King Carter

These last few entries in the Dawn of Comics are awkward, in a way.  Three series begin in November, and two in December, so I am discussing and evaluating these on very little.  I had to draw a line somewhere, and I stand by Flash Comics 1 as the divider, but these guys get a short shrift.

So anyway, King Carter.

He is a “wealthy oilman, adventurer and collector of precious stones and gems,” who we meet in China, as he is searching for jade.  He gets buzzed by a plane, but it’s not the threat he thinks, it’s an old friend, Red Rogers, now a photographer for a newsreel, out on assignment.  They hook up to take aerial pictures of a secret military base, get shot down, and and escape when the chinese choose to drive their jeep off a cliff.  Both this and the following story are so racist, but it’s just so prevalent in this time period.

In issue 50 King and Red are in India.  Red gets hit by a car while saving a boy in the street, and King tracks the car to its owner, an Indian prince trying to overthrow the British.  Of course, the Prince Ali Ghazi is made as evil as possible, walling King up alive (but doing such a poor job that King pushes his way through the wall, with his hands tied behind his back.) Cheer as the American helps the Brit defeat the native fighting for his land!

 

King Carter continues in the Early Golden Age

 

King Carter:  More Fun Comics  49 – 50  (Nov – Dec 39)

Bulldog Martin

Bulldog Martin is another series with a largely unexplained, characterless hero, though the art is decent, and the stories are not bad.  The biggest drawback is his sidekick, a short overweight black man named Jonah, who exists solely for comic relief.

After stumbling across hoods who drug and kill horses to fix races, Bulldog heads over to England to check out Lord Frawley’s famous airport (that’s what they call it.)  He discovers Frawley is really working with foreign agents, using his runway to smuggle information and people in and out of England, and causes Frawley’s plane to crash, killing him.

Then it’s off to Algiers, where he and Jonah are attacked on the street by slavers, and wind up rescuing American heiress Sybil Lane from their clutches.  In his next story, Bulldog is in Egypt with Sybil’s explorer uncle, and captures the Phantom, the leader of a gang of tomb robbers.

Bulldog and Jonah then go climbing in the Swiss Alps, and catch some gold thieves whose plane came down in the moutains.

So from what we call, Bulldog is not a policeman or a private detective or anything,  just a guy who keeps being in the right place at the right time.

 

Bulldog Martin continues in the Early Golden Age, and hopefully gets a bit more depth to it.

 

Bulldog Martin:  Adventure Comics 40 (July 39)

More Fun Comics  47 – 50  (Sep- Dec 39)

Biff Bronson

Biff Bronson is a series with very good art, but stories that fail to match the art’s quality.  Part of the problem is that we never learn anything about Biff.  He travels around with his sidekick Dan Druff, capturing murderers and jewel thieves, but has no profession that we can see.

In issue 46 he is hired to keep watch on the man carrying the Matchwell Pearls to the “Royal Museum” in England, but the man gets murdered anyway, so he isn’t very good at that.  No problem, the next issue the gems were called the Kashmere Pearls, so I doubt anyone was paying enough attention to get mad at Biff.

As one might expect with the name Biff Bronson, our hero is a fist-fighter, not afraid to put up his dukes when someone else pulls a gun.

In the first story, Biff mentions an ailing mother, and in the second he and Dan are “out west,” after putting her in a sanitorium, which I’m thinking is just a scary name for a retirement home.  They head to Mexico after that, and kill a bandit leader.

The adventures themselves are straightforward, and this could be a much better series, if only we knew something about the main character.

Biff Bronson continues in the Early Golden Age

Biff Bronson:  More Fun Comics  43 – 50  (May – Dec 39)

Sergeant O’Malley and the Red Coat Patrol

This series begins under the title Red Coat Patrol, and in the first installment O’Malley joins the mounties, becoming a constable.  The series takes place somewhere in western Canada, possibly above the arctic circle, but really the only specifics given are that in one story O’Malley travels to “the Alberta region,” so he must not be in Alberta (and I would say, that curious phrasing also indicates the writer is not Canadian.)

Although O’Malley is aided in the stories by a native friend, Blackhawk, rather than another mountie, the stories consistently reflect an uncomfortable degree of racism toward the natives, and even moreso toward the metis.  In the very first story O’Malley faces a crazed metis murderer, Frenchy La Rue (although he is consistently called half-breed, rather than metis).  La Rue even makes a return appearance, escaping from prison in issue 42, killing again, and then trying to blow up O’Malley with dynamite, though he only succeeds in killing himself.  No matter, there are more crazed metis killers where he came from, and O’Malley faces another in issue 49.

He also deals with troublesome natives, with Blackhawk helping him, rather than his brethren.  In issues 40 and 48 natives threaten to kill whites, and are stopped by O’Malley.  Issue 49 has some of the best art on the run, but makes the typical Hollywood mistake of having the big plains headdress and BC totem poles in the same tribe.

O’Malley also has a dog, Flame.  Flame is rarely seen at the beginning of the run, and does little until issue 44.  In that story, to prevent gold mine thieves from escaping in their plane, about to take off on a frozen lake, Flame runs across the ice with a rope, giving it to Blackhawk so he and O’Malley can catch the planes landing gear and make it crash.  Flame almost gets shot in that one.  But now that he has had a taste of action, Flame becomes a major player, even saving O’Malley’s life in 49, when he is hit by a logjam in the river.

The series changes title to Sergeant O’Malley and the Red Coat Patrol with issue 46, possibly reflecting a promotion.

Throughout the run, the art is above par, and even though it’s all stereotypical Canadian wilderness, it’s done very well.  I don’t even mind the huge number of chapters that take place in the winter.

Sergeant O’Malley and the Red Coat Patrol continues in the Early Golden Age

Sergeant O’Malley:  More Fun Comics  39 – 40 (Jan -Fen 39),  42  (Apr 39),  45-50  (July – Dec 39)

Flying Fox

The Flying Fox was Rex Darrell, pilot, “air adventurer and sky sleuth,” who wore a World War I-style flying headgear, which vaguely resembles a fox, and is probably the reason for his nickname.  His plane, one of the fastest ever built, is the Dawn Streak, and with his co-pilot Buzz Blair, Rex catches a large amount of air pirates, and assorted killers and spies as well.

There is not a huge amount for me to say about this series, largely because I am reading digital scans of microfiche, and unfortunately almost every single one of these stories is blurry, and the lettering is very small, making them nearly illegible.  The art does not help much either.  The individual people and airplanes are often well drawn, but the artist is not a storyteller, and most of the panels consist of people standing and talking, or sitting in their planes.  There are a fair number gunfights, on the ground, plane to plane, and even in the cockpit of one craft, but it doesn’t help me much in understanding what is going on.

There is a woman, Diana, in a number of the stories.  I think she is Buzz’s sister.  She works as a stewardess in one story, but it’s the test flight of a new airliner, the Dawn Arrow.  The plane gets hijacked, but she slugs the hijacker and helps save the day.  Aside from that, she is often just sort of around, or needing rescuing.  Then there is Buddy, a younger brother of the two (sheer inference on my part), but he is only in two stories.

Rex does get a recurring masked villain, Air Pirate A-X, who steals both planes and cargo.  But even aside from him, reading this series gives one the impression that most cargo flights at this time wound up crashing due to air pirates, the pilots being killed and the cargo stolen.

In his final story, Rex fails to stop Bayou Borg from taking the identity of aviation pioneer Brewster, and stealing his fortune.  Brewster’s daughter, Betty, gets Rex involved in the case, and though he does find and rescue her father, his failure to capture Borg must have been humiliating.

So I think, it being January of 1940, Rex decided to head over to England and join the R.A.F.  I think that’s what happened to every single flyer whose comic series abruptly ended at this time.

 

Flying Fox:  More Fun Comics  37 -38  (Nov – Dec 38),   41 – 51  (Mar 39 – Jan 40)

Lt. Bob Neal of Sub 662

The best, and longest-running, of the three new series debuting in More Fun 36 was Lt. Bob Neal of Sub 662.  Bob and his friend Ensign Tubby Potts prevent German spies from sabotaging the new submarine, which we are told has all manner of new devices on board, though we never wind up seeing anything special like that.  Still, because of this, Bob gets made the second in command on the submarine.

He also gains the respect of Admiral Grant, and the affections of his daughter, Patricia.  Bob is completely comfortable in her wealthy circle of friends.  But then, as he retrieves the stolen Cavendale diamond, and later leads the rescue of Patricia and her friend Lucille Cavendale from their yacht, it’s no surprise that they like him.

The action moves around the world.  The second chapter pits Bob against Javan pirates, and the next few issues take place around the south China Sea, but then it’s off to central America, where Bob stops a rebellion in Costa.  Not Costa Rica, just Costa.  The last few issues take Bob to the Panama Canal, where he stumbles across a spy ring with huge plans, spending three issues discovering their leader, and using a spy camera to gain evidence against him.

The art on the series is at it’s best when disaster strikes.  A burning ship, a hurricane, a seaplane sinking under the waves, a volcanic explosion wreaking havoc in a harbour,  all these scenes all work extremely well.

The series changes title slightly with issue 46, the first of the Panama Canal issues, becoming Lt. Bob Neal in Peril, but changes back with issue 49, as Bob is sent to Honolulu, helping a scientist, Frank McDonald, perfect an oxygenator for divers.

Lt. Bob Neal continues in the Early Golden Age

Lt. Bob Neal: More Fun Comics  36 – 50  (Oct 38 – Dec 39)

Gary Hawkes

Gary Hawkes is introduced as a freelance pilot, a test pilot and a flight instructor, and despite the short duration of his run, we do see him in all of these roles.  Sadly, this is another forgettable series, buried in the middle of the book, with unexceptional art.

Most of Gary Hawkes`stories are one or two parters, and he has no supporting cast for most of his run.  He does get a co-pilot, Buzz Scott, for his last three stories.  Gery spends two issues helping overthrow the dictator of San Columbo, a central american country, and then returns there shortly before the end of his run, preventing an invasion from neighbouring Vulcania.

He saves a wealthy girl from being kidnapped, prevents the theft of an alaskan gold mine, solves a murder during the filming of a movie about airplanes, and even breaks up a mexican-texan drug smuggling ring, which pits him against his most powerful enemy, Yagoda, an oriental-hispanic mastermind (and not racist in conception at all, oh no.)

As Gary`s series ends in the summer of 1939, I would guess Gary left for England and joined the R.A.F, but the fact that we never hear anything more about would indicate that he did not survive the war.

 

 

Gary Hawkes:  More Fun Comics  36 – 46  (Oct 38 – Aug 39)

The Masked Ranger

Ok, so this is obviously based on the Lone Ranger. The first of three new series added to More Fun Comics this month, big things were clearly expected of the Masked Ranger – he was given the lead slot in the book – but there was no originality here, nothing worth enjoying.

For one thing, at no point do we ever see him without the mask, or get any idea of why he might want to wear one.  He is simply a nameless masked man with no motivation, who helps people out.  Without any backstory, his two 3-parters just fade into a blur of generic western heroes.

OK, sure, his horse’s name is Star and his buddy is Pedro, but that’s the extent of background or characterization here.

From issues 36 -38 he helps the Whitcomb girls keep their inheritance despite the machinations of their uncle, and in issues 39 -41 he goes in disguise as Steve Delaney to mess up Delaney`s murder plan, but neither story really holds the reader, and it is not a surprise at all that after six appearances the Masked Ranger was quietly retired.

 

Masked Ranger:  More Fun Comics  36 – 41  (Oct 38 – Mar 39)

Cap’n Jerry

Cap’n Jerry is a pleasant little strip about a sailor and his buddy Charlie, living on an island in the south seas.  They trade with the native for pearls, and protect them from thieves, and a lifeboat full of gamblers.

The first two stories are run of the mill, nice art though.  The third and final story feels so weird, like there is some odd joke going on.  A lifeboat washes up on shore, and then men on it all survived the sinking of a gambling boat, and try to get the natives to gamble away the pearls.  Feels like there is social commentary here, although it really doesn’t play it that way.

I am surprised this series had such a short run.  The stories were not great, but certainly no worse than others, and the art was on the whole better.

 

Cap’n Jerry:  More Fun Comics  32 – 34 (June – Aug 38)

Marg’ry Daw

Marg’ry Daw is another Little Orphan Annie take-off, although this girl is blond, and has a father.  She gets two serials.  The first isn’t bad, but the second is just awful.

In the first, her father, Luther Daw, has to go to Europe, so he leaves Marg’ry with Professor Booth, which is a very bad idea as Booth plots to have the girl kidnapped for ransom.  Marg’ry is fairly smart and observant, and Booth’s people have a harder time pulling off the kidnapping than they expect, but Dad still flies back and saves the day.

In the second serial, Luther decides he wants to spend some quality time with Marg’ry, and they take a train out west.  In Idaho, Mr. Ahm, a fellow passenger, originally from India, offers to tell their fortunes, and announces they must leave the train because it’s about the be destroyed.  They do, and the train promptly goes over a bridge which collapses.

Mr. Ahm then invites them back to his house, a veritable palace.  It is run by a crazy monk with a large statue of a talking frog.  Luther meets another man, who tells him everyone at the house is a prisoner, and they cannot leave, and then the man is shot and killed.  There is a strange legend about the seventh guest being doomed to die, and Luther is the seventh guest.  Then someone puts the giant frog statue on their head and stalks the house with a gun.  And then I screamed “what the fuck is this?”

To my relief, the series was cancelled at that point.  I imagine the editor was feeling as frustrated as I was, and the guy with the frog statue on his head just looks far too silly to be menacing.

So what ultimately happened?  I’m tempted to pass on this one, it’s such crap, but I guess Marg’ry tackles the frog guy before he shoots her dad, and he is unmasked as the crazy monk (sort of makes sense) who was also the gunman (tidy) doing this all just cause he’s crazy (as good as other explanations from the era)

 

Marg’ry Daw:  More Fun Comics  32 – 35 (June – Sep 38),  42 – 46  (Apr – Aug 39)