Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: THE ARROW "Smashing the Protection Racket"

No, he's not the guy currently on the CW...

...since that character is based on Green Arrow, who was given that colorful name to avoid confusion with this guy, comics' first archer superhero, as detailed HERE!

Ironically, the CW superhero visually-resembles this character more than DC's Green Arrow,  whose back-story has been Smallville-ized for the tv series.

This tale was written and illustrated by Paul Gustavson, who also created another archer hero who predated Green Arrow...Quality's Alias the Spider!

And, as pointed out by reader DarkMark, this never-reprinted tale appeared in Centaur's Funny Pages V4 #1 (1940).
I had listed another appearance, also written and illustrated by Gustavson.
(This is what happens when you drink the last of the holiday eggnog and then keyboard a blog entry...)

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Reading Room: Golden Age CAPTAIN MARVEL "Plot Against Christmas"

He's not a captain in the Kree starfleet (or his son)...

...or even the Silver Age android who briefly bore the name.

This is the original guy, the one who yelled "SHAZAM!", starring in a Christmas tale about a miser who...well read it for yourself...

This Yultide tale from Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures #42 (1945) was illustrated by Pete Costanza with touchups by C C Beck.

The writer, who owed a great deal to Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", is unknown.

Merry Christmas

&

Happy New Year

Reading Room: ZORRO "Mark of Zorro" Part 2

When Last We Left Our Swashbuckling Hero...

Art for inside front cover by Bill Ely

Don Diego Vega, secretly the masked man known as Zorro, battles oppression of the middle and working-class citizens of Los Angeles while romancing (as the dashing Zorro), Lolita, the beautiful daughter of caballero Don Carlos!

Art for inside back cover by Bill Ely

Meanwhile, Sgt Gonzales is in search of the man known as El Zorro (The Fox)...

To be concluded, tomorrow, at Western Comics Adventures™, where the previous chapter also appeared!

This book-length tale in Dell's Four Color #228 (1949) was adapted from the novella "Curse of Capistrano" by Johnston McCulley.

(The title "Mark of Zorro" was first used for the 1920 silent film adapting "Curse" and starring Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro/Don Diego.

Since then, when the story is reprinted, the story tends to use the "Mark of Zorro" title instead of "Curse".)

The writer of the comic adaptation is unknown, but the artist is Bill Ely, who has several hundred comic stories covering every genre from 1937 to 1967 to his credit.

This entry is part of our Retroblogs™ Masks Marathon, celebrating the new Dynamite comic series Masks which combines, for the first time, the major masked mystery men of pulps and comics including The Green Hornet, The Shadow, The Spider, Zorro, The Black Terror, The Green Lama, and Miss Fury (ok, a masked mystery woman), among others.

We'll be presenting more never-reprinted stories featuring these characters throughout the month of December.

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...for duds and provisions!

Reading Room: GREEN HORNET FIGHTS CRIME "Flirt with Death"

When Last We Left Our Hero...

While breaking up a racket, The Green Hornet inadvertently reveals his secret identity to Linda Travers, a Daily Sentinel reporter secretly working for Britt's father, Dan Reid...

(Don't worry, you didn't miss a Hero Histories™ blog entry!

The previous entry was at our brother blog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™.)

The secret identity exposure storyline took place over four episodes of the radio show...

"Exposed" 10/28/47 (which we covered HERE.)

"Graft Crosses a Bridge" 11/4/47

"Too Hot to Handle" 11/11/47

"The Man on the Top" 11/18/47

...which were condensed into two eight-page stories in Green Hornet Fights Crime #43.

You can hear the Green Hornet radio episode, "Too Hot to Handle", that contributed primary story elements to the comic tale, HERE.

The art on this final (and never-reprinted) tale from Green Hornet Fights Crime #43 (1949) is presumed to be by Al Avison, but I believe he only did the pencils.

The inking looks a lot like Lee Elias, who was doing, among other things, The Black Cat for Harvey.

The writer of the comic adaptation is unknown.

This entry is part of our Retroblogs™ Masks Marathon, celebrating the new Dynamite comic series Masks which combines, for the first time, the major masked mystery men of pulps and comics including The Green Hornet, The Shadow, The Spider, Zorro, The Black Terror, The Green Lama, and Miss Fury (ok, a masked mystery woman), among others.

We'll be presenting more never-reprinted stories featuring these characters throughout the month of December.

And don't forget to visit...

The Classic Green Hornet Store

Reading Room: SIR LEO "End of a Legend"

When Last We Left Our Hero...

...Victorian-era adventurer Sir Leo Wooldrich encounters a Lovecraftian-type being lurking in the appropriately-named Black Lake...

This two-part tale from New English Library's Dracula #1 & #2 by writer/artist Jose Bea and co-writer Luis Vigil was the only Sir Leo story published in Warren's HTF Dracula anthology which reprinted #1-6.

The series continued in #7 through #12, which have never been reprinted in the US, so most American fans have never seen them...unless they keep checking this blog, where we'll be re-presenting them over the next couple of months.

Today, The Nerdist did a feature on comic book/graphic novel supernatural sleuths HERE.

Sadly, the writers don't seem to acknowledge any supernatural detectives existed before 1980, so they neglect cool characters like Sir Leo and Fero: Planet Detective!

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