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| Where I was a little disappointed in The Shield's debut, I was delighted with that of The Comet. In The Shield story, I wasn't sure how the gang of spies knew who The Shield was. I also wondered about the secret formula with no foreshadowing and why he was worried about effects of a fall but not of a car hitting him head-on.
Now, The Comet? I liked the origin story and the immediate "Kryptonite" of reflective glass. I'd never read The Comet before EXCEPT in the remakes published as Impact Comics a couple of decades ago. It was actually amazing to see vigilante killing in comics since I grew up in the Comics Code era. I liked it.
The Jocko story (as did Animal Antics later in the book) seemed oddly out-of-place in this superhero and adventure anthology. It was pretty refreshing, though, to see a comic book which was usually a very patriotic genre admitting the reality of graft.
The Sergeant Boyle story requires lots of suspended disbelief, especially in his dodging machine gun bullets and refusing to give a full report to HQ.
Queen of Diamonds seemed to be an unlicensed version of John Carter of Mars without exactly duplicating ERB's approach. Actually, it was more the reverse of that old series of female submissive books set in Gor.
Fu Chang is an interesting mix of Chinese tropes and fantasy magic. It was particularly refreshing to see a comic character who was Chinese without being a "Yellow Peril" villain.
The text story pulled me in with the surprisingly vicious descripion of a victim whose throat was slit from ear-to-ear. You knew you were in pre-code territory here.
I thought I was looking at a movie serial in the Klondike Cafe Robbed story. Despite the trope of the ace reporter being let through by the very cops who are supposed to protect the scene of the crime, the nice mystery set-up of the Falcon, Guardian of the Press, and his identity to be revealed later, was just the kind of thing you'd expect in a serial.
In The Midshipman (aka "The Rival"), Bob Wood's narration blurbs made the whole thing seem like an early radio script.
Kayo Ward seems a nice mix between sports and "super" tropes. Since I always liked boxing stories and boxing movies better than the sport itself, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this feature.
All in all, this volume was a pleasant surprise for me and I liked it a lot, warts and all. |
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| Additional Information |
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| Publication | January 1940 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 | Frequency: monthly |
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| Credits | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Superhero |
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| Comic Story | G-Man Extraordinary (10 pages) |
| Synopsis | The Shield is sent to stop a Stokian spy ring. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Klotz (villain, introduction); J. Edgar Hoover |
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| Comic Story | The Coming of the Comet (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | After injecting himself with a gas fifty times lighter than hydrogen, John Dickering discovers he can now take leaps that are more like flying. Beams now shoot from his eyes and when the rays cross what ever he's looking at disintegrates. Glass is the only thing that can stop the beams. He vows to use his new powers for good. He starts by going after a typhoid racketeer. Killing three associates The Comet comes upon Dr. Archer and takes him up into the sky to convince him to stop his typhoid racket. After Dr. Archer pleads to be let down The Comet lets him go, letting him fall to his death. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Dr. Archer (villain, introduction, death) |
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| Featuring | Jocko |
| Content | Genre: Anthropomorphic-funny Animals; Jungle | Characters: Jocko (Introduction; only appearance?) |
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| Content | Genre: War |
| Notes | Biro credit is suggested by Jerry Bails' Who's Who. He can be difficult to distinguish from Carl Hubbell. |
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| Content | Genre: Science Fiction | Characters: Rado Von Kelter (villain, introduction) |
| Notes | Script credit from Bob Hughes by textual analysis. Excessive use of passive voice, run on sentences held together by ellipses.
This is the only appearance of "The Queen of Diamonds" feature. Next issue, it will be replaced by a spin-off, "The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds". |
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| Synopsis | Fu Chang possesses a set of magic chessmen with all the magic powers of Aladdin’s lamp which are responsible for Fu Chang’s spectacular solutions of great international mysteries. He saves Tay Ming from the Dragon by praying to his god, who brings the chessmen to life to defeat the Dragon and save his girlfriend (later fiancee). |
| Content | Genre: Detective-mystery | Characters: Tay Ming (girlfriend); The Dragon (villain, introduction) |
| Notes | Art credits from Archie & Friends (Archie, 1992 series) #150 (February 2011) but lists Lin Streeter as Jim Streeter.
Signed by Lin Streeter on the last page.
Script credit from Bob Hughes by textual analysis. Excessive use of passive voice, run-on sentences held together by ellipses. |
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| Text Story | Murderer's Brew (2 pages) |
| Credits | Letters: typeset |
| Content | Genre: Crime |
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| Content | Genre: Detective-mystery | Characters: The Mayfair Monster [Sir Rupert Napier] (villain, introduction) |
| Notes | Script credit from Bob Hughes by textual analysis. Excessive use of passive voice, run on sentences held together by ellipses.
Artist signed on last page. |
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| Text Article | Jack Dempsey (1 page) |
| Content | Genre: Sports | Characters: Jack Dempsey (boxer) |
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| Comic Story | Klondike Cafe Robbed (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | The Falcon saves newspaper reporter Flash Calvert from Slug Wickum and his gang. |
| Content | Genre: Adventure; Superhero | Characters: Flash Calvert (newspaper reporter, introduction); Jim Boyd (newspaper editor, introduction); Slug Wickum and his gang |
| Notes | The Press Guardian, a.k.a. The Falcon, wore a colorful winged costume in this issue only. Beginning in issue #2, his outfit consisted of a business suit, fedora, and face mask. |
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| Featuring | Animal Antics |
| Content | Genre: Anthropomorphic-funny Animals |
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| Comic Story | The Rivalry (5 pages) |
| Content | Genre: Adventure; War |
| Notes | Name changed to "Sampson" in issue #3. |
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| Content | Genre: Sports | Characters: Lew Black (introduction); Connie (introduction); One Round Hogan (villain, introduction) |
| Notes | The art is identical to the signed Bob Wood story in next issue. |
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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 |
