THRILLING COMICS #8 (SEPTEMBER 1940)

Ned Pines (1905-1990) was a publisher of popular magazines, comics, and books throughout his career.  In 1928 He founded Pines Publications, which published a variety of pulp magazines and other pubications under a variety of company names, the most prominent being Thrilling Publications, which published over the years 44 pulp magazines, including Air War, Black Book Detective, Captain Future, Fantastic Story Magazine, G-Men, The Lone Eagle, Masked Rider Magazine, The Phantom Detective, Popular Love, Popular Sports Magazine, Range Riders Western, The Rio Kid Western, Startling Stories, Strange Stories, Thrilling Adventures, Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and West.  In 1939, Pines started the comic book imprint StandardComics, whichissued twp comic books lines:  Better Publications and Nedor Publishing (later to be compbined as the Standard Comics line).  Among the heroes featured in these comics were American Eagle, Black Terror, Doc Strange (not Marvel's Docotr Strange), Fighting Yank, Green Ghost, Judy of the Jungle, Lance Lewis: Space Detective,Lone Eagle, Mask (based on  Black Bat), Masked Rider, Phantom Detective (based on the pulp hero), the Rio Kid (based on the pulp character), Silver Knight, Supermouse, and The Woman in Red.  Among the comic books issued by Standard Comics were compilations from newspaper strips:  Alley Oop, Boots and Her Buddies, Brick Bradford, Buz Sawyer, Captain Easy, Dennis the Menace, Freckles and His Friends, Jiggs and Maggie, Jungle Jim, Major Hoople, Mark Trail, and Ozark Ike.  There was also the anthology comic books, which gave Pines a chance to feature a number of Standard Comics characters, as well as introducing new ones:  America's Best Comics, Exciting Comics, Startling Comics, Wonder Comics, and Thrilling Comics.

Thrilling Comics ran for 80 issues from 1940 to 1951.  The first issue featured the first appearance of Doc Strange (Doctor Thomas Hugo Stranmge) in a 37-page origin story.  Latyer issues introduced The Woman in Red (Peggy Allen), The Ghost (a.k.a. The Green Ghost, George "Blackie" Chance), American Crusader (Professor Archibald Masters), and Princess Pantha ( aformer circus performer now searching for a white gorilla in Africa while wearing a leopard-skin bikini -- Princess Pantha, not the white gorilla).

Issue number 8 features a number of the early Standard Comics heroes:

• Doc Strange investigates ships ysteriously disappering in the South Seas.
• The Ghost recovers a science-fictiony invention that transports him to the ancient Rome of Nero.
• Tom Niles, Undersea Raider, goes after Nazi battleships in his submarine, fights a shark, and saves the girl.
• The Woman in Red investigates the Parsons family following the murder of Frank Parsons, and discovers a supposedly mad secret member of the family.
• The Lone Eagle goes after Nazis using a floating refinery as a secret aircraft carrier.
• Dan Duffy, College Athelete, breaks up a game-fixing scheme and wns the day for Crason university.
• The Rio Kid goes after a gold-hungry gang that kidnapped a rancher's daughter.
• Nickie Norton of the Secret Service tracks down the missing inventor of a new liquid oxygen  explosive; a gang wanted to sell the explosive to a fascist power, but they did not count on Nickie, his fast fists, and his deadly shot.

A good mix of 1940s adventure.

Enjoy:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=87897&comicpage=&b=i