Blind as a Not-So-Blind Bat

The publication of the first issue of The Shadow in 1931 opened a floodgate for new heroic characters within the pages of the pulp magazines. Over the next decade, countless good guys began to have countless adventures. They solved murders, broke up spy rings, foiled evil plots of world conquest, and saved many, many damsels in distress.

There was Doc Savage, G-8 and his Battle Aces, the Spider, the Phantom Detective, G-Man Dan Fowler, Secret Agent X, Operative 5, the Green Lama, The Whisperer and too many others to list.

The Shadow remained one of the most popular (and best-written) of the pulp heroes, so it's not surprising that many of the characters who followed him copied his style to an extent. But the best of these weren't just drab carbon copies of the Shadow. When hooked up with a skilled writer, they would take on personalities and styles of their own.

The Black Bat, for instance, was teamed up with writer Norman Daniels--a great storyteller who combined strong plots with fun characters and exciting action set pieces to produce a hero whose stories would appear in Black Book Detective magazine for 13 years (1939-1953). Using the pen name G. Wayman Jones, Daniels wrote many of these adventures and maintained high quality throughout all his efforts.

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The Black Bat, alias Tony Quinn, has a nifty origin. He was a district attorney until a gangster gives him a face full of acid, blinding him. For some time, Tony uses his not-inconsiderable wealth traveling the world looking for a cure. He eventually gives up, but then learns that a fatally wounded police officer has offered to donate his own eyes to Tony.

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A doctor performs the unique operation and Tony can see again. But he opts not to tell anyone this, giving him opportunity to assume the secret identity of the vigilante crime-fighter Black Bat. Few suspect--and no one can ever prove--that poor blind Tony is conducting a secret war on crime.

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Tony's time as a blind man has left his other senses enhanced. In addition to this, his new eyes are particularly sharp, allowing him to see even in pitch darkness. With the help of three assistants--the beautiful Carol, former con-man Silk and a big bruiser named Butch--he conducts extra-legal investigations into crimes of all sorts. Inevitably, his skills with either firearms or his fists become needed. His assistants do their share as well--each of them is given personality, brains and his/her own set of valuable skills.

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The magazine High Adventure (which provides us with facsimile reprints of pulp magazines) has reprinted several Black Bat stories over the last few years, including his origin story. A recent issue reprinted two of the later stories (from 1945 and 1947 respectively). One of these, titled "Blind Man's Bluff," is particularly good.

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In it, a man named Matt Bradley, having spent three years in a Japanese prison camp, returns to reclaim his home and property. But his relatives had declared him dead already, with one of them falsely identifying another body as Matt in order to keep everything "legal."

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There's actually some initial doubt about Bradley's identity, as he was tortured by the Japanese and is now horribly scarred to the point that no one recognizes him. Soon, things get more complicated when one of the relatives is murdered, followed by several attempts to murder Matt. Nobody has solid alibis and everyone has a motive for at least one of the crimes. In the meantime, the Black Bat's assistant Carol is kidnapped for unknown reasons.

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The Black Bat finally figures it all out, leading up to a truly exciting encounter with the murderer in a pitch black garage. It's a strong example of the skilled storytelling that was so common during the pulp era, giving us a fun hero, an intriguing mystery and several great fight scenes.