Friday's Favorite OTR

 Lone Ranger: "Silver Summit" 1/21/44

Rigor McClure is the toughest construction foreman ever to lay down track, but even he might need the help of the Lone Ranger in order to finish building a line through rough territory in the face of sabotage.

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The Deadly Orchid

 

cover art by Walter de Maris

The excellent Thrilling Detectives website compares Trixie Meehan and Mike Harris to a couple of television shows that ran decades after these stories were published. Moonlighting and Remington Steele both used the premise of a male/female detective team in which they constantly argued with one another, but still managed to get the job done. With perhaps a dollop of romantic tension tossed in.

It's become a well-used trope, but it was probably much fresher when the first of the 16 Harris/Meehan stories was published in 1933. (Most of the others were also published in the '30s, though the last appeared in 1951).

T.T. Flynn (who wrote a lot of pulp stories and is mostly remembered for his Westerns) was the author and he proves that even if a trope such as this is used a lot, it can still be the basis for good stories. Tropes and cliches become common specifically because, when used well, they can still be a part of effective storytelling.

Anyway, the first story is "The Deadly Orchid," appearing in the April 15, 1933 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly. We meet Mike Harris, a detective with the Blaine Agency, as he is tasked with catching a beautiful blackmailer known as the Orchid. She currently has some letters written by a wealthy and influencial banker that are worth at least a quarter-million dollars.

Mike is to go undercover, checking into the same hotel at which the Orchid is staying, posing as a rich oil man to catch her interest. To Mike's annoyance, Trixie Meehan is given the job of posing as his wife. But, though Mike claims to dislike Trixie, he admits to himself that she has "forget-me-not eyes, a knock 'em dead face, and a clinging vine manner that covered concentrated hell. She has a razor tongue, muscles like steel springs, a brain that made me dizzy at times, and absolutely no fear." She also carries a pistol and a pen that squirts tear gas. 

The ensuing story, as Mike and Trixie dip into a large expense account to set up their cover as rich idiots, is a good one. The humor needed to make their adversarial relationship work is there and the plot itself is solid and logical. This has been the only story from the series I've been able to locate, so I do wish that Trixie had been a little more involved in Mike's plan to outwit and trap their target, but she does get to step in to capture a couple of thugs who were getting away from Mike. In the end, she does feel like she is as good a detective as Mike claims she is. If I can ever dig up other stories in the series, I'll be curious to see if she ever gets to be more proactive in coming up with clever plans. 

Heck, here's yet another pulp series that needs to be reprinted. Once again, I'M WAITING!

"The Deadly Orchid" can be read online HERE.

An Adventure with a 40-Year Time Out

 

cover art by Gil Kane

For a few years in the early 1970s, Marvel Comics held the rights to do comic book stories about Doc Savage. Doc's book, A comic book series that began in 1972 ran 8 issues, while a black-and-white magazine premiered in 1975 and also ran 8 issiues. Both series were good--it's a pity it didn't run longer.

Naturally, Marvel also brought Doc into the Marvel Universe, using time travel shenanigans to team him up with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One #21 and Spider Man in Giant Size Spider Man # 3 (January 1975). Undoubtably, both stories were written in part to help plug Doc's own books, but both were entertaining stories in their own right. Especially the Spider Man tale. 

And that's the story we are looking at today. Written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Ross Andru, the action picks up in then-modern day, with Spider Man checking out a light near an office building that is scheduled to be demolished. He runs into an alien woman who at first speaks her own alien tongue, but soon has her translator device calibrated to English.

She needs help to solve a problem left over from when the building was constructed back in 1934. To explain, she uses some super-science to show Spider Man what happened 40 years back.

Doc Savage had recieved a note asking for help at the building's construction site. He and his men go there and foil an attempted assassination of Mayor La Guardia, but Doc realizes the note is written on paper not made on Earth. Whatever the call for help is referring to, it wasn't the assassination attempt. That was just a coincidence.

From a story construction point of view, foiling the assassin was a way for the story to introduce Doc and his five assistants to us, as well as highlight just how capable they are. It's an effective trick, accomplishing its goal while keeping the action moving.

Anyway, Doc and his team head back to the building. But at this point, we are brought back to 1974, where a electricity-based giant appears, speaking the same language DeSinna (the alien girl) was speaking earlier while he apparently tries to kill her. After a fun fight sequence illustrated with Ross Andru's usual skill, Spider Man manages to at least temporarily banish the creature by short-circuiting it with an electic-powered jack hammer.

DeSinna then pulls up her image of 1934 again. Doc and his team have returned to the site and met DeSinna. We learn she's a scientist from another dimension. Her story is complicated (possibly a bit over-complicated for a story this length), but it boils down to her coming to Earth in pursuit of an insane lab asssitant named Terros, who has been powered-up after a lab accident. DeSinna has arranged to arrive on Earth before Terros arrives, hoping he can be stopped as soon as he arrives. 

Terros then puts in his appearance. It's the second time we've seen him, but chronologically, this is indeed his initial arrival on Earth. There's another cool fight scene (I have always admired Andru's ability to choroegraph cool comic book action), with Doc eventually using his scientific knowledge and a secret weapon quickly fetched from his HQ to trap Terros in the building's cornerstone.

Which brings us back to 1974, where the impending demolition of the building is threatening to release Terros. So Spider Man... picks up a jack hammer, shatters the cornerstone and let's Terros loose?

 It turns out that Terros is the good guy and DeSinna is the bad guy--something Spidey had deduced over the course of the adventure. Terros snatches up the girl and they disappear, presumably going back to their own dimension.

Spidey swings off, thinking that it is changing times and changing attitudes to allow him to figure out DeSinna was the villain after Doc and his team saw her simply as a Damsel in Distress.

I do enjoy this story, though I can nitpick a few things about it. I'm not sure I buy that Doc and his team would have been so quick to trust DeSinna. They were experienced adventurers and the concept of the Femme Fatale would not have been new to them. And, though I understand that one of the story's purposes was to introduce readers to Doc, having his whole team present did make the 1934 portions of the story a bit overcrowded with characters. 

Also, DeSinna's back story, told from her point-of-view, turns out to be at least partially untrue, but we never get to learn the truth. What was going on with her and DeSinna? Can we even be sure Spidey was right and DeSinna was indeed the villain? There's simply not enough information for us to know.

But the positives outwiegh the negatives. I've already mentioned how cool Ross Andru's art is. And having the story jump back and forth between the two time periods was clever and well-done. 

It's too bad that Doc Savage's time at Marvel didn't see more commercial success. He had himself from fun adventures during that time.

Next week, we'll go sailing aboard the U.S.S. Stevens.

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Cover Cavalcade

  A 1974 cover by Hank Hartman.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Dragnet: "Big Crazy" 8/30/51

A woman disappears and her husband hints that he murdered her while bragging about having been an abusive husband. But his neighbors all agree that he had been a hen-pecked milquetoast. So the detectives have a mentally unstable suspect for a murder that might not have been committed.

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The Secret of the Whistler

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #121

The sixth movie in the Whistler series--movies based on the radio show of the same name--is another quietly suspenseful story. The Secret of the Whistler (1946) is similar in a way to the previous year's Voice of the Whistler, in that a large chunk of its 65-minute run-time is devoted to setting up the crimes that will eventually be committed.  

But that short run-time and another strong performance by Richard Dix keeps the story from dragging. This time, Dix plays an artist named Ralph Harrison, who has very little talent but is able to live off his wealthy wife's fortune.

His wife, by the way, is physically frail and has suffered several heart attacks. So when Ralph falls for a pretty model named Kay Morrell (Leslie Brooks), he figures it won't be long before they are free to get married. In retrospect, though, he should have made sure his wife wasn't nearby listening when he explains this to Kay.

Ralph soon learns he's going to be kicked to the curb and cut out of his wife's will. In response to this, he drops poison into his wife's medicine.

I mentioned Dix's strong performance as Ralph. Dix is playing a guy who is definitely a self-centered jerk, but murder is something that is normally far above his pay grade. Dix portrayal of him as nervous and sometimes near outright panic--both while committing the murder and later worrying about being found out--gives backbone to a good script.

Ralph marries Kay, but news about another husband who was arrested for killing his wife worries him constantly. The fact that he can't find his first wife's diary and doesn't know if there is anything in it that can hurt him is yet another worry. And, after a while, Kay begins to wonder about Ralph as well. Has she indeed married a murderer?

This all leads up to a violent and satisfyingly ironic climax. 

Another good, solid entry in a well-written and well-produced series. 

Batman and Robin in Future-Space!

 

cover art by Lew Sayre Schwartz;

(Batman and Robin figures drawn by Bob Kane)

One can argue that during the Silver Age, Batman comics walked a little too far out of the shadows, with the silly stories featuring a Dark Knight who was no longer dark. (Mirroring the 1990s, when Batman walked way too far into the shadows.) But therre is no denying that many Silver Age Batman stories were lots of fun.  

Batman #59 (June-July 1950) includes a story that gives us a perfect example of Silver Age silly fun. "Batman in the Future," written by Bill Finger and drawn by Lew Sayre Schwartz (with Bob Kane drawing the Dynamtic Duo), is a joy to read.

The story begins with Batman and Robin catching the Joker and tossing him in the slammer. When the Joker mentions that he commits crime in part because his ancestors were famous clowns, Batman decides the thing to do is to travel 100 years into the past to study these influences. He and Robin go to Professor Nichols, who has a method of sending people into the past via hypnotism. 

But Nichols inadvertantly sends them 100 years into the future, where they see a future version of the Joker chasing someone. They stop the arch-criminal--only to discover this Joker is not an arch-criminal,

 

He is a decendent of Joker, but he fights on the sides of good as Police Chief Rokej. 

So at first it appears that Batman and Robin are going to be tossed in the Future Slammer. But Batman has Rokej compare his skin pores to a 20th Century picture of himself to prove he's the real thing. Before you can say "Holy Plot Device!" the two time travelers are recruited to help with a case.

Someone is sabotaging a particular brand of new space ship, leaving them easy prey for space pirates. It's suspected to be an inside job, so Bruce and Dick get jobs in the factory that makes the ships.

Soon, they've saved the owner of the factory and get permission to build a Space Batplane. That allows them to take their adventure into space, where they foil and capture the pirates.

But a Bat Signal projected on the moon brings them back to Earth, where they learn the space ship factory has been badly damaged by sabotage. One wonders how large a budget Chief Rokej has available to him if he can whip up a Bat Signal that projects an image half-a-million miles away. 

Anyway, the only way the space ship company can survive is to win a major upcoming space race and the only way for this to happen is for the Space Batplane to compete. But things go awry early in the race when the Batplane's fuel supply is sabotaged and it drifts into a Sargosso Sea of lost spaceships.

At first, things seem hopeless. But Batman realizes they can salvage fuel from the wrecked ships, which allows them to get back into the race.

They win the race by cutting a close orbit around the sun. All through the story, they've also been stumbling across clues that eliminate suspects as to who the saboteur is and now one last clue lets them finger the guy. Justice is served just as the hypnotism wears off and kicks Batman and Robin back to 1950.

It is indeed a silly story, but it is internally logical (sort of), visually eye-catching and--as I've said--a joy to read. The best Batman stories are from the 1970s, when he was the Dark Knight without being too dark and his skills as a detective and escape artist were properly appreciated. But the world would be a poorer place indeed without Silver Age Batman's goofy adventures.

Next week, a modern Marvel hero teams up with a 1930s pulp hero.