Peter Gunn again

 

Last week, we looked at the first of two stories in Four Color #1087 (April-June 1960).  Today, we'll examine the second story, also written by Paul S. Newman and drawn by Mike Sekowsky.

"The Purple Clue" is also a well-written detective tale. One the way to meet a potential client, Pete's car is run off the road by a purple car that then speeds away. Soon after, a paint factory burns to the ground--it's later discovered to be a professional arson job. Pete's client was to be the owner of that factory.

The owner has an old enemy--a man who did time for embezzeling from the company and had sworn vengence for being sent to the slammer. But he'd been a model prisoner before being recently parolled and there's no hard evidence against him for the arson job.

Pete goes to the suspect's home and, after an encounter with a mean-tempered dog, gets a look at the guy's car. It's green--not purple. And the suspect, though openly happy about the fire, claims innocence. Also, the job was done by a pro--and this guy is an embezzler, not a fire bug.

Pete, though, takes a sample of clay from a tire before leaving. A lot of legwork follows, in which Pete eventually discovers that the suspect had learned the tricks of the arson trade from a fellow prisoner while in jail.

Remembering the clay from the tire, Pete finds a clay-covered side road and evidence that purple paint was wiped from a car using solvent while parked there. Using a cat to lure away the dog from the suspect's garage, he finds a streak of purple paint under the hood that hadn't been washed off. The guy catches Pete and tries to get the drop on him, but it's not easy to get the drop on Peter Gunn.

So both stories are solidly written detective stories that flow along logically, with clues and plot twists that make sense. Without the jazz music and Craig Stevens' laid-back but still tough portrayal of Gunn, the comic inevitably feels a little different that the TV show. But either story would have fit into the TV show lineup with no trouble at all.

Next week, we'll leave the mean streets of L.A. and head to outer space, where we'll once again join the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Cover Cavalcade

 JULY IS BRAINIAC AND LUTHOR MONTH!!!

A cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez from 1977.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Whistler: "The Blank Wall" 6/26/43

A man is tasked with coming up with an airtight murder plot and only has a few hours in which to do it.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Shag and Bones

 

cover by Norman Saunders

Shaughnessy Roberts and Bones McPherson are investigators who work for a small-loan company. You wouldn't think that this line of work would toss Shag and Bones into the middle of murder investigations on a regular basis. But you'd be wrong. It happens to them all the time.

Shag is a "tough guy with a baby face," while Bones is described as "tall, skinny and with a lot of freckles; but his dress was Broadway, and he was neat, well-groomed." The two appeared in seven novellas published in Ten Mystery Aces in 1938 and 1939, all written by Russell Bender. Their premiere adventure--"Murderers' Rebellion"--ran in the March 1938 issue.

It's a fun, well-constructed mystery. A man and woman have been stealing identities of people on vacation, using those identities to take out loans from the National Finance company, then essentially disappearing with the money. They've finally been identified, but the man has been murdered. The woman disappears.  Shag and Bones are tasked with finding her and getting the money back in exchange for not prosecuting her for the theft. She'd be on her own in the murder investigation.

Because the job does involve a murder and might be dangerous, Shag and Bones are told the assignment is voluntary. But Shag respects his boss enough to give it a go.

He and Bones use a clever trick on the woman's brother to get the address of her hide-out, though this in turn gets them shot at by someone. When they arrive at that hide-out, they find her, her stepdaughter and a guy with a rifle. This requires some fast talking and a few punches to come out on top. But then someone unexpected walks through the door and upsets everyone's calculations...

It really is a fun story. Shag is the narrator and the character who Sherlocks his way to the solution, while Bones also has opportunities to demonstrate that he's a skilled investigator in his own right. The mystery is a good one and the ending combines a summation by Shag with some gunfire to bring the case to a satisfying conclusion. I haven't read the other Shag and Bones stories yet, but I've put an anthology containing their adventures on my birthday list and I'm looking foward to eventually diving into them.

"Murderers' Rebellion" is available online HERE.

Peter Gunn

 

Peter Gunn ran for three seasons on TV, from 1958 to 1961. He came back for a feature film in 1967. The TV series was a well-written noir-ish private eye show, though its probably best remembered today for its magnificent opening music, written by Henry Mancini. 

Peter had one comic book appearance--in Dell's Four Color #1087 (April-June 1960). It had two 16-page original stories, each written by the stalwart Paul S. Newman and drawn by Mike Sekowsky. Today, we'll look at "Harmless Hobby." Next week, we'll look at the second tale from this issue.

The man with the "Harmless Hobby" is retired medical Dr. Clipp. He forges rare stamps, but does so just for fun. He has no intention of putting them on the market or cheating anyone.

Peter is commissioned by the Stamp Dealers Association to offer the good doctor a nice sum of money to stop making fake stamps. But Dr. Clipp declines the offer. It keeps him busy in his retirement and what harm does it do?

Well, poor Dr. Clipp is in a private eye story, so naturally there will be harm. He's kidnapped by thugs who want him to forge stamps for them to sell.

Peter heads for Dr. Clipp's home, hoping to find a clue. He runs into the cops there--they are responding to a call about a prowler. Peter and the cops briefly fight in the dark before they identify each other. Then they search the apartment for Clipp's engraving tools, figuring that's what the prowler was looking for. 

When they find nothing, they figure the prowler got away with the tools. Peter stays behind to search again, though, and eventually finds the tools hidden in a false book.

But the bad guys spot him coming out. They snatch Pete and bring him to their hideout (making him lie on the floor of the car so he can't see where they are going). They get the tools and the head of the gang realizes they don't need Pete. So he's taken to a remote location and dumped. They don't kill him, but he doesn't know where they are hiding anyways.

But Pete comes up with a plan and educating the readers on the details of stamp forging becomes necessary. The hardest part is matching the paper that was used on the original stamp, while also making it look properly aged. The best way to do this is buy less valuable stamps of lesser value and bleach those clean, using the paper to replicate the valuable stamp. Dr. Clipp had mentioned working on a valuable Swedish stamp. So the cops put the word out to the dealers to let them know if anyone is buying other stamps from that issue.

Paul S. Newman was a great writer. His story construction so far has been sound and he manages to fit in this information in just a few panels, so the potentially complicated exposition is clear and doesn't slow the story down at all.

Anyway, the plan works. A bad guy buys the stamps and is trailed back to the hideout. Peter and the cops save Dr. Clipp, who agrees to give up forging stamps and, in fact, takes a job with the Stamp Dealers Association to detect forgeries.

It really is a well-told detective story, moving along swifty, giving Pete a chance to throw punches at bad guys on several occassions, and unfolding plot points in a logical manner.

Next week, we'll see if Newman and Sekowski manage to succeed with the second Peter Gunn tale.

Cover Cavalcade

 JULY IS BRAINIAC AND LUTHOR MONTH!!!!

The Man of Steel needs to file an appeal right away! This 1962 cover is by Curt Swan.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Dimension X: "Pebble in the Sky" 6/17/51

An archeologist visits Earth to investigate his wild theory that mankind originated on the primitive and irradiated planet. He soon finds more danger and adventure than he expected.

Click HERE to listen or download.

A Bit of Red Ribbon

 

cover art by Hubert Rogers

I've written about J.D. Newsom's Foreign Legion stories a number of times now. I read another one last night and, as usual, enjoyed it enormously. I have yet to run across a Newsom story I didn't like.

"A Bit of Red Ribbon" was first published in Adventure's June 15, 1931 issue. In it, we meet meek, henpecked John Jefferson Forbes-Smith, who has been waiting in the rain for an hour and a half for his wife to come out of a store.  She had said "I shan't be a minute," but Forbes-Smith is used to her minutes stretching into hours.

In a rare fit of mild rebellion, he goes into a bar. He intends to order a coffee, but he's soon downing whiskey sours with a new friend. 

When he wakes up the next morning, he's been arrested for public drunkenness. He is wearing different cloths and carrying the ID of a man named Smith who joined the Foreign Legion the day before. The cops won't believe his story and ship him off to the Legion.

So poor henpecked Forbes-Smith soon finds himself in North Africa, being drilled until he's exhausted and punished whenever he tries to point out that he doesn't belong in the Legion. He soon decides that he can't ever go home anyways--his wife would reject him because of the shame he would be bringing to her. 

At the same time, he does toughen up a little. So, when he spots his wife in a nearby town--certainly there in search of him--he immediately volunteers to accompany a column marching into battle. His sergeant agrees to let him go: "I don't blame you. I'd rather take my chance [in battle] any day rather than face some women!"

Newsom strikes a fine balance in this story. There's a dark humor underlaying Forbes-Smith's plight, but Newsom's description of life in the Legion, the desert heat and--eventually--the chaos of battle are all vivid and without irony. Forbes-Smith's character growth is realistic. Some men, after all, are manned-up by military life. But, though Forbes-Smith does man up, he does so in fits and starts, with the deliberate intension of getting killed when he volunteers for combat. It's a realistic depiction of gradual character growth that meshes well with Newsom's realistic description of desert combat and serving in the Foreign Legion. 

So when Forbes-Smith has a chance to perform a dangerous mission, he may prove to himself that he's more of a man than he thought.

You can read the story for yourself HERE.

The Red Ghost is a Jerk!

 

cover by:

Rich Buckler (according to the Grand Comics Database)

or

Ron Wilson (according to the Marvel Wiki)

In the last issue, Tony Stark was kidnapped by the Super Apes and brought to the Red Ghost, who is currently stuck in intangible ghost form. (Though he's still able to walk without drifting down through the floor. Sometimes Comic Book Science is inexplicable.)

Tony was kidnapped while Happy Hogan was wearing the suit. So in this issue (Iron Man #83--February 1976) we get some scenes with the injured Happy, establishing that he survived the encounter. Though he will collapse at the end of the issue, triggering the events of the following two issues.

But for us, we'll concentrate on Tony, the Red Ghost and the Apes. R.G. wants to be cured of his permanent ghostiness and demands Tony help him in exchange for Tony's life.

Tony in turn convinces R.G. that he needs a piece of equipment back at his labs to do the job. This is a double-edged ploy--he does indeed need the equipment there, but it also puts him in the same room with a spare Iron Man suit.

The most fun aspect of this issue is the various clever ways the Super Apes use their powers. We see that when they smuggle Tony into the Stark International labs. We see it later on during their inevitable fight with Iron Man. Writer Len Wein and artist Herb Trimpe consistently give us cool moments throughout the issue. 

Tony macgyvers what he needs to cure the Ghost and does so. Predictably, the Red Ghost proves to be a jerk of monumental proportions. He immediately orders the Super Apes to kill Tony.

Tony, though, had rigged up a smoke screen, which he now activates, giving him time to put on the spare Iron Man suit.

As I mentioned, the fight gives us the Apes using their powers cleverly. I especially enjoy the baboon's transformation into a flying buzzsaw. Tony responds with equally clever tactics. It's always fun to see the Super Apes and they're used particularly well here.

After the apes are defeated, the Red Ghost ignores Tony's warning not to turn intanglible. The cure was a one-way proposition and R.G. destroys himself when he tries to use his power again. (Of course, he isn't permanently dead. He'll be re-integrated in an FF issue a few years later.)

A fun issue, pitting Iron Man against a foe he doesn't normally battle in a well-choreographed fight.

Next week, we'll look at one of the comic book adventures of TV private eye Peter Gunn.

Cover Cavalcade

 JULY IS BRAINIAC AND LUTHOR MONTH!!!

This 1983 cover introduced us to the new look for both villains. New or old look? Which is better?

Friday's Favorite OTR

 The Black Museum: "The Khaki Handkerchief" 5/20/52

A handkerchief and its laundry mark is a vital clue in catching a killer.

Click to HERE listen or download. 

Dinosaurs, Space Battles and Fist Fights

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #170

I don't care what NASA says! Venus is a jungle planet populated by dinosaurs. It's true! Everyone knows that!

By golly, Tom Corbett, Roger Manning and Astro know it. In Revolt on Venus (1954), the three space cadets are given thirty days leave. They decide to take a trip to Astro's home planet of Venus and hunt a tyrannosaurus. Astro has some experience in this, though the story he tells about it leaves no doubt that T-Rex hunting is dangerous.

But the poor cadets are soon involved in much more than a hunting trip. There is trouble afoot on Venus. A group called the Nationalists is pushing to secede from the Solar Alliance. They've stepped over a legal line in the sand by threatening farmers who don't join them and have several times burned down buildings.

A side-note: This book was written for young American readers. It's likely the author realized that our natural sympathies might lie with a colony wanting to break away from a distant government. So the point that Venus has equal representation in that government is quickly made--as well as gradually revealing the Nationalists to be brutal and hypocritical in their actions. This is an action-adventure novel, so the politics are dealt with very lightly, but the story quickly zeroes in on the Solar Alliance being the good guys and the Nationalists being the bad guys, with no grey zone inbetween.

Anyway, the cadets get involved in this even before they get to Venus, when they find a bomb planted on their spaceship during the trip there. Once on Venus, the cadets go hunting, while a Solar Guard officer named Connell begins to investigate the Nationalists.

Tom and his friends get involved after being chased out of the jungle by a T-Rex and stumbling onto a plantation being attacked by Nationalists, with Major Connell desperately trying to fight off the attackers. 

So the cadets find their vacation cut short. After they foil an attempt to kidnap them, the cadets and Connell pretend to go hunting while really searching for the secret Nationalist base. That leads to another encounter with the T-Rex that chased them earlier. Then they end up getting captured.

But getting captured is not necessarily a bad thing. If one of them can escape and bring back the Solar Guard fleet, while the others sabotage the Nationalists' early warning system, then the movement can be crushed.

This leads to more action, including a large-scale space battle, some brutal ground combat, a hostage situation, a double-crossing "friend" and a last-minute save. 

I've been enjoying the Corbett novels enormously, but this is my clear favorite so far. The action is varied--covering the gamut from hungry dinosaurs to fisticuffs to ray guns-- and often intense, with each of the cadets getting a few Moments of Awesome along the way. The plot twists are good ones and the overall atmosphere generates quite a bit of tension. Especially good are the scenes set in the Venusian jungle, with thick foilage and dangerous fauna keeping both the protagonists and the readers on edge.

And, by golly, the book describes Venus properly. It's a jungle planet full of dinosaurs. It really is. Why would we accept the existence of a universe that allowed anything else?

Nothing is more annoying than having your ex-girlfriend try to murder you.

 

cover art by Jim Starlin

In Green Lantern #129 (June 1980), writer Denny O'Neil and artist Joe Staton bring their epic story arc to an end. 

The only tangling thread left from the Qwardian attempt to conquer Oa is the missing Weaponer leader General Fabrikant. The General has actually been disguised as a kid named Fabian and staying with Carol Ferris.

When Fabian/Fabrikant learns that Carol is also Star Sapphire, he decides its time to take his revenge against Green Lantern. He breaks into the facility where the gem that  transforms Carol is kept. He steal it and uses it to change Carol and take control of her.

Before going after GL, though, he wants to test his control of Star Sapphire. So he orders her to kill Green Lantern.

She tries to obey, destroying the trailer in which Hal is staying, but not realizing he used his ring to tunnel to safety. Re-charging his ring, he then confronts Fabrikant and Carol.

Naturally, a Sapphire vs. Ring fight ensues. When it looks as if Hal is getting the upper hand, Fabrikant takes a hand by bashing Hal over the head with a pedastal. 

But Carol hesitates before delivering the coup de grace, allow Green Lantern to apparently run away, What he actually does is blind Carol and Fabrikant with a burst of light, disguise Fabrikant as GL and revert into Hal.

A confused Carol knocks out Fabrikant. Hal snatches away the Sapphire, allowing her to revert to normal. Fabrikant will be returned to Qward, while Hal and Carol (who have been arguing with each other for the last several issues) have a calm, friendly moment with each other.

It's an effective end to the story arc, with a good fight scene in which Hal uses his powers in several clever ways. 

Next week, we'll finish off our look at Iron Man vs. Super Apes.

Cover Cavalcade

 JULY IS BRAINIAC AND LUTHOR MONTH!!!!

Here's another 1964 Curt Swan cover.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Campbell Playhouse: "Mutiny on the Bounty: 1/13/39

Great production values and Orson Welles' entertaining scenery-chewing as Capt. Bligh makes for an effective episode.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Beauty and the Beast Affair

 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. generated several successful lines of tie-in media. The Gold Key comic book ran for 22 issues. There was a best-selling line of 23 paperback novels (one of which I reviewed HERE). Twenty-four novels if you count one not published when the line was cancelled but now available online.  And there was a digest-sized magazine, published from 1966 to 1968, that ran for 24 issues. 

Each of the magazines featured an U.N.C.L.E novella (as well as an often-excellent assortment of original crime and spy-fiction tales). Today, we are going to be looking at "The Beauty and the Beast Affair," by Harry Whittington (written under the house name of Robert Hart Davis), which appeared in the March 1966 issue of U.N.C.L.E. magazine.

The title arises from the fact that Sheik Ali Zud, the ruler of the tiny Middle Eastern county of Zabir, considers himself ugly. Thus, the only way he thinks he can get the beautiful Queen Soraya of the neighboring country of Xanra to marry him is to conquer Xanra. THRUSH, for nefarious and ultimately treacherous reasons of its own, agrees to help.

As the story opens, Illya Kuryakin is a prisoner in Zabir. (Actually, he's reported to be dead, but most readers will know that, as a lead character, he's protected by plot armor and will turn up alive. He does so by the second chapter.) Napoleon Solo and an inexperienced female agent named Wanda Mae Kim head for Zabir to find out what's going on.

Soon, there are captures, escapes, and fights, all leading up to a fairly satisfying and explosive conclusion.

Whittington was a great storyteller, so its no surprise that he moves the story along quickly and clearly, with a few nice plot twists along the way. He also does some interesting characterization work with several of the Sheik's soldiers, gradually moving them from opponents of the U.N.C.L.E. agents to allies. 

There's a couple of aspects to the story I had a hard time swallowing. That inexperienced female agent? She's whiny and useless for most of the story. She does get a chance to redeem herself near the end of the book, but who made this woman--a ditz who panics at the drop of a hat-- a spy in the first place? She is simply annoying.

Also, at one point Solo captures a THRUSH agent who is pretending to be the Sheik's head of security, disguised with a Mission Impossible-style latex mask. Solo puts the mask on and assumes that role himself, with no mention of whether his physical build is correct, whether he can imitate the security guy's voice, know his mannerisms, etc. He simply puts on the mask and becomes the other man. I know The Man From U.N.C.L.E.exists in an over-the-top universe, but that seemed to be stretching things a bit too far. 

But, even taking those criticisms into account, "The Beauty and the Beast Affair" was a fun read. The novellas from the magazine are available HERE. 

Wrong Guy in the Suit

 

cover art by Gil Kane

Iron Man #82 (January 1976) begins with Iron Man returning to his New York business complex after a superhero battle at another location. So the issue is a slow burn at first, as writer Len Wein and artist Herb Trimpe take some time to introduce some new characters and remind us that Tony runs a huge business.

Then its off to a charity gala, in which both Tony and Iron Man have been asked to appear. (Remember that this is a time when Tony still had a secret identity.) Tony has Happy Hogan wear the suit so both can be there. After all, its just for a few hours at a party. What can possibly go wrong?

Well, how about the Super Apes suddenly attack the party? 

The Apes grab Tony and start to make a getaway. Happy jumps in to help, of course. No one can question his loyalty to Stark or his courage.

What can be questioned is his experience wearing the suit. He does the best he can, but he hasn't had much practice and he's completely unfamilar with the powers of the Super Apes (respectively--super strength; magnetic rays and shape-changing). He's knocked out and possibly badly injured.

The Apes then finish their getaway, with Stark still a prisoner, in a really cool way. The shape-changing baboon turns into a glider and carries the others away.

When Tony regains consciousness, he finds himself in a secret lair, confronted by the Red Ghost--who, apparently, has become a "real" ghost, unable to turn solid.

It's a fun issue. There's not a lot of action in the first half, but it serves a storytelling purpose. Though this part might be a bit dull for someone if this were the first issue they picked up, it should maintain the interest of regular readers.

And when the action starts, it's all good stuff. Happy's inexperience in the suit is made clear and the Apes--normally Fantastic Four villains--make for effective guest star bad guys here. And the baboon-glider is indeed cool. 

Next week, we'll finish our look at Green Lantern's Sinestro/Weaponers story arc. We'll be back in two weeks to see how Tony handles being kidnapped.