That’s not how you pick up girls, dude!
Mystery Men Comics #3
Fox Publications, Inc (October, 1939)
I told you we’d be back.
For the newcomers, I started doing a retrospective review set of the pre-DC Blue Beetle around the time the movie for the current name holder’s movie came out. I decided two issues in that rather than stick with the anthology I’d go right to the main title series…which turned out to be an anthology. I did at some point want to return here, and now that I do these comics every Friday, now is the time to do it. That means we’ll be returning to rookie patrolman Dan Garret and his partner Mike Mannigan, who doesn’t suspect his friend and colleague is really the chainmail clad superhero powered by Vitamin 2X and a bunch of gadgets. Plus there are other heroes who have been lost to time we get to meet or see again. Let’s get started.
The Green Mask by Walter Frame
J.J. Faken acts like he’s helping kids from returning to reform school (so where are their parents?) but he’s actually closer to his near-namesake Fagin from Oliver Twist as he’s teaching the boys to be pickpockets, or else he’ll get them sent back. Not every kid is happy about this, and two of them work with The Green Mask and his reporter friend “News” Doakes (that’s what you went with?) to expose the crook. Except his plan is more like entrapment if you think about it, since the plan doesn’t really expose him as a pickpocket and if his sudden flunky hadn’t shown up he might have beat the rap. Even the story didn’t consider that, but it was a decent read regardless.
Rex Deter Of Mars by Dick Briefer
Join us “here on Earth” (make up your mind–Earth or Mars?) in the far-off year of 2000 AD! Man, we’re slow on this one, too. Even their smartwatches operate without phones. Though I bet they can’t play Solitaire or read the thrilling adventures of Solitaire. Anyway, Rex and his friends travel to a newly discovered cone-shaped planet, finding a primitive giant and some villains who want to use him for evil. Rex manages to overcome the villain and sends the creature to Earth for study. Apparently someone hadn’t seen King Kong, though the writer clearly has. I wonder why Rex gets blamed and not his two friends when he’s kicked off the planet despite being a hero because of this one screw-up. At least his sexy girlfriend and possible regular kidnap victim by villains in future stories goes with him despite us not even knowing she exists until the lower half of the second-to-last page. Weird story. Didn’t care for it.
Billy Bounce, The Kid Detective by Norman Lee
A comedic story, but one that gets treated like the main stories, so it counts for the reviews. Barely, at two pages. Billy is on an important case and will need all his correspondence course training to save the day…such as it is. It’s a cute little story.
Chen Chang by Cecelia Munson
This one is named for the villain, your basic Fu Manchu “kill all the white people and rule the world” Chinese villain. Good think Richard Kendal is still here, this time guarding a jade statue. Then one of his servants betrays him, which gets him shot by the villain since he wasn’t one of Chang’s spies and is convinced the man would betray him someday as well. For once I can’t fault that logic. How will Change survive? How did he survive the last two stories? Heavy on action, light on plot, but a lot less racist than it could have been given the plot and time period. Didn’t call how Kendal got out of this trap.
Wing Turner: Air Detective> “Death Rides With The Jewel Of Timboor” by Floyd Kelly
The jewel in the title is a gift from an Indian Maharajah to the American National Museum. Thieves want it but Wing will be the only man left alive on both sides when it’s over…and the only one who seems to care that the men on his side died. Granted, one just went crazy and offed himself for some reason. I want to like this story but the unnecessary hero deaths even from unnamed characters just dragged it down for me. It didn’t add to the plot or the drama. Kelly just wanted a body count on the hero side that wasn’t the title character, and given that one of the bad guys also parachutes to safety early on, it just isn’t necessary.
Lt. Drake Of The Naval Intelligence by F. Klaus
Drake investigates a crooked gambling operation onboard a cruise ship. Not much to summarize without just telling you the whole story, and I linked to the Comic Book Plus post so you can read it yourself. It’s not a bad adventure. Drake wins by being clever…though how he figured out who the crooked gambler was is debatable.
Hemlock Shomes & Doctor Potsam by Fred
If I wasn’t doing a review I’d just go to the next story, but since I already skip gag pages and text stories, and I gave the poor man’s Conan Edogawa a review, might as well suffer this. Our “heroes” are kidnapped to be hired by people who can’t choose an accent to find a pair of missing (and apparently alive?) false teeth named Toots. It’s not as dumb as it sounds. It’s a lot dumber, and not in the fun way!
The Waco Kid by Arthur Peddy
A young friend of the Kid is losing big at gambling, and our hero soon learns it’s a crooked operation. That’s two in one issue, but this also has a bunch of good action. The story it okay as well for the time allotted. I’m not much of a Western fan but I liked this little adventure.
The Blue Beetle by Charles Nichols
I forgot about this outfit. At least he has the domino mask. This time our hero goes undercover to expose a loan shark operation, who decides to kill clients who can’t pay the interest. This seems like a really dumb idea because now they’ll never be able to pay, but the loan shark business doesn’t make much business sense to me to begin with. Mike seems to be here just to be here, and already he seems to be the only cop who wants to capture the hero. As we know, this will never be explained. Good story otherwise.
Inspector Bancroft Of Scotland Yard by Art Franklin
I think the introductory text on the first panel (why does every comic story do this in this issue?) summarizes this just fine: “On London’s waterfront, Bancroft solves a murder mystery, and nips a revolution in the bud…….”. Still having trouble seeing the intelligence of basically exposing yourself by murdering people who are nowhere near India as a way of keeping yourself safe from being found out. I think the real mistake was paranoia. Also, they really needed to plan out the dialog and art so the words didn’t keep having to go to the next line. It kind of damages the reading flow. Nice little adventure, though.
Secret Agent D-13 by S.R. Powell
Hey, we have a name for D-13…I think. Unless Captain Richard Anthony is supposed to be someone else. In this story D-13 and his friend go after a submarine sinking Navy destroyers. It’s odd seeing the Germans as enemies before World War II and well after World War I. Good action story.
Denny Scott Of The Bengal Lancers by L. Mayor
Rebels attack the fortress and Denny is joined by a new recruit the writer really wants you to know is British via dialog. Not that he talks about England a lot, it’s all in the “wot”s and “jolly good”s. This one may depend on how you take colonialism and the British occupying India. On the other hand, elephants used like tanks is neat.
Zanzibar The Magician by George Tuska
A “George” not just written “Geo”? The heck you say! In this story, discount Zatara #1 defeats a Chinese opium den through being totally overpowered with his magic. You’re reading this to see a sorcerer mess with drug dealers or there’s nothing interesting here for you.
Fun fact for being reviewed in December. The back cover is an ad for Red Ryder BB rifles for Christmas. Some of you are already hearing “you’ll shoot your eye out” in your heads. Never knew they had the manly name of Daisy air rifles.
overall
More hits than misses this issue. It’s still early in Fox’s lineup but they’re off to a good start. Knowing where this goes after the owner swaps just gets more sad. The only overall complaint is how few “mystery men” there are in this comic, given half of them aren’t masked crimefighters. They’re just regular crimefighters.
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