Number 1592: The one-and-done costumed heroes

“The Case of the Crumpling Skyscrapers” is the one and only appearance of Rocky Ford and Judith Allen, private investigators. At night they take on disguises, he as the Scarlet Nemesis, she as the Black Orchid. The gimmick is they don’t know each other when their masks are on. Duh. Don Markstein’s Toonopedia has this to say about the characters:

“. . . comic book characters can be awfully dense about not recognizing each other if there's a mask in the way . . . But their relationship was never given a chance to develop. The Black Orchid and The Scarlet Nemesis had only one adventure, then disappeared without a trace.”

The article credits George Tuska with the art. Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr credits Ken Battefield and an unknown inker for the job. I am with Jim on this — it is not a Tuska job.

There is another character in this story, an eccentric “retired millionaire,” Jim Crow. Crow wants to knock down all the buildings to make more room for the pigeons. Can it be that there was a writer and an editor in those days who did not recognize the name “Jim Crow” as being the term used for racial segregation in the American South? You can read more about Jim Crow. This story, from All New Short Story Comics #2 (1943) is a curiosity that leaves one puzzled.

Number 1581: Joe the Boob: Bullets, Booze and Blood

Blood. Lots of blood. Killings on nearly every page of this lurid 11-page story from Crime Must Pay the Penalty #1 (#33 on cover; 1948). Not only killings, but killings with bloody head shots. Even a couple of knifings. If you like your crime comics fast and violent this fits that description.

Page 7 has two head shots, including a panel of a crook still talking after being shot in the forehead. Crooks were tough in those days!

Jim Vadeboncoeur gives Ken Battefield credit for pencils, and hedges with a question mark on an artist named Wilcox for the inks.

Number 1427: Zoro and the Devil’s Dagger

In the wake of the initial comic book boom of the late thirties-early forties, comics, at 68 pages, all in color for a dime, were in constant need of talent and characters to fill those pages. If ideas and concepts from more successful comics were borrowed, well, that’s the comic book biz. There were so many characters spread across the industry they were popping up like weeds in my lawn. I wouldn’t want to try to count them.

Anyway, as promised on Monday, here are two more stories from 1941, this time from Fawcett’s Master Comics #12. I was not familiar with these characters at all, and apparently they didn’t set the comic book world on fire. But, so what? I like them well enough to show them here. “Devil’s Dagger” is drawn by journeyman comic artist Ken Battefield (NOT “Battlefield,” which is the way I often see his name misspelled). I know next to nothing about Battefield, because there isn’t much information available online. The other story is “Zoro the Mystery Man” (not “Zorro”), drawn by the great Mac Raboy. Raboy was an excellent illustrator, who did early work on Captain Marvel Jr. He also did fine work on Green Lama. Raboy went from comic books to the Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip in 1946, which he drew until his death at the young age of 53 in 1967.

Master Comics was a pretty good anthology comic. At some point I’ll be mining this issue for more stories.