Daring Mystery Comics #2 (February 1940) [published by Timely a.k.a. Marvel]
Normally I wouldn't spend the time to comment on two consecutive golden age comic issues. But Daring Mystery Comics #2 is effectively a completely different series from issue #1- the two issues haven't a single feature in common. If anything, #2 is even more of a mess than #1, lacking any feature as strong as Joe Simon's Fiery Mask. Simon contributes two characters here, but one is a generic jungle hero and the other (The Phantom Bullet) rolls several ideas into a rather incoherent story. The best feature in this issue is probably Will Carr and Maurice Gutwirth's The Laughing Mask (now appearing in The Twelve along with Mr. E, also from this issue). Apparently I'm not the only one who thought the Laughing Mask was a good character, as he's one of two features that reappear in issue #3 (and #4). However, in those issues his distinctive greek comedy mask that gave him such an interesting look is replaced by a generic superhero cowl, and he's renamed The Purple Mask. Once again Daring Mystery Comics takes the route least likely to attract loyal readers.
But as folks who read my meanderings know by now, I'm almost as fascinated with experiments that don't work as with things that do, so I'll probably be paying a lot more attention to Daring Mystery and Mystic than to the continually successful and reliably entertaining Marvel Mystery. With that in mind, here's an overview of the random grab-bag of material Timely got from Funnies, Inc. and in-house editor Joe Simon for Daring Mystery Comics #2:
Zephyr Jones
Zephyr Jones's father built a rocket ship but died before he could realize his dream of going to Mars. So Zephyr and his friend Corky Grogan try to fulfill that dream. However, instrument problems cause them to have to land on the nearby hidden planet of Sunev, which was once part of Earth that broke off. The inhabitants of Sunev all have wings, and Zephyr and Corky fall in with the attractive(=good) Birdmen, eventually helping drive off the ugly(=evil) Parrotmen. Zephyr and the Birdmen's princess have a bit of a romance going, but he must leave her to return to Earth and try again to reach Mars.
Despite being something of a second-rate Flash Gordon knockoff, this is actually one of the better features in the issue, which probably tells you something right off. It's got some good visuals and while the "science" is laughable it's at least somewhat imaginative. But the dialog's not great and the plot's pretty basic, so the somewhat exotic locale isn't really enough to save it. However, while this feature never appeared in Daring Mystery again, it did show up in Mystic Comics #1, which shipped the next month. Usually when a feature jumps over to a new title, it's to help promote it with something familiar, but Zephyr Jones isn't even mentioned on the cover of Mystic #1. Just another inexplicable decision with these two series.
The Phantom Bullet
Not to be confused with last issue's Phantom of the Underworld, the Phantom Bullet was Joe Simon's mystery man contribution to this issue. He's nominally the cover feature as well, but Schomburg's interpretation isn't wearing the same costume as Simon's at all. Simon has some good ideas in this story, but unlike last issue's Fiery Mask, they add up to something of a mess. Allan Lewis (or Allen- it varies from panel to panel) is a wealthy playboy who's also a reporter. At least when he's not drinking and being morose over how criminals always get free on a technicality or due to crooked politicians. He starts investigating the next murder he's assigned to report on, but ends up getting beaten up by the criminals. He's then sent to interview an old inventor, to entrusts him with his invention- a gun that fires a bullet of "hard ice" that then melts away, leaving no trace for the coroner to find (except, presumably some water). Naming himself after this "Phantom Bullet", Allan decides he needs a disguise- so he puts on a costume with a bullet on the shirt, and no mask whatsoever. And he doesn't even wear glasses.
As the story proceeds, he kills one of the mysterious dark gray-skinned criminals with the ice gun, and then does some rather confusing detective work involving letters that show different addresses when you hold them up to a candle (why he thought to try that is not explain- probably just a standard plot device of the genre). The criminals, who had been inexplicably able to reach high windows in tall buildings during their break-ins, then turn out to be "shaggy African half men-half apes" with seven toes which enable them to climb supernaturally. Um... yeah. I suppose it's not that far off the inspired madness of the zombies and giant buzzards of the Fiery Mask's story, but when you realize all of the above was crammed into 10 pages and that none of the visuals are a strong as either the Fiery Mask's powers or the crazy zombie master, it's easy to understand why this feature never returned. It feels like Simon was trying to write more motivation into Allan Lewis than he'd put into Dr. Jack Castle (who just stumbled into things), but he hadn't yet learned how to put all of the pieces together smoothly.
Trojak, The Tiger Man
Simon also contributed Trojak, the Tiger Man, which is a completely generic "white god of the jungle" feature. It's basically a knock-off of Ka-Zar, but with a tiger instead of a lion, and the white hero raised by a black tribe after his father's death instead of growing up with only the animals for company. When you consider that Ka-Zar himself was a Tarzan knock-off, it's pretty clear that Trojak is just genre filler. However, he was one of Daring Mystery's most stable characters during the early 6-issue phase of its run, appearing every issue from #2-#5. Despite that relative longevity, there's really not much interesting to say about him.
K-4 and His Sky Devils
Jack Alderman is believed to be the creator of this strip, which was a straightforward aviation/war story about an American fighter pilot working for the British in World War II (the U.S. still being nearly 2 years away from entering). He has two assistants- a Frenchman who is an expert swordsman, and a British actor who helps him with disguises. Or so the one-panel intro says- we never see him do this despite the fact that the plot hinges on K-4 being disguised as a German to infiltrate am ammunition depot and blow it up. Once again it's all completely generic, but K-4 will reappear in issue #4 and #5. Having generic material in the back pages wasn't at all unusual. The unusual thing here is that there's just no solid lead feature to anchor this stuff.
Mr. E
"Who in reality is Mr. E... the enemy of the underworld..." asks this feature by Joe CalGagno and Al Carreno. As it happens, he's a wealthy sportsman who puts a cape and domino mask on with his business suit and therefore qualifies as a Mystery Man (as such folks were called before "superhero" became the more popular term- and with Mr. E, "superhero" would be stretching it). While the Phantom Bullet had too many ideas and plot devices to deal with, Mr. E is completely straightforward. He does have an interesting-looking villain in the form of The Vampire, who wears a full dark blue suit and matching hood with a strange dragonfly/skull/spider insignia on it.
He's almost certainly a knockoff of The Monk, who wore a similar costume in red and was the villain of a classic two-part pre-Robin Batman story that probably appeared around the time that this issue was being written. Interestingly, the Monk was actually a vampire (who attacked Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne's original girlfriend/fiancée), while the Vampire shows no evidence of living up to his name. Instead he's engaged in the usual sort of blackmail to force someone to sign over the interests in their business. He also engages in the worst sort of contrived deathtraps, and is inanely surprised when Mr. E escapes.
As for Mr. E, the only reason I can think of that he's now being used in The Twelve is that J. Michael Straczynki wanted a character that he could write as secretly Jewish, and Mr. E had so little background that it was easy to work that aspect in. There's certainly no hint of it here- despite the fact that many (if not most) of the early comic book creators were Jewish, their characters tended to exemplify a more traditional Anglo-Saxon brand of Americanism, at least on the surface. Mr. E is no different, and his lack of any distinguishing features probably explains why he never appeared again during the Golden Age.
The Laughing Mask
The final story introduces Will Carr and Maurice Gutwirth's Laughing Mask. Assistant district attorney Dennis Burton, like so many of these characters, is frustrated by criminals evading justice. So he assumes the identity of the Laughing Mask and delivers his more lethal form of justice directly. He takes his name from a mask that looks mostly like a Greek comedy mask, but a particularly mean-looking one. Brandishing two guns, he's downright creepy when he wears it, and he also drops glow-in-the-dark versions of the mask into rooms and cuts the lights to great effect.
Beyond such distinctive visuals, the Laughing Mask is unusually brutal. It was not uncommon for heroes of the time to kill their opponents, or allow them to die through their own stupidity. But this story actually has the Laughing Mask ignoring the pleas of a crook he's defeated and executing him by shooting him point-blank. he leaves only one criminal alive to deliver to the police along with a signed confession.
With such interesting writing and visuals, it's no surprise that the Laughing Mask was tapped for The Twelve, where his storyline revolves around how modern justice won't stand for those sorts of vigilante executions. And as mentioned before, Dennis Burton appears in the next two issues of Daring Mystery. But he does so as the Purple Mask, with a new, less disturbing look. It's particularly strange when you realize that as the Purple Mask he gets cover billing on issue #3. You'd think that if they were going to use an established character on the cover, they'd at least want him to be recognizable!
So there you have it- another seemingly random selection of mostly second-tier (at best) material assembled under the name Daring Mystery Comics. The randomness starts to slow down with the next issue, but most of it will still be new, so I'll probably cover it again as I continue to try to figure out what Timely must have been thinking. But there's actually a one month gap between issues #2 and #3, in which Timely launched their third series, Mystic Comics, so I'll probably cover that first.
But as folks who read my meanderings know by now, I'm almost as fascinated with experiments that don't work as with things that do, so I'll probably be paying a lot more attention to Daring Mystery and Mystic than to the continually successful and reliably entertaining Marvel Mystery. With that in mind, here's an overview of the random grab-bag of material Timely got from Funnies, Inc. and in-house editor Joe Simon for Daring Mystery Comics #2:
Zephyr Jones
Zephyr Jones's father built a rocket ship but died before he could realize his dream of going to Mars. So Zephyr and his friend Corky Grogan try to fulfill that dream. However, instrument problems cause them to have to land on the nearby hidden planet of Sunev, which was once part of Earth that broke off. The inhabitants of Sunev all have wings, and Zephyr and Corky fall in with the attractive(=good) Birdmen, eventually helping drive off the ugly(=evil) Parrotmen. Zephyr and the Birdmen's princess have a bit of a romance going, but he must leave her to return to Earth and try again to reach Mars.
Despite being something of a second-rate Flash Gordon knockoff, this is actually one of the better features in the issue, which probably tells you something right off. It's got some good visuals and while the "science" is laughable it's at least somewhat imaginative. But the dialog's not great and the plot's pretty basic, so the somewhat exotic locale isn't really enough to save it. However, while this feature never appeared in Daring Mystery again, it did show up in Mystic Comics #1, which shipped the next month. Usually when a feature jumps over to a new title, it's to help promote it with something familiar, but Zephyr Jones isn't even mentioned on the cover of Mystic #1. Just another inexplicable decision with these two series.
The Phantom Bullet
Not to be confused with last issue's Phantom of the Underworld, the Phantom Bullet was Joe Simon's mystery man contribution to this issue. He's nominally the cover feature as well, but Schomburg's interpretation isn't wearing the same costume as Simon's at all. Simon has some good ideas in this story, but unlike last issue's Fiery Mask, they add up to something of a mess. Allan Lewis (or Allen- it varies from panel to panel) is a wealthy playboy who's also a reporter. At least when he's not drinking and being morose over how criminals always get free on a technicality or due to crooked politicians. He starts investigating the next murder he's assigned to report on, but ends up getting beaten up by the criminals. He's then sent to interview an old inventor, to entrusts him with his invention- a gun that fires a bullet of "hard ice" that then melts away, leaving no trace for the coroner to find (except, presumably some water). Naming himself after this "Phantom Bullet", Allan decides he needs a disguise- so he puts on a costume with a bullet on the shirt, and no mask whatsoever. And he doesn't even wear glasses.
As the story proceeds, he kills one of the mysterious dark gray-skinned criminals with the ice gun, and then does some rather confusing detective work involving letters that show different addresses when you hold them up to a candle (why he thought to try that is not explain- probably just a standard plot device of the genre). The criminals, who had been inexplicably able to reach high windows in tall buildings during their break-ins, then turn out to be "shaggy African half men-half apes" with seven toes which enable them to climb supernaturally. Um... yeah. I suppose it's not that far off the inspired madness of the zombies and giant buzzards of the Fiery Mask's story, but when you realize all of the above was crammed into 10 pages and that none of the visuals are a strong as either the Fiery Mask's powers or the crazy zombie master, it's easy to understand why this feature never returned. It feels like Simon was trying to write more motivation into Allan Lewis than he'd put into Dr. Jack Castle (who just stumbled into things), but he hadn't yet learned how to put all of the pieces together smoothly.
Trojak, The Tiger Man
Simon also contributed Trojak, the Tiger Man, which is a completely generic "white god of the jungle" feature. It's basically a knock-off of Ka-Zar, but with a tiger instead of a lion, and the white hero raised by a black tribe after his father's death instead of growing up with only the animals for company. When you consider that Ka-Zar himself was a Tarzan knock-off, it's pretty clear that Trojak is just genre filler. However, he was one of Daring Mystery's most stable characters during the early 6-issue phase of its run, appearing every issue from #2-#5. Despite that relative longevity, there's really not much interesting to say about him.
K-4 and His Sky Devils
Jack Alderman is believed to be the creator of this strip, which was a straightforward aviation/war story about an American fighter pilot working for the British in World War II (the U.S. still being nearly 2 years away from entering). He has two assistants- a Frenchman who is an expert swordsman, and a British actor who helps him with disguises. Or so the one-panel intro says- we never see him do this despite the fact that the plot hinges on K-4 being disguised as a German to infiltrate am ammunition depot and blow it up. Once again it's all completely generic, but K-4 will reappear in issue #4 and #5. Having generic material in the back pages wasn't at all unusual. The unusual thing here is that there's just no solid lead feature to anchor this stuff.
Mr. E
"Who in reality is Mr. E... the enemy of the underworld..." asks this feature by Joe CalGagno and Al Carreno. As it happens, he's a wealthy sportsman who puts a cape and domino mask on with his business suit and therefore qualifies as a Mystery Man (as such folks were called before "superhero" became the more popular term- and with Mr. E, "superhero" would be stretching it). While the Phantom Bullet had too many ideas and plot devices to deal with, Mr. E is completely straightforward. He does have an interesting-looking villain in the form of The Vampire, who wears a full dark blue suit and matching hood with a strange dragonfly/skull/spider insignia on it.
He's almost certainly a knockoff of The Monk, who wore a similar costume in red and was the villain of a classic two-part pre-Robin Batman story that probably appeared around the time that this issue was being written. Interestingly, the Monk was actually a vampire (who attacked Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne's original girlfriend/fiancée), while the Vampire shows no evidence of living up to his name. Instead he's engaged in the usual sort of blackmail to force someone to sign over the interests in their business. He also engages in the worst sort of contrived deathtraps, and is inanely surprised when Mr. E escapes.
As for Mr. E, the only reason I can think of that he's now being used in The Twelve is that J. Michael Straczynki wanted a character that he could write as secretly Jewish, and Mr. E had so little background that it was easy to work that aspect in. There's certainly no hint of it here- despite the fact that many (if not most) of the early comic book creators were Jewish, their characters tended to exemplify a more traditional Anglo-Saxon brand of Americanism, at least on the surface. Mr. E is no different, and his lack of any distinguishing features probably explains why he never appeared again during the Golden Age.
The Laughing Mask
The final story introduces Will Carr and Maurice Gutwirth's Laughing Mask. Assistant district attorney Dennis Burton, like so many of these characters, is frustrated by criminals evading justice. So he assumes the identity of the Laughing Mask and delivers his more lethal form of justice directly. He takes his name from a mask that looks mostly like a Greek comedy mask, but a particularly mean-looking one. Brandishing two guns, he's downright creepy when he wears it, and he also drops glow-in-the-dark versions of the mask into rooms and cuts the lights to great effect.
Beyond such distinctive visuals, the Laughing Mask is unusually brutal. It was not uncommon for heroes of the time to kill their opponents, or allow them to die through their own stupidity. But this story actually has the Laughing Mask ignoring the pleas of a crook he's defeated and executing him by shooting him point-blank. he leaves only one criminal alive to deliver to the police along with a signed confession.
With such interesting writing and visuals, it's no surprise that the Laughing Mask was tapped for The Twelve, where his storyline revolves around how modern justice won't stand for those sorts of vigilante executions. And as mentioned before, Dennis Burton appears in the next two issues of Daring Mystery. But he does so as the Purple Mask, with a new, less disturbing look. It's particularly strange when you realize that as the Purple Mask he gets cover billing on issue #3. You'd think that if they were going to use an established character on the cover, they'd at least want him to be recognizable!
So there you have it- another seemingly random selection of mostly second-tier (at best) material assembled under the name Daring Mystery Comics. The randomness starts to slow down with the next issue, but most of it will still be new, so I'll probably cover it again as I continue to try to figure out what Timely must have been thinking. But there's actually a one month gap between issues #2 and #3, in which Timely launched their third series, Mystic Comics, so I'll probably cover that first.