Number 1379: Ace of Space, meet Space Ace

With a comment in Pappy's #1346, reader Darci sent me on a hunt for the character, Ace of Space. Ace Egan is considered to be a precursor to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. The story is from Feature Comics #38 (1940), and crams a lot into an origin story, but whether it inspired editor Julius Schwartz or writer John Broome, who knows? It’s an interesting thought. The writing on this five-page origin story is clumsy, especially as Ace discovers his powers. After putting on the power belt bequeathed him by the dying alien he says, “I seem to know the answer to all problems!” Despite growing to be nine-feet tall, jumping a quarter mile or having super vision, I’d think just having answers to all problems would be power enough. Harry Francis Campbell did the artwork, and H. Weston Taylor the writing.

I’ve included the Space Ace story by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer from Manhunt #4 (1948). Here Space Ace is Jet Black, a “space patrolman” (space would be a mighty big patrol area). The Space Ace character from the four issues of Jet (Jet Powers, not Jet Black) a couple of years later, also published by ME, is more of a pirate.

Number 1334: Starr Flagg stoned!

I don’t think I’m revealing any secrets by telling you the raison d’etre of the Undercover Girl series, written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Ogden Whitney, was to show Starr Flagg in fights with other beautiful women. All of the stories I’ve seen have that element to them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; having sex appeal is a good way to attract guys to buy the book. That sex appeal can overcome the silliness of the story.

Siva Dey, wearing a red bra and see-through harem pants, can bring stone to life. She really needs to re-think her plan. World domination is one thing, but it's been tried by several others with limited to no success. Villains should aim just a little lower to maximize returns and lessen the risk. Somebody, somewhere would have paid Siva Dey a lot of money for her secret formula. But then, if she had gone legitimate she wouldn’t have had a hair-pulling match with Starr...so on second thought, never mind.

From ME’s Manhunt #9 (1948):

Number 1307: Undercover Girl meets Deep Throat!

Undercover Girl, who was featured for a time in the late forties in Manhunt comics from ME, was actually U.S. Government agent Starr Flagg.

Starr is a glamorous agent. She wears her spike heels and sexy lingerie while lounging about at home, and she has sexy fights with other women, including this evil babe, Lala the sword swallower. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been a lot more interested in that art since I read a judge’s decision from the early seventies about the movie, Deep Throat. The judge compared star Linda Lovelace to a sword swallower. Watching Lala in action in this tale is no disappointment.

Undercover Girl is mighty sexy. Check out another of her girlfights in Pappy's #1117, where she tussles with a chick with a whip and her pet gorilla...it's a lot for six pages.

Drawn by Ogden Whitney, written by Gardner Fox, “The Riddle of the Radio-Death” is from Manhunt #7 (1948):

Number 1117


Catfight in the jungle!


A couple of weeks ago I featured a crazy ACG two-parter drawn by Ogden Whitney, "Delinquent in Space." Today we are more down to earth with a Whitney story from 1948, "Undercover Girl," wherein our heroine, Starr Flagg, looks for the formula for a product to "rot steel." Undercover Girl (who is literally under the covers in the panel at the top of this page) meets up with—and girlfights—a sexy tough chick with a whip, and a large blue gorilla.

And I said this was down to earth?

From M.E.'s Manhunt #5, 1948:







Gardner Fox was most likely the author of this tale, as he was the two-page text feature for the issue, which got the cover position. Among other fiction, Fox also wrote fantasy/sf pulp magazine stories for Planet Stories and Amazing, and paperback novels like Warrior of Llarn. Like other comic book writers Fox wanted a byline, wanted to be taken seriously as a wordsmith. I like Fox, and though this text piece isn't great, it's just fine in the medium for which it was written (after all, who read those text pages in comic books, anyway?) He got a byline, and not only that, a cover credit!

I also showed scans of an original Gardner Fox Hawkman script I got from DC editor Julius Schwartz in the 1960s. You can see that in Pappy's #1045.