But he got his gun at Walmart. Back when you could do that.
Target Comics #1
Novelty Press (February, 1940)
I don’t expect to be “picking up” this comic again. Looking over the Comic Book Plus summary for it there were only a couple of titles that remotely interested me, plus one commenter claimed “This title had many legendary talents involved from the very beginning of the American comic book scene.”, so it’s worth a look for the low, low price of a bit of my time. It just doesn’t look like something I’d read regularly otherwise. So let’s see if it changes my mind.
Bulls-Eye Bill by Everett Blake
I’m guessing he’s on the cover because he shares his last name with the comic’s title. So Bill Comics…sorry, wait, that’s Bill Target, my mistake. Bill is a talented gunslinger, horse rider, and other cowboy things living in Wenton, Arizona. One of his friends is wanted for murder at the start of the story but the guy he shot is alive off-panel at the end of the story. Sheriff really should have checked that before going to arrest the man for murder and Bill as an accomplice helping him escape. Somewhere in between bad guys burn down a homestead so the sheriff recruits Bill instead for the possy, but the lead baddie, Travis Trent, comes to kill Bulls-Eye for…some reason, the girl has to get help, and somewhere off-panel she found out the shooting victim was alive and not pressing charges. Choose a story and stick to it. Also, I’m not sure what’s worse, the Old West accents (that the girl lacks) or the Chinese manservant’s one. It’s not the best start but not complete garbage, either. There’s also a text story featuring how he got his nickname but there’s a lot to review, so I haven’t been reading the prose stories.
Manowar: The White Streak by Carl Burgos
In South America, an archeologist and his friend uncover a robot created by a lost civilization who doomed itself to war. And here I thought these kind of civilizations existed in Greece or Japan. Manowar is his name, he somehow knows the word “samaritan”, and he’s ready to stop a war monger after the oil fields of the first country Manowar shows up in. So he’s here to stop dictators and war. He’s about to have a field day seeing as this is still the pre-US days of World War II’s beginnings. I don’t know. Blame the origin story but this really didn’t work for me.
Lucky Byrd: Flying Cadet by Harry Francis Campbell
A fighter pilot cadet, Lucky gets on the bad side of fellow cadet Rocky Stone, who sabotages his plane and ends up caught by an enemy spy. Not sure what enemy we had back then (pre-WWII, remember). It’s the first interesting story in this comic.
I’m only mentioning the comedy comic because it was made by Jack Cole. There, I mentioned it and it isn’t any funnier than all the other ones I ignore in these comics. He was doing better with Plastic Man.
T-Men by E.F. Webster
Allegedly written by a former Treasury Department agent, with the narration saying they’re the “g-men of the treasury department”. We’re following an agent named Turner in a story inspired by an actual case. The rookie agent ends up taking part in exposing an opium den. Only the workers in the restaurant cover has inflated accents, and not the boss. I think the story ends on a cliffhanger as Turner and his senior chase the boss through the sewer. It’s an okay story, but not really what I’m into.
City Editor by Potter
…who is barely part of this story. Instead we follow a kid named Pinky who works with a couple of the reporters to expose a crook, rescue his sister, and they get reward money and a dog. Not sure where their parents are. It’s a story shoved into small space but manages to hit the beats of the story.
Little Puppet Man by John Spina
I guess nobody is surprised by living puppets in this world. After the owner of a puppet circus chews him out over a bad show, our title character leaves and makes friends with two kids and their single mother, helping catch a turkey. The owner isn’t happy to find out he left, but we’ll have to wait for the next issue to find out what happens next. Well, you will. So far this comic isn’t winning me over.
2-R by Alonzo Vincent
2-R is the codename for Boyville, the center of the Boystate estate. The Captain and the Skipper run the estate for boys, but Speck is tired of the place. His teacher warns him that with his stun gun he can “blind and stun you for 24 hours and do what I want with you”, which is already a red flag even in 1940. However, Speck is going to change his tune after dealing with spies trying to use their future high tech stuff (I think the story was set in current day) to escape. It’s an okay story. Not great, but not terrible.
“Rip” Rory
When a hazing ritual against new student Rory doesn’t go as planned, the bully tries to attack him, and that fails as well. It does get Rip the attention of the basketball coach and a young woman. Where does that all go? Wish I cared. It’s a good short story but nothing has really interested me personally this issue.
Fantastic Feature Films by Tarpe Mills
I’ve seen this bit before, a comic pretending to be a movie. I think the same woman did that one. “Maskless Axemen” (and I looked, it’s not a real movie that I can tell) is about the…we’re stopping short before we finish “furer” who is about to kill a woman who isn’t a spy but a dancer with a stage name. A reporter wants to ask her out so he and his friends decide to pull a stunt to trick the man into going insane. I’m not a horror fan and I don’t know if Mills was using these stories in hopes of making an actual movie, but it could work. Maybe.
overall
I was right. These really aren’t comics I was interested in and I probably won’t continue the series. On a technical level most were good if hampered by the panel space and none were really terrible. They’re just not stories I’m interested in and my bias comes through. Too many comics to read them all, but I’ll pass on future issues.
BW Media Spotlight 