist father develop a powerful explosive -- 27-QRX -- when enemy agents break in, kill Roy's father, and try to steal the explosive.  Rather than let it fall into enemy hands, Roy swallows the explosive and his body changes.  No, not puberty.  Roy glows, is bulletproof, and has a literal explosive punch.  Nazis beware, the Human Bomb is a-comin' for you!

That's a lot of bang for a dime!

Enjoy.


http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=37415

No comments:

Post a Comment