Speed Comics #1A man who appears to have the power of electricity appears on the cover of the first issue of a comic book series. And that series is titled "Speed Comics". Those two aspects don't seem to relate much to each other. Will Shock Gibson use his capacity to use the power of electricity to move very fast? And why does this seemingly well-proportioned (for-the-most-part) person have such tiny feet? Maybe he was born to be a ballerina? All in all, this seems to me as roughly an average comic book for 1939. Most of the artwork is fairly primitive, and so, not very enjoyable to me. The colouring is roughly average, and doesn't hurt reading the stories. The stories are weak, for the most part, but a couple have some relatively innovative ideas for their time. But, I like that the editor allowed a 26-page adventure story lead the book with the series' main star hero. Unfortunately for readers who like well-crafted stories, the author didn't use the extra space to flesh out the characters and motivations, and build up suspense in the single story. Fortunately for action fans, he filled almost every page with action, showing basically two different stories.
Shock Gibson - The Human DynamoThis first episode (presenting his superpowers origin) has a very inappropriate, unnatural tone, being much too matter-of-fact, educational, and condescending to the reader. Both "Shock", and the supposed scientific authority, Dr. Blitzer, speak very unnaturally to each other, making it wayyyyyy too obvious that the author is trying to TELL the reader these impossible happenings are true, and you should believe his words, instead of absorbing what is shown in the panels. The author tries hard to explain Gibson's acquisition of super powers as fact, while using the fewest panels possible, resulting only in the reader sensing he, or she, is being handed a load of baloney by a flim-flam man pretending to be The World's authority whose simplistic explanations ARE facts, and shouldn't be questioned. That tone, unnatural, and without any detailed explanation, just draws attention to the fact that what he says should be questioned. All this could be avoided, using several more panels, and having a more natural dialogue between him and Shock, and amore questioning tone by Blitzer, who is first discovering the results of the events we see. His acting like this is all normal, and he's known that to be true to nature for many years would help keep the reader in the flow of the story. For example, it is unfortunately obvious that Gibson's bending the heavy girder just as he catches it was just the author and artists' attempt to conserve space by informing the readers that Shock now has super strength in that single panel, instead of using two. And it is too silly to have the narrator telling us Gibson caught the girder and then threw the heavy thing aside, when he showed neither, just him holding it. And having the authority, Dr. Blitzer, saying as a matter of fact, that Gibson has the strength of 1,000 men, AND the absolute FACT that something in the chemicals with which Gibson was working did that to him. And he is a scientist, who is not surprised by all this?
Shouldn't he be surprised and shocked? Perhaps bewildered??? Shouldn't the author rather be also using Gibson, himself, to be surprised, and help provide the tone that this is not a normal occurrence?? Then Blitzer lectures Gibson, admonishing him that he now has the power to change The World, and so he should leave his laboratory, and go out into The World and use that power to help Humanity. Gibson solemnly vows to do just that, and that he will never abuse that power. They both are acting so weirdly. That is just not the way people act so soon after such a shocking event.
Just an aside: The artist (Norman Fallon?) is absolutely TERRIBLE at attempting to depict fire flames. They look more like a torn fabric - nothing like a moving non-solid substance.
After these awkward, unnatural origin episode scenes, which end abruptly, and would be much more effective as an intact self-contained story, than attached to Gibsons' first adventure as a superhero, the story continues after just a narrative box, rather than a new story episode title page. This is inferior book and story organisation.
Shock Gibson Tests His powers Against Big City GraftGangsters in cahoots with greedy politicians threaten to steal a large building contract from an honest, legitimate, contractor by making him default, sabotaging him to make sure he can't finish the project in an impossible 3 days. Shock uses his super strength, speed, and flying to finish the job, after saving the contractor from his suicide attempt, beats off the politician's thugs, threatens the latter's life, hands them over to the police, forcing him to confess his crimes. and follows the real criminal mastermind escaping The City in his airplane, to a remote "almost extinct" volcano, his headquarters. Gases and some flaming spurts of magma are still occurring inside the caldera, near where the evil German Baron von Kampf has his laboratory and headquarters. The latter has developed a "death ray", and "Inhuman zombies", in his quest to conquer and dominate The World. To me, this is a typical early attempt to tap into the early 1940s trend of superhero comics. But it seems much more like an attempt to copy current, successful series, but very amateurish, and uninspired.
The artist is not good at drawing human figures, whether still, or in action. He avoids drawing them in action, so the reader doesn't see how things happen, but rather just the still, static results of that action, which is merely described dryly, with no detail, in narrative boxes. This is totally unacceptable to action adventure fans.
Setting up for the following episode, Shock accidentally drops into the Damsel in distress' prison cell, rescues her and smashes up von Kampf's lab, but the lady is grabbed again by the villain, and taken with him in an escape in his plane , but she steals a parachute and dives out, and ends up in Shock's arms. It's a story with some decent ideas, a shaky plot with several twists and turns, and some suspense. The artwork is weak, the staging is weak, and the dialogue is poor. Too much is stated in narratives and not shown. All in all it was worth sticking through it to the end, mostly out of curiosity. Although it has lots of weaknesses, it is in the realm of average for late 1930s and beginning of the 1940s action-based comics, while creators were still experimenting with the new form of print entertainment and new genre of comics.
The Three Aces - Crash, Cork, and The BaronThis is a typical newspaper strip "Soldier-of-fortune" team style series, best adapted to an on-going, episodic format. It's somewhat tough to assess this series-opening episode, missing the episode's ending. But, almost all series of this type were very similar during the late '30s - early '40s naissance period of this budding sub-genre. This book is missing scans of 2 pages from the tail-end of this story, plus the first page of the following text story. Looking at Speed Comics 2, containing a completely new story, with a new client, taking place in South America, it is clear that this series is not an ongoing episodic story, but rather contains new short stories, each issue. Given that, we can assume that this story is concluded over its remaining 2 pages, The Baron and Cork mow down the entire contingent of Arab warriors with their machine guns, and are rewarded, handsomely by their client. A typical story for this sub-genre at this early time, with the vagabond, soldiers-of-fortune invincible masters of their craft, and itching to go to the other side of The Globe for their next adventure.
As to the portrayal of "The Baron" as a Prussian, respected foreign rival, it should be noted that The Germans didn't attack Poland until September, 1939, so two thirds of that year were available for production of this story to have occurred. So, it isn't necessary for it to have been produced in 1938. Being only 6 pages long, it would have been possible to drop this story and fill those pages with another short story in a fairly short time to make the issue's print deadline. In any case, USA was neutral in 1939, and not even helping Britain until The Lend-Lease Act of 1940.
Ted Parrish - The Man of A Thousand FacesA bored film character actor/master of disguises/quick-change artist breaking his film studio contract, and quitting his old career in search of action and adventure, is an interesting idea. Walking along a big city's dangerous waterfront late at night, ostensibly hoping to witness criminals committing a crime
, Parrish spots a woman being kidnapped into a boat. He leaves, soon to return, dressed as a woman, to take the place of a nurse, expected by the kidnapper. The boat takes them to a small island off the coast with a mad doctor ready to operate on the kidnap victim, to turn her into a no-longer-living statue. This is just what Parrish wanted - a tough challenge for a courageous, manly hero-type, complete with an evil, diabolical villain trying to harm a beautiful young woman the hero can rescue. Just as the doctor is ready to operate, Parrish breaks out of his disguise, and summarily defeats his three male opponents, unbinds the young woman, carries her to a window, leaps out of the castle with her in his arms, landing softly on the plush seats of the villains' boat. He races it back to the harbour, docks, and takes her by taxi to her home. Without a warning he says goodbye, disappearing before she can see where he goes. Quickly changed into a disguise, he avoids being found by her, and can casually leave for his own home. Soon, he is accosted by his former film producer, offering him a new part in an action film, but our new hero turns it down. Apparently, he'll have to live on reward money for turning in wanted criminals to the police, or returning kidnapped victims to their loved ones!
Spike Marlin - Soldier-Of-Fortune-SeamanThis quiet, large but trim man, of cigar in mouth and few words, walks in on his 20 shipmates, boldly telling them they are under arrest, after beating 2 of them in a fight on deck and tossing one into the sea, to his death. Unbelievably, the entire remaining crew prove to be lily-livered cowards, and back down, just before Marlin's coastguard friends pull alongside in their cutter, to complete the easy arrest. What a hero! What a man! Harvey must have been proud to have such a whale-loving hero in their roster!
Smoke Carter - The Smoke-Breathing FirefighterThis story opens with a fire broken out in an orphanage, with one of the nurses noting it, and yelling for someone to call a policeman. Wouldn't calling the fire department be a better stratagem? Uh oh! We have the artist who draws cement flames once again in a story where that problem is only accentuated. Doubly bad is the fact that he also draws cement smoke! And although his portrayal of water is a bit less hard-looking and slightly more fluid-like, it still looks wrong, because it is coloured a bilious green. And on top of that, his perspectives are way off. The nurse holding the baby, who has jumped out of the window, trying to land on the firefighters' life-saving net, falls to her death and that of the infant's as well, as the net has been placed much too far away from the burning building to give any potential fire victims any chance of survival (unless they jump out of a ground floor window).
Despite those visual problems, the story's plotline has an interesting element, in that it appears that gangsters have set the orphanage on fire to make an attempt on a millionaire's life, knowing that that worthy organisation is his pet charity. The nosy busy-body, firefighter, Smoke Carter, sees that philanthropist White has had a serious auto accident, in the newspaper headlines. He now abandons his firefighting job to play amateur detective, going to the scene of the auto's recovery and pilfering evidence out of the drowned man's pocket. A car drives by with a gunman firing at the fireman. Carter then pulls his own revolver out in defence. Do firefighters in USA all carry guns while in uniform??? I know it's a very gun-happy country, but that seems ridiculous. Maybe it's an extra tool they can use to shoot the padlocks on the doors of locked burning buildings so they don't waste time hacking away at the doors with their hatchets?
Instead of informing the police, Carter hails a taxi to follow the gunman's car, and send an ambulance to pick up a gang member, who got run over by the gangsters' car, before it got away. Smoke finally talks with the police chief, in person, showing him what he found in the millionaire victim's pocket, instead of phoning him when he found it, and reading what was on it, so the police could get into action as quickly as possible. He offers to help the police in a joint action to capture the gang, He, a mere local firehouse firefighter (not Fire Commissioner, or even City or Metropolitan Fire Chief) commits his fire department to fly an airplane over the gangster's "hideout", and his local firefighting unit would light a fire to signal the plane's crew to drop a bomb on the building. This is all without his knowing for sure that the gangsters are heading to that address in the countryside. In real life, people didn't talk this way and didn't act this way. I knew that at 9 or 10 years of age. And would have thought this story was almost as ridiculous as superhero stories. The remaining gang members seal their own doom by lighting the fire that tells the aerial bomb squad to drop their bomb. We find out that they were taking revenge on white for putting several of their members in prison for arson, but we never find out why they wanted to "finish" the orphanage. Were they purely evil, wanting to hurt orphans??? Or was that just a way to get even with White??? And why were any of White's buildings their target in the first place? A VERY poorly thought out plot, and bizarre introduction to a new action hero. Is he a firefighter who constantly helps the police fight crimes, and track down criminals???
Landor - Maker of MonstersThe old ancient castle on the storm-swept mountaintop scenario, eh? I wonder if this is supposed to be located in Eastern or Central Europe, or one of those ancient European castles bought by eccentric wealthy Americans, who dismantled them, stone by stone, and had them re-assembled in a remote area of western North America, (so they could perform their hideous, evil deeds in anonymity). Instead of the old, ugly, Germanic scientist, we have a young-looking man who speaks American English with no foreign accent. But, at least the cliché of a sudden storm causing the hero and ladyfriend to seek shelter is used. And his name, "Landor", sounds Hungarian. So, perhaps the setting IS in Eastern Europe (Transylvania to be exact). And, of course, we are on "comic book time", with no time to waste. So, of course, the fruit of all the scientists' years of hard work explodes onto the scene JUST at the time that the innocent young couple is touring this land of monsters werewolves and vampyres just before their getting married. And true to the monster story code, the scientist sees that his monstrous creation has taken a fancy to the young woman (despite the fact that she is spoken for (out of circulation). When the hero says that he and his fiancée will leave, the scientist suddenly pulls out a gun, which he apparently carries in his pocket every day, despite being all alone in a remote, desolate location. He says he can't let the young man have his project "destroyed" by the hero, who was never there before. How could he destroy his project by leaving the place he'd never been? Was the scientist waiting for beautiful young women to make pilgrimage to his castle daily, so he could hand them over to his sex-crazed newly-living monster??? Landor knocks the hero unconscious, and gives the woman a sedative. The monster, sensing that the scientist means to harm her, tosses him against a wall, knocking him unconscious. He then removes the woman from the operating table. Perhaps Landor had planned to turn her into a large green monster to be his monster's mate? The hero (Tony) fights with the monster, and they start a fire. The monster hits his head on the hard stone and dies. Tony grabs his fiancée and carries her to safety, while the castle burns up in the background. Where have I seen that before?
This must be the same artist as drew the first story in this book, as well as a few others. His figures are a bit too elongated, but the staging is a bit better, and the little action is better drawn than in the lead story.
All this happened in only 4 pages. I've seen it many times in one hour to an hour and a half long films. I'd rather have seen this plot aired out in 10-16 pages, with a developed setting, some background shown for Landor (so we could hate and fear him), some background on the lead couple, better development of Landor's motivation, a longer quest for Tony, and a slightly longer epilogue. But, amazingly, this story actually works distilled into 4 pages.
Texas Tyler - Wrongrighter of The WestI bet y'all didn't know that Texas Tyler was a C&W singer in his off time, when he wasn't rightin' wrongs on the ol' prairiee! Here's one of his:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uVhqSUuwu4&list=OLAK5uy_kjIbx6-IN5A9_hLMwDwHBdJYaplXCcSJc&index=4
As for the story, it's pretty standard for a western series from that time, with the vagabond cowboy and his comic sidekick moving from town to town, ranch to ranch, helping the good ranchers and townspeople against the greedy villains, who steal cattle, money and land, and kill lots of innocent people in the process. Texas and Baldy help out a rancher whose cattle are being stolen or stopped from reaching the market so the local town's crime boss can forclose on his ranch. They first kill off the latter's gang two by two, and finally Texas kills the crime boss after he drew his gun on him, first. The rancher's daughter has an eye for Tex, and wants him to stay. But, like most of the western heroes, Tex doesn't want to be tied down.
Biff Bannon - Of The U.S. MarinesThis looks like an interesting story. Early to mid 1939, more than 2 years before USA entered the war against Japan, US volunteers were helping The Chinese against them. However, I strongly doubt that official US military units were there, in that capacity. This story has a marine ship anchored in a Chinese harbour, and the captain places men under orders to rescue private US citizens inland. Was that possible at that time? Or did The US ambassador to China have to depend upon Chinese authorities to deliver them to safety? Interesting that The Chinese characters in the story have pink coloured skin, while the Japanese are depicted as "The Bad Guys" and "The Enemy", more than 2 years before USA declared war against Japan. It is also of note that a European with a pink face, seems to be a spy for The Axis powers, and seems to have a Spanish accent. Biff and his sidekick, Truck, save the Americans from the Japanese soldiers, kill the spy, and deliver them all to their ship, who takes them to US Marine headquarters (probably in The Philippine Islands as the trip took only 2 days). We got a bonus comedic ending (dropped from the sky), with the scientist (father of the beautiful young lady) having his secret "death machine", sought by the spy, be merely a five-in-one mouse trap. Not a spectacular joke, to say the least.
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Topic: Reading Group #303: Speed Comics 1 (Read 1012 times)
