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[MarkWarner]

Last week's Funnyman was a hit with the group, barring the lone voice of Jim (Narfstar), who thinks it was neither good enough nor bad enough to be good. I would disagree, but I know what he means.

So right at the beginning of last weeks choice Paw (who incidentally ended up enjoying the book) had a moan-up. Saying:

Don't you think it's time we had a genuine, big time superhero?  And the one with the best costume - no  arguments, please - is Black Terror.

Well to keep him quiet, this week we have The Black Terror #24 https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=17853. The story we are concentrating on starts on our page 29 "Larceny in the Lighthouse!". I also guess the cover might get mentioned by a few of us ... lol

[narfstar]

Oh you mean there is more to the book than the cover. Guess I will have to look inside. Still not sure why 

[SuperScrounge]

The cover - Hubba hubba! For some reason I don't think of the 1940s as featuring sexy covers, although when I stop & think about it I can remember other such covers, but for some reason, until confronted with such a cover, I forget that and think of the '40s as a "more innocent time". Well, maybe it's because they had more variety in cover types then and the industry didn't seem to be so desperate to make sales?
- Shame there was no story inside that went with the cover.

Lady Serpent Returns - Lady Serpent wouldn't have been inspired by a certain Dragon Lady, would she?
- So where were the snakes Mogu & Naru on the ship? The Terror Twins & the police mop up the gang, but the poisonous snakes are nowhere to be seen.
- Okay story, but nothing special. Artwork wasn't as good as I would have liked, but it did its job.

The Revenge of Red Ann - 2 sequels in one book?
- The Daily Star? So where are reporters Kent & Lane? 
- Man Dick works fast.
- Predictable, but I liked it better than the first story.

From The Black Terror Scrap Book - I like the old trivia pages comics used to have, although putting Black Terror's name in the title seemed pointless.

The Lancers Are Coming - Cute story.

The Plundering Pooch - Cute story. Although I could easily imagine the same story with Batman & Robin switched for the leads so I wonder if it was written by a freelancer who went from company to company selling good, but otherwise generic, stories?

Lucky John's Discovery - Not bad.

Larceny In The Lighthouse - Jane seemed to do quite a bit of fighting here. Wonder if the writer was planning to make her a supporting player?
- Nice story.

Gray Shadow - I thought comics only needed two text pages to qualify for the postal rate?
- Not bad.

Rico - Eh, predictable and not that great a joke, although the art style was okay.

Aerial Acrobats - Surprisingly trusting detectives. For all they knew Hastings could have been lying about the stolen plans.
- Nice little story.

Li'l Chief Papoose - Amusing.

[misappear]

Re The Black Terror:

The Meskin/Robinson art in the comic is hard to argue against.  The plots on the first and last of the three by the team were OK, sort of. 

The Red Anne story was laugh out loud funny.  When the poor guy got to professing his undying love within 15 minutes of meeting the girl I seriously laughed out loud.  I now have ammo to throw at those haters who say the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane is contrived and goofy. 

The Crime Crushers story was sort of OK.  In my old neighborhood, the word Ploopie was referencing potty training.  Kind of detracted from the reading. 

Strikes me that the "Terror Twins" didn't need costumes to do what they did in the stories. 

Overall, I'd say that the stories weren't up to the level of the art.

--Dave

[crashryan]

First I'd like to say one thing. I LOVE THE ROBINSON/MESKIN ARTWORK! I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT!!!

Okay, now that I got that off my chest...for some reason this time  I read everything in the comic, even the ads.

Inside front cover: "Free Grass"...is that about our college days during the 1960s? Oh, it's a Western.

"Lady Serpent Returns" is surprisingly linear. Lady Serpent escapes, hijacks ship, Terrors pound a few guys, cops arrest Serpent. Not terrible, but kind of diagrammatic, even for a Golden Age comic story.

"Revenge of Red Ann" is better, but anyone who's read comics knows immediately who the Voice is. It's odd when you think of it, though. There's no indication Trent was a criminal before he killed Ann's hubby, but now he's robbing banks and deploying plasti-spheres. The murder must have been a gateway crime, leading to bigger and bigger misdeeds. Everyone else has commented about Dick's instant love.

"Scrapbook": is it really legal in lacrosse to whack an opponent over the head from behind with your racket (or whatever it's called)?

"The Lancers are Coming": an entertaining time-killer. It always strikes me as odd when a story's lead character is referred to by his full name after his introduction. "'There are no Lancers,' laughed Bert Collins." Maybe they did it so the story would fill out the last column.

"The Plundering Pooch" wouldn't have worked at all if Brinton hadn't recited the combination to his safe aloud. Not sure just why the dog changes sides. The Roussos-Mayo art is interesting. Mayo hadn't fully developed his style, though it shows in spots. The team seems to have tried to follow Robinson and Meskin's lead.

"Lucky John's Discovery": I thought the first name of the Parker who signed this way was Paul. Is it really Frank, as the notes say? Anyway, like most Americans, I didn't know that about the Union Jack either. Note the heroes in both stories end up with someone proud of them.

"Larceny in the Lighthouse" is an okay gimmick story. There doesn't seem to be any larceny in it, though. Lots of nice R&M art. Jane must like her men rough, since all she sees of the Terror is him pounding crooks, and in the last panel she's lonely without him.

"Gray Shadow": Not much of a payoff this time. The author ran out of space before Danny's father could be proud of him. You know, it must have taken a certain skill to write complete stories in four-fifths of a page, no matter how simple.

"Rico": Being slow, I needed a moment to realize that Rico had eaten his bananas. The pile on the ground looks like whole bananas and since Rico started out fat there's not much change before and after his supper. Why does he abandon his cart and leave a pile of banana peels in the street? Why do I over-analyze one-page comedy fillers?

"The Crime Crushers": What is an inventory story by another name? A Guest Feature! The references to "postwar airplane plans" suggests this was produced during WWII. Not great, not terrible. I like the way the industrialist reads the kids' business card and immediately hands them $500. I'm going to print some Crime Crusher cards for myself! This story has some of those breathless captions peculiar to old Nedor stories: "Ploopie's Companion!" "Treetop Landing!" "The Gate Guard!"

"Li'l Chief Papoose": meh.

Inside back cover: I wonder if "Mr. J. E. Smith" of the National Radio Institute really existed. If not, who was the old guy in the photo?

Back cover: the long-running series of Eveready comic strips always had good art and strove mightily to say the word "flashlight" as many times as possible. Interesting that in the last panel Mr. Homa uses "flashlight" to describe the nature of the light rather than the device itself. Oops...gotta go. Time for my General Purpose 4-Ohm Intermittent Test.

[narfstar]

As Crash put it Larceny in the Lighthouse was an OK gimmick story. Written for kids with some good R&M art. From the silly sea gull to Jane being the real star by throwing things in bad guys faces TWICE is pure golden age fun.

[MarkWarner]

52 pages to read so let's get cracking! The first story Lady Serpent Returns was all very standard and workman like. The Lady Serpent bears more than a passing resemblance to the similarly named Dragon Lady, from Terry and the Pirates. I don't think it is coincidental. The next story again was OK, with female interest this time supplied by gorgeous Red Ann.  So far there doesn

[crashryan]

Just to satisfy my curiosity I googled the National Radio Institute and lo and behold! Wikipedia has a short history. There really was a James E. Smith! Here's what it said:

"The National Radio Institute was founded by James E. Smith, a high school teacher, in Washington, D.C., in 1914. McGraw-Hill purchased NRI and the correspondence division of Capitol Radio Engineering Institute in 1968, hoping to make a market for their text books and unaware that most correspondence schools wrote their own lessons.[citation needed] The school was renamed NRI Schools, McGraw-Hill Continuing education center. James E. Smith remained as NRI chairman until his death in 1973. James' son, J Morrison Smith, succeeded as president, retiring in 1976. McGraw-Hill announced in 1999 that it would phase out NRI Schools, citing "changes in the marketplace". They ceased operation on March 31, 2002."

Now all I need to do is find out the identity of that shouting guy in the dandruff ads.

[paw broon]

See, I'm biased, and was really worried that folk wouldn't like the character.  But I should have known that the good taste of my fellow readers would shine through.  Since the first time I saw a pic of this superhero in that amazing costume many years ago, I've been a fan.  But, and it's a big but, and addresses the point made by Dave about them not needing the costumes to do what they did.  At the character's beginning, and during the war years, the Terror was super powered - super strength, invulnerability (except for the regular skelp on the napper which always rendered him unconscious) but the art was pretty average to poor now and then.  By the time the comic was graced by tasty art from Robinson/Meskin, Moreira and some others, in the case of this issue, George Roussos, the super powers had sort of disappeared and The Terror was another MMM in a snazzy costume.  For anyone who doesn't know, check out the covers on America's Best comics for The Terror and other heroes as drawn by Alex Schomburg (signed xela)
When he was superpowered, the Dragon Lady's attempt to bean him would have worked.
I think this a really good superhero comic and one I will go back to. We also get the masked Red Ann, some great fight scenes, a few dynamic Terror panels - bursting through windows etc. and his very own Terror signal.  But really, getting trapped by a net!? Eh?

[jarrodmon]

Clearly, Gas House Gus is the standout. That frog can jump! Good issue though. Too bad Red Ann was a one issue wonder! Love the Black Terror. All of the Nedor superheroes are great.

[bowers]

Really late on this one! This cover seems quite pulp-oriented and is very good. I've read a lot of Black Terror but was always confused by his powers or lack of them. I am assuming he had more powers in his early career and became more of a Batman-type in the later stories. Like Paw, I think he has one of the best costumes of the period. The Robinson/Meskin art suits the team, giving the tales a somewhat gritty and nourish look. Enjoyed the first story the most. I'm a big Terry and the Pirates fan, so found the  Dragon Lady knockoff, Madame Serpent, a cut above the usual thugs faced by The Terror Twins. Let's face it- anybody who has a pair of trained poisonous snakes at their command is a nasty piece of work, and, thus, a worthy opponent.  The Red Ann story was better-written although there was really no need for the character Dick Reagan. Probably would have been a better story without the improbable love interest. I also think she would have made a great ongoing character. I loved the plastic balloon/bubble traps- handy thing to have around. "Larceny in the Lighthouse" was probably one of the weaker of the Terror stories. The seagull rescue was a bit silly, but hey anything can happen in comics. Is it just my uneducated eye, or are there some very Ditko-like faces in some of the early panels? "The Plundering Pooch" story was just okay. I generally like George Roussos work, but this wasn't his best. Started to read the Crime Crusher feature, but it was a bit awful so I didn't finish it. All-in-all, not a bad issue and a  pretty fun read. Cheers, Bowers

[betaraybdw]

way late, but just had to say I love Black Terror because he is so bad-ass but at the same time sooooo ridiculous. Costume is awesome, he should team-up with Punisher

Anyhoo, this Cover Illustrates my point the best.



He looks totally bad-ass riding the Torpedo things, but it is completely ridiculous. What is being portrayed is technologically impossible. How is that thing flying? It has no means of propulsion and those control handles don't look like they would do anything.

[Captain Audio]

"How is that thing flying? "

Same way George Jetson's car flew, "suspension of disbelief".

[narfstar]

Ah who cares it was the Golden AGe when physics did not matter. Who needs those pesky laws of gravity anyway. Welcome to the reading group Krac

[jimmm kelly]

Since Alex Schomburg rarely ever did an interior story, most of the time we're just witnessing the wonderful world of Schomburg on his cover art, which has its own laws of physics.

But the thing that really interests me on these BLACK TERROR covers is the cursive font at the very top of the covers--where it says "Featuring America's Fighting Nemesis of Crime." The formation of each letter is so beautiful, I wonder to myself who was the person who lettered that?

[Florian R. Guillon]

Since this thread is officially resurrected, might as well share my reading.

The fact is, I've translated both stories and have had some difficulties with Lady Serpent's. I had to do a bit of research.

Concerning the stories themselves, they lack development. Yes, I know the trend wasn't on long stories, so everything had to happen fast. And Meskin-Robinson's stories are among the most fortunate in the genre, art and writing.

What I find frustrating in Revenge of Red Ann is the establishment of a new vigilante character that could have been a potential partner for Black Terror or at least a recurring character. Instead, she quickly reveals her story to Dick Reagan (another possible recurring character - why else would he be taken on Terror's patrol?), who instantly falls in love with her. The story would have gone longer, the better it would have been. All is over in the blink of an eye, and all the potential of these characters remains locked.

Fortunately, there's a bit of continuity with Lady Serpent's story. But as said before, Black Terror and Tim seem to have lost their powers in that era and they lack a little something to really stand out from the other superheroes.

[Morgus]

I love the Robinson/Meskin stuff enough to read ALL their stories here...man oh man, those first panels!! Nearly as good as Eisner! The stories had wonky scripts, and I couldn't care less. Besides the laws of physics and logic being tossed out the window, I laughed at the way background characters suddenly seemed to turn into Koreans when no one was looking. I missed the 'free grass' too...just tuned out when I realized they were selling a western...the guy with the mail order radio school looks scary. If he did one of those religious revivals, I'd toss an extra ten on the plate just to keep him away...