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| Please consider these more observations than a review. I am enjoying my personal time-travelling by means of Mystery Men Comics.
In #3, I had to chuckle regarding the story line about orphan thieves under a man named "Fakin." Read Oliver Twist much, Mr. Fagin?
The second feature involved our Martian-born hero in a situation reminiscent of a Frankenstein riff, complete with a riotous mob (which we are told in Young Frankenstein is a bad, bad thing).
The notorious Cheng, previously compared with Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, displays a significant difference with the super villain of the novels. Cheng actually goes out on raids with his gang. This adventure features a marvelous rail chase and ends with a cliffhanger frame worthy of the old movie serials.
I had trouble suspending my disbelief in the Wing Turner story. I just have trouble believing that military resources would be used to guard a jewel.
Our fearless naval intelligence officer disguises himself to expose a game of card sharps/sharks at sea.
The Waco Kid story wasn't anything special, but it was interesting to see the missing leg of the horse in panel 5 of one of the pages.
Inspector Bancroft deals with an Indian conspiracy that would be very appropriate to the time period in which this comic was published. But, alas, the D-13 secret agent story was far-fetched enough to block my suspended disbelief.
What truly amazes me is the amount of variety in each issue with some of the stories being top notch and others simply being clever. |
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| Couldn’t help noticing that one of the winners of the $1 prize competition was William Blatty of New York. Could it be the same William Peter Blatty of Exorcist movies fame? Also a New Yorker, Blatty would have been 11-years-old in 1939.
It’s interesting to me that these early American comics were much more like British comics with a wide variety of strips in every issue – personally, I prefer that to the single-character comics that are produced today.
Chen Chang was my favourite here – nice art from Munson Paddock – and I’ve always enjoyed Fu Manchu type stuff |
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| Additional Information |
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| Publication | October 1939 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 | Frequency: Monthly |
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| Content | Characters: The Green Mask [Michael Shelby] |
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| Comic Story | The Rule of J. J. Fakin (9 pages) |
| Credits | Pencils: Walter Frame | Inks: Walter Frame |
| Content | Characters: The Green Mask [Michael Shelby]; J. J. Fakin (first appearance; villain; also spelled "Faken") |
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| Comic Story | The Cone-Shaped Planet (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | Rex and Cynde are exiled from Earth |
| Content | Characters: Rex Dexter; Cynde |
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| Credits | Script: Norman Lee | Pencils: Norman Lee | Inks: Norman Lee |
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| Comic Story | The Railroad Robbery (6 pages) |
| Content | Characters: V: Chen Chang |
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| Comic Story | Death Rides With the Jewel of Timboor (3 pages) |
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| Comic Story | The Transatlantic Gamblers (5 pages) |
| Content | Characters: Lt. Drake; Basil Older (first appearance; villain) |
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| Comic Story | The Case of the Missing Molars (4 pages) |
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| Text Story | The Man With the Paraffin Beard (2 pages) |
| Credits | Script: Clyde H. Kleinert | Letters: typeset |
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| Comic Story | Villains of the Vulture Head Saloon (4 pages) |
| Content | Characters: next app. in GREEN MASK #3 |
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| Comic Story | The Loan Shark Racket (4 pages) |
| Credits | Pencils: Charles Nicholas | Inks: Charles Nicholas |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: The Blue Beetle [Dan Garret]; Spike (first appearance, villain); Spike's gang (first appearance, villains) |
| Notes | Blue Beetle gains eye-mask; costume still has short sleeves |
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| Comic Story | The Killings of Seurat Khan (4 pages) |
| Content | Characters: Inspector Bancroft; Seurat Khan (first appearance; villain) |
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| Comic Story | The Mystery Sub (6 pages) |
| Content | Characters: D-13 [Richard Anthony]; The Nazis (villains) |
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| Comic Story | Elephant Attack (4 pages) |
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| Comic Story | Sanchoo the Smuggler (4 pages) |
| Content | Characters: V: Sanchoo (I) |
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| Featuring | Famous Detectives |
| Credits | Script: Lee Harris? [as Harris] (signed) | Pencils: Lee Harris [as Harris] (signed) | Inks: Lee Harris [as Harris] (signed) |
| Content | Characters: Matthew Solomon (detective); Red Collins (villain, bandit) |
| Notes | Out of proper sequence.
Story recounts Solomon's capture of a bandit.
Masthead reads "Lee Harris". |
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| The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |
