Mobsters and Ray Guns.

The July 15, 1935 issue of The Shadow magazine was an important one for several reasons.

First, writer Walter Gibson wrote a longer story than usual. This was actually because he had just gotten a new typewriter and didn't realize the font size was fitting more words per page, but this was probably a factor in allowing him to turn out one of his finest efforts. Its difficult to see where the story could have been trimmed without losing something cool.

Second, it was the first of what would be a number of stories in which the Shadow went up against a super-scientific threat. Up until now, he'd usually been dealing with mobsters and spies. Gibson felt the crime-fighter needed a new kind of threat to properly challenge him.

So, in "Atoms of Death," a scientist invents a disintegrator ray. It's not perfected enough to use as a  weapon, but it can be used to tunnel through earth and rock very quickly. He teams up with some mobsters and soon they are tunneling into banks and jewelry stores.  They dynamite the tunnels afterwards, leaving the police baffled as to how the crooks are actually pulling off their crimes.

Well, they don't fool the Shadow. When the scientist's assistant realizes something untoward is going on, he contacts Harry Vincent--whom he met in a previous story, so he knows Harry is an agent of the Shadow. Mobsters try to whack the guy, but the Shadow and his agents save him.

But the bad guys are smart. When the Shadow investigates their hide-out, he's knocked out by an electrical trap and captured. The Shadow manages to outwit them by convincing them he's just plain old Lamont Cranston and the real Lamont Cranston (who is currently in town) is the Shadow. He has to then prevent the real Cranston from getting kidnapped, but the end result is he gets free and the real Cranston leaves for another overseas hunting trip.

That leaves the Shadow starting from scratch, with no idea where the bad guys have set up their new headquarters. He tries to stop a couple of robberies. The first time, he has to run a gauntlet of gunmen while speeding down the street in a car. The second time, the villains have planted false clues to lure him to the wrong location, where they use machine gunners and a guy tossing grenades to try to finish him off. He fights his way out of this, but makes no progress in finding the hideout.

That's one of the strengths of this story. The head mobsters really are smart, staying one step ahead of the Shadow for most of the novel. In fact, they correctly deduce that mobster Cliff Marsland is really a Shadow undercover agent and kidnap him.

But that gives the Shadow a chance to finally track them down, though he must deliberately allow another of his agents to get captured. The neat part here is that the agent who volunteers for this dangerous job is Rutledge Mann. Mann isn't normally a field agent--he's an investment broker who generally acts as a contact for the field agents. But he gamely steps up to the plate when called upon. I always liked Mann and I was happy to see him get a moment in the limelight.

Anyway, the climax involves the Shadow in disguise sneaking into the hideout, followed by a wild shootout involving both pistols and and disintegrator gun.

And then we get one of Walter Gibson's best-ever twist endings. You thought you knew what was going on with the bad guys? That you understood who was who within their organization? Trust me, you didn't know a thing.

In the recent reprint volume that included this story, pulp historian Will Murray refers to this story as a "must-read." He's right, of course. If you're a fan of the Shadow, you gotta read this one.

I'm not sure he's a "pet."

As much as I enjoy the concept of the Super-Pets, I'm not sure they really should have been considered pets. Remember, once they gained superpowers, they also gained super-intelligence. Doesn't this make them sentient beings who should be considered the equals of human beings and other sentient beings?

But they were always considered pets and seemed content with their lot. Which might be understandable for Beppo, Streaky and Krypto. Their basic psychology might have still allowed them to be content with having human owners, just as a well-loved normal dog is content with a human owner.

But Comet--well, I don't think he ever came close to being a "pet." As we saw in our last Superman Universe post, Comet was first seen in Adventure Comics #293, cover dated February 1962. He's next seen in Action Comics #292 (September 1962)--the first part of a trilogy (written by Leo Dorfman) that firmly brings the Super-Horse into DC continuity. The October issue details Comet's origin.

Pay attention, because Comet's origin is the model against which all other origin stories should be measured for pure weirdness.

In ancient Greece, a centaur named Biron falls in love with the sorceress Circe. He saves her from being poisoned by an evil wizard named Maldor. As a reward, Circe promises to turn him into a human so they can marry. Unfortunately, Circe turns out to be an idiot and gives Biron the wrong potion, turning him into a horse.

She can't reverse that spell, so to make up for her error she gives him another potion giving him immortality and super powers. But Maldor later vengefully uses a magic spell to send Biron to a remote asteroid, where he's trapped by a magical aura.

A few thousand years later, the rocket taking Supergirl to Earth from Argo City passes near the asteroid and shatters the magical aura. Comet is freed, follows Supergirl to Earth and eventually makes telepathic contact with her.

By the end of Action Comics #294, Comet has amnesia and thinks he's just a regular horse, but he regains his powers in later issues. It's also eventually established that he turns human whenever there's a comet in the sky, then turns back into a horse when the comet is gone.

I love the convoluted and bizarre feel to the origin. And I love the idea of a Legion of Super-Pets. But I still don't think Comet or Biron or whatever you want to call him should be considered a "pet."

Of course, neither should Proty, an intelligent shape-changer that hangs out with Lightning Lad and joins the Super-Pets whenever they visit the future. He's definitely a member of an intelligent species and is still called a pet!

There's no denying it. The Super-Pets need better legal representation.

Next time we visit the Superman Universe, I think we'll take a look the Legion of Superheroes. We can warn them they might be getting sued by their pets.

Cover Cavalcade

The world would be a poorer place if rickety bridges stretched over bottomless chasms had never been invented.

Off to Africa

As of today, I'll be travelling to South Sudan on a short-term mission trip. I'll be teaching 1st and 2nd Corinthians to soldiers training to be chaplains in the Southern Sudanese military:




Posts will appear normally on the blog, as I've written them in advance and have them scheduled to go. But please be aware that I won't be able to moderate comments until I get back. (There's no electricity--much less wi-fi, in the camp I'll be at.) Please leave comments, but be aware that I won't be able to review and post them until I get back on June 7. (Perhaps a few days earlier if I'm able to get online during a few days in a Ugandan guest house.)

Friday's Favorite OTR

Escape: "John Jock Todd" 5/2/48 John Todd isn't a fighting man. But when assigned to help manage a remote African trading post, he discovers his boss is a sadistic brute. So John Todd might just have to fight whether he wants to or not.

Excellent episode in which both the protagonists and the supporting characters are given real personality by the actors.

Playing Keep Away with a Bag of Jewels

I don't listen to many audio books. That's not a criticism of the format. It's just that if I'm listening to a story rather than reading a story, it's likely to be an old-time radio show rather than an audio book.

But it is sometimes nice to be told a story in the most basic sense of the word. And when I am in the mood to have a story read to me, I normally visit Librivox.

It's a site in which volunteers have recorded public domain works, so it's all free. You get classics such as Moby Dick or The Three Musketeers. You also get a very nice selection of pulp fiction that's old enough to have fallen out of copyright.

This includes a number of Edgar Rice Burroughs' early novels. For instance, I just finished listening to Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar and enjoyed it enormously. The guy reading it does a very effective job. And, of course, it's one of my favorite Tarzan novels.

It was the fifth one ERB wrote, first seeing print in All-Story Cavalier Weekly magazine in 1916 (serialized in their November and December issues) and then published in book form in 1918.

It had taken the first two novels for Tarzan and Jane to get together. During this time, he became chief of the Waziri, a tribe of kick-butt warriors.

The third novel (The Beasts of Tarzan) involved an epic quest across Africa in which the Ape Man rescues his wife and baby son from kidnappers. Along the way, Tarzan befriends Mugambi, a big native warrior who is then adopted into the Waziri.

The fourth novel (The Son of Tarzan) involves Tarzan's son getting lost in the jungle himself, learning the same skills his father had and becoming known as Korak the Killer.

Korak was a pretty cool guy, but in the end he wasn't different enough from his dad to really stand out. He has a few important cameos in a couple of the later novels, but he doesn't play a role in most of them.

In fact, poor Korak isn't even mentioned in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. Tarzan and Jane are living happily together on his African estate. Maybe Korak is back in England catching up on his education. But for whatever reason, he's not around when his dad gets amnesia and his mom gets kidnapped.

It's a story that jumps between the various characters so quickly and crams so much cool stuff into the plot that its hard to do it justice in a brief summary. There's Tarzan and Jane; there's a murderer and deserter from the Belgian Army named Arnold Werper; there's Mugambi; there's Arab slave-raider Achmet Zek and his band of thugs; there's a band of Abyssinian soldiers who are hunting Zek's band; there's a group of Waziri warriors; there's a couple of apes named Chulk and Taglet; there's La, the priestess from the lost city of Opar; and there's a brief appearance by a Belgian army officer and his squad of soldiers. The story shifts its point-of-view to each of these characters at different times as they all move through the jungle for various purposes and cross-purposes, meeting each other in unlikely coincidences. But they are coincidences so perfectly-timed to move the story along and enhance the tension that it doesn't bother me at all.  In terms of entertaining us, it all works out just fine.

There's action scenes aplenty, including several pitched battles between large groups; shoot-outs between individuals;  an attack by a pride of enraged lions against a band of soldiers; the threat of human sacrifice; an angry charging elephant; and an earthquake. A lot of the action centers around attempts by various groups to obtain a load of gold taken from the treasure rooms of Opar. There's also a bag of priceless jewels from the same treasure room--an item that provides the primary motivation for several characters and changes hands at least four times during the course of the novel.

Jane spends much of the novel a prisoner of one villain or another, but she still gets several chances to be awesome. When Achmet Zek's men attack her estate, she's right in there fighting with the Waziri, potting bad guys with her rifle. Later on, when she ends up alone in the jungle with her hands and feet bound and a hungry lion nearby, she calmly assesses her situation and plans out the best possible method of escaping alive.

Tarzan spends the bulk of the novel with amnesia, reverting to pure jungle-man mode, but this in no way prevents him from also being awesome. Heck, when he kills a charging lion by shoving a broken rifle through its skull, then he's hit a new level of awesome even by Lord of the Jungle standards.

It's an action-packed, cleverly plotted adventure novel that features Tarzan at his best. If you're looking for something good to listen to, you can download it for free HERE.  Or you can dig up the book and read it. Either way, it's worth your time.

If your name is Robinson, DON'T GO INTO SPACE!

There were actually two different families named Robinson that got lost in space during the 1960s.

The story as to why a Lost in Space comic book featured a family named Robinson but NOT the family featured in the concurrent TV series is an interesting one. I covered this as part of the video I made at work covering the history of Dell and Gold Key comics, which I'll put at the bottom of this post for anyone interested.

Gold Key's Space Family Robinson (eventually subtitled Lost in Space) featured scientists Craig and June Robinson and their teenage kids Tim and Tam. They wandered about the galaxy in a pretty cool looking space station, trying to find their way back to Earth after getting caught in a cosmic storm.

S.F.R. #34 (June 1969) is a typical example from the series. Tim and Tam are scouting a planet in the station's spacemobile. They find the remnants of a human civilization, but no living beings. It eventually unfolds that the surviving humans from this planet fled from a war against a neighboring world, with the

survivors hiding in suspended animation in a nearby asteroid. All this happened 8000 years ago.

The aliens from the other planets apparently hold grudges for a really, really long time, because they launch missiles at the spacemobile. Tim and Tam take refuge in the same asteroid as the surviving humans, who wake from their long sleep. When the aliens begin ripping apart the asteroid with anti-matter missiles, everyone (including Tim and Tam) escape in an invisible space ship. But when the ship's pilot is incapacitated, Tim has to pilot the craft to safety.

It's a simple and straightforward story, well-constructed but not particularly memorable. What makes it really work is Dan Spiegle's art. Spiegle had a talent for unique space ship, alien, planet-scape and space-scape designs, infusing the fairly average stories with a real sense of fun. The space station that the Robinsons called home is a great design, while this story also includes a creepy alien species and a pretty impressive looking spacecraft used by the escaping humans.

I don't think this version of the Robinson family ever made it back to Earth, just as the TV version of the family is apparently still wandering around among the stars. There's a lesson to be learned there--if your name is Robinson, just get a job at the local 7/11. DON'T apply to NASA for a job. That won't end well.

Cover Cavalcade

Here's a simple concept for a cover illustration that comes out great because the artist executes it so effectively. The rigging nicely frames the sailor and the slightly upward perspective gives the proper sense of height.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Green Hornet: “A Pair of Nylons” 3/19/46

A gang of con artists are setting up in small store fronts for one day per store, selling stockings to women and falsely claiming that they are real nylon.

This particular Macguffin isn’t the most exciting hook in the history of mystery fiction, but it leads into a strong story. Daily Sentinel reporter Mike Axeford looks into the racket and ends up getting captured. The police then do some sharp detective work and are soon raiding the gang’s storehouse, capturing several henchmen. But the gang leader and Axeford are nowhere to be found. So it’s up to the Green Hornet to “rescue” one of the henchmen and trick him into revealing the location of the boss’s hideout.

Avarice makes for Credulity

We'll look at one last Robert E. Howard story in which the hero and the villain are forced by circumstances to team up with one another.

"Black Vulmea's Vengeance" was published in the November 1938 issue of Golden Fleece--a couple of years after Howard's death. The main character is an Irish pirate who has had a lot of success looting both British and Spanish ships.

It's the British who finally catch up to him--at a time when his entire crew is drunk from an all-night bender. Black Vulmea manages to take out a few of the Brits with a blast from a swivel gun, but the broadside he receives in return leaves him unconscious and wipes out his drunken crew.

("They'll wake up in Hell without knowing how they got there," eulogizes Vulmea a few pages later.)

The commander of the British ship is the snooty and brutal John Wentyard, who years ago had hanged a ten-year-old Vulmea when he put down a peasant's rebellion in Ireland. Vulmea, being an REH hero, survived the hangman's rope, became a kick-butt pirate, and now brought in chains before the man who killed his friends and family years ago.

Vulmea at first figures he'll leap forward and bash Wentyard's skull in with his manacles--an act of vengeance he figures is worth giving up his life to obtain. But then he gets a chance to run a con on Wentyard, telling him about a treasure hidden in the ruins of an ancient civilization on a nearby island. Looked at objectively, Vulmea's story should have been an obvious and desperate lie. But Vulmea knows that "avarice makes for credulity" and Wentyard indeed falls for it.

They travel to the island and go ashore: Wentyard, Vulmea and 15 marines. They're attacked by natives, which allows Vulmea to make a break for it. Events soon leave the marines dead, while Wentyard and Vulmea end up both hiding in some ruins that the natives are frightened to enter.

Vulmea is good at being sneaky, so he can slip out of the ruins and escape pretty much at will. So his initial plan is to first watch Wentyard starve to death. But then he decides it would be more satisfying to bring Wentyard food and water, then kill him in a fair fight. This plan is spoiled, though, when he abruptly discovers Wentyard has a wife and five-year-old daughter that will be left destitute. In fact, Wentyard was anxious to find treasure mostly to provide for them. "I can't be the cause of a helpless woman and colleen starving," says Vulmea in disgust.

This situation is what makes the character interactions particularly interesting, adding depth to an already cracking-good action tale. In our previous looks at reluctant Howardian team-ups, the goal was always either mutual survival or obtaining a treasure, after which the hero and the villain would go back to killing each other. This time, it's an act of compassion from a normally brutal pirate that brings the two characters together. It's clear that Vulmea still hates Wentyard and doesn't trust the man at all, but he'll save the Englishman (and even share a bit of treasure they stumble across) for the sake of a woman and child whom Vulmea himself will never meet.

But surviving has become more difficult. The natives won't enter the ruins, but a band of former African slaves (whose ship wrecked near the island) has no problem doing to. And these guys have no reason to love any white man--whether Irish or English. Also, there's a reason the natives avoid the ruins---a really, really creepy reason.

It's a great adventure story, with Wentyard's character arc and his changing attitude towards Vulmea giving it an interesting level of emotional subtlety. Robert E. Howard was quite capable of subtlety in his characterizations--something that he did a lot more often than casual critics of his work realize. "Black Vulmea's Vengeance" is perhaps one of the best examples of this.

That's it for our look at REH tales that force the hero to team up with an enemy. There's probably some other examples I'm not thinking of, so I may return to the idea in the future. Next week, though, we'll return to Edgar Rice Burroughs and visit with the Lord of the Jungle.