Skagg's Raiders

 

cover art by Reed Crandall

Poor Skagg. With a name like that, he was probably destined to be a bad guy.

We meet him in Quality Comics' Blackhawk #26 (August 1949). He and the beautiful Dorna lead a group of ruthless outlaws. They have a hideout in thick jungle near the borders of three different countries. So they one of the borders, rob some place, then fade back across the border into the jungle to hide out. "Skagg's Raiders" has an credited writer and some excellent artwork by Wally Wood.

When Andre of the Blackhawks flies over, they decide it would be nice to have a plane--one of his men is a pilot. They lure the Frenchman down with a distress signal, where he's quickly captured. They initially plan to simply kill him, but the outlaw pilot realizes he'll need instruction on the advanced controls of a Blackhawk plane. Andre is locked up until he agrees to cooperate. The plane is hidden in the jungle. 

When he doesn't report in, the other Blackhawks start looking for him. They land in the same clearing, but at first find nothing. It's Chop Chop who discovers a footprint and starts trailing the outlaws into the jungle. 

Later on in the story, Chop Chop will act quickly to save Blackhawk's life. There's no getting around Chop Chop's stereotyped appearance and speech pattern--that's definitely a product of its time. But there's also no getting around that he's presented here as intelligent and brave. Go figure.

The Blackhawks silently capture a sentry and quietly approach the outlaw camp. Knowing that Andre is likely to be killed if a gunfight starts, Blackhawk casually walks into the camp and eggs Skagg into a fist fight. This distracts the other outlaws, allowing the Blackhawks to launch a surprise attack.

But Skagg and Dorna arn't done yet. They flee through an escape tunnel and seal off both ends when the Blackhawks pursue them. Then they and the outlaws proceed to have a party, knowing the Blackhawks are hopelessly trapped.

Not surprisingly, the Blackhawks are not hopelessly trapped. With some gunpowder salvaged from a few bullets, they blow open the tunnel door. Then they attack the outlaws once again.

This time, everything works out well for the good guys. Skagg is killed when Chop Chop saves Blackhawk with a well-thrown rock. Dorna tries to run for it and ends up as crocodile chow. Justice is rather brutally served on them both.

This is a fun tale--a straightforward adventure story that flows along quickly and logically, with Wally Wood's beautiful art bringing it all together. Read it yourself HERE. 

Next week, we'll observe an innovative method for fighting pirates.

Sandwiches are indeed the Food of the Gods!

 

cover art by Al Bryant

We've been looking at the stories reprinted in 1974's Detective Comics #439. We finish that up today. There is actually one other original story other than the Batman tale that started this issue off. But it's part of a multi-issue story arc by Archie Goodwin featuring Manhunter. It's definitely worth reviewing, but I'll hold off on that until I can manage to get hold of the entire run.

So we'll finish off for now with a story from Kid Eternity #3 (Autumn 1946), written by Joe Millard. The art is not definitively credited, though both Pete Riss and Sam Citron are listed as possible artists in the Grand Comics Database.

Kid Eternity and Mr. Keeper run across the century-old ruins of a mansion. The story behind it is that it belong to Jason Mulgrew, a criminal who died before the detective chasing him was able to catch him. Both Mulgrew and (for reasons never explained) the detective are both buried near the mansion. 

Ancestors of Mulgrew are arriving at the mansion. Kid Eternity is curious about what's going on, so he summons up the detective from the past, learning that Mulgrew hated his relatives, so waiting a hundred years to reveal the location of his money to a new generation. 

Kid E. returns the detective to the afterlife, then summons up Mulgrew for more information. Mulgrew won't talk, though. Kid hurries after the relative, but (in what will be an important plot point) fails to return Mulgrew to eternity.

Soon, booby-traps--set a hundred years ago--are threatening the relatives. Kid calls upon Thomas Edison and then Achilles to deal with this.

Why Achilles? Because Kid figures the final booby-trap leading to the treasure chamber will have a particularly deadly trap. It does--a cannon rigged to fire at the first person who enters. But Achilles is tough enough to shrug this off.

Achilles, by the way, also chows down on sandwiches. The rules for the summoned dead in a Golden Age Kid Eternity story are never made clear, but apparently they can still eat and enjoy food. Achilles declares sandwiches to be a food of the gods. And he's right, isn't he? Stop at a good deli and order your favorite sandwich. Is there anything better than this? I THINK NOT!

But I digress. The treasure vault is empty. Jason Mulgrew, who was summoned early by the kid, enters the mansion and announces that even though his booby-traps failed to kill anyone, he can still take joy in denying his relatives treasure. Keep in mind that these aren't the same relatives that Mulgrew hated a century ago. This is a whole new set, who he hates because he's just a big poopy-head.

Kid summons up Cagliostro, an 18th-Century Italian occult expert, who claims he can figure out where the treasure is really hidden, but disapproves of wealth and won't tell. So Kid banishes him and once again summons up the detective who had been pursuing Mulgrew during their lifetimes.

Apparently, the rules for summoned dead include that they feel pain. The detective merely twists Mulgrew's arm until he reveals where the treasure is hidden. The relatives are now rich and the adventure comes to an end.

What I love about this story is how everyone, both the living who see what the Kid does and the summoned dead, are so darn casual about it, as if this sort of thing happens to them every day. It gives a wonderful ambiance to the story, which is completely straightforward with the silly premise, telling a fun story that is wrapped in a thin but servicable layer of Comic Book Logic. Most of the Golden Age Kid Eternity stories (published by Quality Comics before Quality's characters were acquired by DC) are in the public domain and available online. I need to visit with Kid Eternity more often. 

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we'll visit with another Golden Age character--a little girl named Eva the Imp--whose superpower is... well, being cute and friendly.

Whose Side are the Elephants On?

 

cover art by Al Bryant

Blackhawk #9 (Winter 1944) has the Blackhawk operating in Burma, strafing Japanese soldiers who are trying to build a road through the jungle. The script is uncredited, with art tentatively credited to Max Elkan.

But war is dangerous work, even for the best Allied pilots in the business. Blackhawk's plane is hit by anti-aircraft fire and he's forced to bail out. Soon, he's captured by the Japanese.

He's not a prisoner long, though. An elephant charges out of the jungle, scares off the Japanese, then grabs Blackhawk in his trunk and makes a run for it.

So Blackhawk is rescued. Wait-a-minute. No, he's NOT rescued! The elephant is one of many trained and operated by a guy named Burma Jack, who explains to Blackhawk that the pilot is still a prisoner. Burma Jack rents his elephants out to the Japanese and he figures he can get at least ten grand from them for Blackhawk.

Two of the other Blackhawks, Andre and Olaf, have landed in a nearby clearing in hopes of finding their boss. But they are captured as well. Burma Jack--traitor and war profiteer--now has three prisoners he can sell to the enemy.

Except that's not the case. Burma Jack agrees to use his elephants to move some Japanese artillery, but once he's on site, he cuts the Blackhawks loose, gives them Tommy guns and starts using his elephants and a few grenades to wreck havoc on the enemy.

Burma Jack was a good guy all along, playing the role of war profiteer to put himself in a position to do a lot of damage to the enemy. He goes from being despicable to being pretty cool in the space of just a few panels. That's quite an accomplishment.

The story is a good one, with strong art, good pacing and a surprise plot twist that really is a nice surprise. It is a product of its times in how Asians are drawn and in the racist insults casually used by the good guys. As I've written before about stuff like that--if it bothers you enough to spoil your enjoyment of the story, then that's a perfectly legitimate reaction. If you can recognize it as wrong but still enjoy the story, then that's okay as well.

You can read the story online HERE. 

Next week, we'll visit with "Travelin' Toughy," who is tasked with doing at least one good deed a day.

Calling for Help From the Dead and the Fictional

Kid Eternity is a Golden Age character that originally belonged to Quality Comics. Eventually, Quality sold its comic book characters (including Plastic Man and Blackhawk) to DC Comics. Kid Eternity vanished for quite awhile, though he was brought back in the 1990s with the sort of “dark and edgy” reboot that made comic books so unpleasant to read during that decade.

But the original Quality version of Kid Eternity was a lot of fun—despite a potentially sad origin. He was an orphan who died 75 years too early because of a bookkeeping era in heaven. (It’s possible the creators were lifting part of their idea from the movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan.) So the Kid is returned to Earth with some odd powers to allow him to fight evil until his proper time to die arrived. He is accompanied by Keeper, the clerk who made the error.

Kid’s powers are definitely odd. He can teleport himself about and become immaterial. When he shouts “Eternity!” he can summon up an historical figure (or a mythological or fictional figure if need be) to help him out for a short time.

The first issue of Kid Eternity was written by Otto Binder. The third issue (Autumn 1946) doesn’t include credits, but I’d bet real money it was also Binder. It has just the sort of quirky plot construction and sense of humor that was often present in a Binder story.

It starts when Kid and Keeper are visited by the ghost of Rembrandt, who senses something is wrong with his painting The Night Watch. The Kid zaps himself over there and discovers a high-end art thief known as the Count is stealing the painting.

Kid summons up Inspector Jalvert from Les Miserables—he figures that if Jalvert pursued Jean Valjean for decades over a stolen loaf of bread, then he’d put a serious beat-down on real crooks.

Well, by golly, the Kid is right. In fact, he’s too right. Kid has to banish Jalvert before he actually beats the Count’s henchmen to death. The Count escapes in the confusion.

The next night, the Count is going after Franz Hals’ Laughing Cavalier. Kid summons up the real Cavalier to handle the thief, but once again he makes a poor choice of allies. The Cavalier is going to kill the Count unnecessarily, so Kid has to banish him. Fortunately, Kid sees the Greek Discus Thrower statue standing nearby, so he summons up the real thrower and carefully instructs him to simply disarm the Count with a carefully aimed discus toss.

I love this story. I love the Kid’s oddball powers. I love the sense of proportional justice and the Kid’s concern for stopping bad guys without unjustified deadly force. I love the way the plot ambles along in a strange but internally logical manner.

There is, of course, no shortage of Golden or Silver Age stories that are simply bad. But when the stories were good, they would shine with a palpable sense of fun.