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.
Link to the book:
Pep Comics 01
