Brand of the Black Bat by "G. Wayman Jones" (Normand a. Daniels) (from Black Book Detective Magazine, July 1939; reprinted as by Daniels in The Black Bat Omnibus, Volume 1, 2010)
When Standard Magazine's head editor Leo Margulies decided he needed a pulp hero character for Standard's Black Book Detective Magazine similar to Street and Smith's popular The Shadow, he turned to Standard wordsmith Norman Daniels, who created Tony Quinn, the Black Bat. Daniels began churning out Black Bat novels, writing the vast majority of the Bat's adventures, which appeared in every issue of the magazine until it closed with the Winter 1953 issue. Daniels had originally wanted to call the character the Tiger, but Margulies wanted a name that would tie into the magazine's title; thus, The Black Bat.
Tony Quinn had been a crusading District Attorney for three years, responsible for putting many violent criminals behind bars. Now he is close to nailing the most vicious crook of them all, gang boss Oliver Sante. Snate is on trial and Tony Quinn is preparing to call a secret witness tot he stand the next day -- a witness who will guarantee a guilty verdict against Snate. Despite warnings from the police that Snate would do anything to stop Tony Quinn (yeah, Tony Quinn is referred to by his full name, even when people are addressing him), he refuses police protection. but at least he was smart enough to sleep with a loaded gun under his pillow. Tony is wakened by a stranger who warns him that someone is in the house with a gun, wanting to kill him. The stranger is Norman "Silk" Kirby, a con man and burglar who had thought Tony's house would be an easy target. But Silk Kirby was interrupted when another person, a killer, broke into the home while he was there. Despite being a thief, Silk did not believe in carrying a gun; he'd rather be caught and placed in jail rather than fire upon an innocent person.
Tony Quinn told Silk to wait noiselessly in the bedroom closet. and placed the gun beneath the bed covers, with his fingers on the trigger. The killer entered the room with his own gun aimed at Tony, and demanded the name of his secret witness, as well as any papers relating to the trial. Tony refused. He could see the hoodlum preparing to pull the trigger. Tony was about to pull out his gun when it got caught in the covers. Just as the killer was pulling the trigger, Silk Kirby rushed out of the closet. The killer turned and his gun and Tony's fired at the same time. The killer fell dead. Silk received a bloody but minor wound to his scalp.
Silk said he was willing to go to jail for breaking into Tony's house. Tony, however, dressed his wound and told him to tell the police that he was Quinn's new valet when they arrived. Tony needed someone to work with him who had a sense of morality. From that point on, Silk became Tony's loyal assistant and renounced his criminal past. (This sort of thing can happen, if not always, at least with regular occurrence, in the crime pulps of the Thirties.)
The following day in Court, Snape begins to panic when he sees that Tony is alive and ready to bring forth his surprise witness. Time for Plan B. A large gang of thugs burst into the courtroom firing machine guns and tossing smoke bombs. One of them rushes to the wirness stand and stabs the witness through the the heart. Another prepares to pour acid on the recordings Tony had made of the witness. Tony rushed to stop him and the man threw the acind into Tony's face. Searing pain hit Tony and he dropped to the floor, hearing only Silk at his dies firing his gun at a man about to shoot Tony. When it was over, five of the gunmen lay dead, Tony's witness was dead, and all evidence Tony had had been destroyed by the acid. And Tony Quinn was blind.
Snape was freed. Tony left the District Attorney's office and retired to his home with only Silk to watch over him. Over the next year, Snape's power grew and grew. And Tony could do nothing to stop him.
A mysterious woman appeared at Tony's house, telling him to travel to Springfield to met secretly with a Doctor named Herrington, who would be able to restore Tony's sight. Then the woman left as quietly as she came. Tony and Silk did travel to see the doctor, who had a new operation that slowly restored Tony's sight. In fact, Tony was also now able to also see clearly in the dark. Tony was no longer an officer of the court. Just as well, Tony was now free to dispense his own kind of justice, without being hampered by laws. He needed another identity to protect his Tony Quinn personality, one that would shroud his identity but could also bring fear and terror to the crooks of the city. He would also need a mask -- better yet, a cowl -- something that could hide the scars from the acid thrown in Tony Quinn's face. To the world, Tony Quinn was a helpless, blind victim; to the underworld, he was a scourge. He had been as blind as a bat and now he would become one -- The Black Bat!
Over the past year, armored cars had vanished along their routes, literally. No trace had ever been found of the armored cars, nor their valuable contents of their entire crews of guards. Police could not figure out how this was being done and the city was up in arms. Millions of dollars had been stolen. All safety measures and traps to catch whoever was responsible failed. Police knew that Oliver Snape was responsible but nothing could be proved. Tony Quinn knew that there was another responsible, someone behind the scenes pulling Snape's strings. Oliver Snape was just not smart enough to pull something like this off. Time for the Black Bat to go into action.
By now, Tony had recruited tow others for his team in addition to the loyal Silk. Carol Baldwin, the mysterious woman who had steered him to the operation that gave him back his sight, and Butch O'Leary, a man who made up for his lack of intelligence with his strength and raw courage. Over a series of breathtaking adventures, they infiltrate Snape's organization, and Tony kills a number of Snape's men (in self defense, naturally), leaving an outline of a black bat on his victims' foreheads. Tony Quinn determines that the force behind Snape could be only one of four men -- Otto Fox, the owner of the armored car company, Paul Stewart, the Commissioner of Correction, Peter Gage, the crusading newspaperman, and Police Commission Warner. But which could it be? In true pulp fashion we are kept guessing to the very end (sort of, but the identity of the big bad is obvious).
Captures. Escapes. Bullets flying. Poison gas leaking. Bodies dropping. Derring-do and even more intense derring-do. All of this a police and criminals try to close in on the Black Bat and his loyal crew.
Lots of fun.
Note that in March 1939, the comic book hero Batman, created by Bob Kane and Bill finger, first appeared. That was probably a coincidence. Not as much a coincidence that The Shadow, whom the Black Bat was created to emulate, was also a likely source for some of the Batman's comic book mythology. All three characters stem from a long line of hero tropes.
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