Episode 25: Doctor Fate’s 1940 Debut: The Golden Helmet of Salem

Simon Carver

Welcome to the show everybody! I am Simon Carver, broadcasting once again from a damp, cold, and completely blacked-out London. It is Friday, June 27th, 1941. Just five days ago, on June 22nd, the entire course of human history shifted in a heartbeat as Operation Barbarossa commenced, sending German divisions marching into Soviet territory. Up here in our drafty, curtained studio, the shortwave static is humming with reports of tank battles, troop movements, and the sudden, vast expansion of this terrible global theater. It is a moment where the world feels too big, too complex, and frankly too terrifying for any simple human solution. Joining me from our bright, warm studio in Chicago on KDCR is my pragmatic partner, Robert Reed. Robert, how is the Windy City holding up under this heavy June air?

Robert Reed

Well, Simon, Chicago is humming right along, though I'll tell you, everyone down at the Cubs park and on the street corners has their eye glued to the front pages. The sheer scale of this Eastern Front business, it's enough to make a fella feel mighty small. It's like we've crossed some invisible line into a completely different kind of conflict. And honestly, that sense of colossal, unstoppable forces colliding is the perfect backdrop for the hero we are introducing tonight. We aren't talking about street-corner muggers or warehouse racketeers tonight, Simon. We are opening up the ancient, cosmic ledger of the master of the occult himself: Doctor Fate!

Simon Carver

An absolutely majestic choice, Robert. Tonight is Episode 25: The Golden Helmet of Salem, and we are diving headfirst into the spectacular, otherworldly debut of Doctor Fate across More Fun Comics numbers 55 through 62, starting in May 1940. When this strip landed on the stands, readers had never seen anything like it. This wasn't a mystery man in a fedora spraying sleep gas; this was a towering, mythological figure operating from a doorless tower in witch-haunted Salem. And it all sprang from the incredible mind of writer Gardner Fox.

Robert Reed

Gardner Fox! Now there's a writer who doesn't just write stories, he builds entire universities of the mind. You know he's got those two filing cabinets of his absolutely stuffed to the gills with research on history, ancient languages, and physical science. He practiced law for a couple of years after getting his degree from St. John's, but thank goodness the Depression nudged him into writing because he brings a real academic weight to this magic stuff. He's not just making up silly words; he's pulling from Chaldean lore, ancient Egypt, and genuine mythology.

Simon Carver

Yes! And to bring those ancient, shadowed secrets to visual life, he was paired with artist Howard Sherman. Sherman's style in these early issues is heavy, thick, and wonderfully atmospheric. His inks are deep and blocky, making every room look like it's lit by a single, flickering candle. He gives Doctor Fate this incredible, smooth, featureless golden helmet that reflects absolutely nothing but the cosmic energy around him. It is a visual masterclass in mystery. Robert, let's open up More Fun Comics number 55 and go panel-by-panel into this incredible debut!

Robert Reed

Alright, let's open the pages to May 1940! We start with a splash panel that introduces our heavy of the piece: Wotan. And holy cow, what a look! Sherman draws him with a green face, pointed ears, a thin mustache, and a massive, high-collared red cape. He looks like a proper devil, Simon! He's standing in front of a giant, ancient stone throne, clutching his chest with his arms crossed, boasting that everything is prepared and that a certain girl will be dead within the hour!

Simon Carver

That green-skinned visage of Wotan is incredibly striking, Robert! His red-and-green high-collared costume screams ancient, corrupted priesthood. On the very next page, we shift to a small, dark apartment uptown, where an ordinary fellow named Thomas Frawley is coming home after a long day, muttering about how a good night's sleep won't do him any harm. But the moment he enters his room, his eyes are arrested by a glowing, patterned globe sitting on his table!

Robert Reed

The glowing globe! It's radiating these concentric white lines of light, and Frawley is instantly transfixed. He cries out, "I'm being hypnotized! I can't give in!" but it's no use. A voice booms out from that globe, ordering him to go to North Road at once, find a girl in apartment 2X, choke her to death, and then forget the whole thing. It's clean, cold-blooded murder via remote control!

Simon Carver

It is terrifyingly direct! Frawley, completely hollowed out by the spell, hails a taxi and speeds off to North Road. He rings the bell of apartment 2X, and when a lovely brunette named Inza Cramer opens the door, he gasps, "Yes? What -- OH!" as he lunges at her throat! He pins her to the sofa, choking her, while she gasps, "No -- no -- Fate! Doctor Fate!" And right then, the narration tells us, "Into the middle of the room floats a cool, black cloud!"

Robert Reed

The cool, black cloud! That is one heck of an entrance. Out of that cloud emerges Doctor Fate, wearing his stunning blue-and-gold costume, yellow boots, and that magnificent featureless helmet. He pulls Frawley off Inza, but Wotan, watching from his lair, senses Fate's presence and uses his black magic to set the entire apartment building on fire!

Simon Carver

The building is instantly engulfed in raging, orange flames! Inza screams, "Fire! The building burns!" and Frawley, suddenly snapping out of his trance, panics, crying that they will be roasted alive. But Doctor Fate remains completely calm. He steps forward, opens his yellow mantle, and commands, "I throw the mantle of my protection over you!" He wraps both Inza and Frawley in his golden cape, and in the next panel, they are standing completely unharmed on the street below while the building burns to the ground!

Robert Reed

Talk about a miracle! Frawley is standing there scratching his head, asking, "Who is Doctor Fate?" And Fox actually gives us a little text box explaining that Fate is a student of ancient mysteries, partially destroyed when Caesar burned Alexandria's library. He is an alchemist and physicist extraordinary who has learned the ultimate secret of the universe: the conversion of energy into matter, and matter into energy!

Simon Carver

The conversion of matter into energy! To prove it, Fate takes Inza to a room and demonstrates his powers by pointing his hand at a heavy, decorated vase. A stream of yellow energy shoots from his fingers, and with a soft "poof," the vase turns into a pile of fine dust! He explains to Inza that he merely released the energy comprising the atoms of the vase, changing them into atoms of dust. He notes he could do the exact same to a human body, a train, or an entire building!

Robert Reed

That is some serious atomic physics for 1940, Simon! But there's no time to marvel because Wotan is still out there. Fate and Inza merge themselves into the ether to travel as fast as the wind itself, tracking Wotan to his hidden temple. When they burst in, Wotan is ready. He opens a secret wall panel, and a massive, hulking, black-skinned gorilla-like monster steps out!

Simon Carver

The monster grabs Fate! Inza screams for help as the creature pins Fate's arms. But Fate, demonstrating his incredible mastery of energy, transfers his own physical strength directly into Inza! He shouts, "I give you my strength, Inza!" and the next thing you know, this young woman punches the giant monster, sending it flying across the room into a shower of stars!

Robert Reed

She absolutely decks him! But transferring his strength leaves Fate temporarily weakened. Wotan seizes the opportunity, pulling out a dagger to finish him off. But Fate summons a massive reserve of force, and tentacles of pure, orange flame shoot from his hands, wrapping directly around Wotan's throat! Wotan, choking, gasps that they are checkmated because if he dies, he will trigger an energy source that will kill Inza too!

Simon Carver

It is a desperate, villainous gamble! Wotan holds Inza hostage in a ring of fire, but Fate refuses to play his game. He leaps forward with a mighty "SOCK!" -- delivering a tremendous right hook straight to Wotan's green jaw! The blow breaks the spell, frees Inza, and sends Wotan reeling backward out of a high window, plunging down, down into the darkness to his apparent death. It is a spectacular, action-packed climax that sets the bar incredibly high!

Robert Reed

Well, you'd think falling off a skyscraper would be the end of Wotan, but this is Gardner Fox we're talking about! In More Fun number 56, cover-dated June 1940, Fate tells Inza that he must be absolutely certain Wotan's soul is dead. So, he decides they are going to take a little trip... down to the River Styx!

Simon Carver

The River Styx! They descend into the dark, misty underworld, where they are confronted by the skeletal Boatman of the Dead. The boatman tells them living people are not allowed, but Fate simply commands, "I go where I will! Open your boat to me!" They board the vessel, and Fate literally has to use his energy blasts to cremate a horde of angry, reaching ghouls who try to drag them into the flaming waters!

Robert Reed

They cross the river and stand before the Seven Gates of the Dead! Fox's research really shines here, Simon. The gates are made of iron, copper, silver, gold, the unknown grey metal, and alabaster, leading finally to the Seventh Gate -- the Emerald Portal! Behind it, they find the Ruler of the Dead, a towering, robed figure of wisdom. Fate demands to know where Wotan is, and the Ruler lifts his dark cloak, showing them a vision of the upper world. It turns out Wotan's soul has escaped back to the land of the living!

Simon Carver

And not only has he escaped, he has stumbled upon a terrifying scientific secret! Wotan has built a machine to drastically increase the electrical and magnetic flow between the Earth's north and south poles. He demonstrates his device on a small globe, pulling a heavy lever that causes the toy planet to explode into black, jagged fragments. He boasts that when he turns it on the real Earth, our planet will blow up just like an overloaded electrical wire blowing a fuse!

Robert Reed

That is absolute madness! The ground starts shaking and trees are ripping out of the soil as Wotan starts the machine. But Fate tracks him to his modern, domed laboratory. Wotan pulls the main switch, screaming, "I win! The Earth blows up!" But nothing happens! Fate reveals that he used his own body's energy to bathe Wotan's machinery, completely neutralizing the current!

Simon Carver

It is a brilliant counter-measure! Fate then delivers another magnificent "SOCK!" to Wotan's jaw, knocking him cold. But instead of letting him die again, Fate decides on a much more cosmic punishment. He encases Wotan's body in an indestructible, transparent air bubble and buries him deep beneath the Earth for eternity, leaving him trapped in a magical trance where he can never harm another soul!

Robert Reed

That is some heavy-duty justice. But the supernatural threats keep coming, Simon. In More Fun number 57, published in July 1940, we get an incredibly eerie tale about a master adept who is murdering wealthy citizens using a floating, fiery globe of lambent flame! The victims are literally scorched to death from the inside out, with absolutely no marks of fire on their clothes or their rooms!

Simon Carver

Yes, the "lambent flame"! This fiery sphere flies through the night, seeking out those who refused to pay blackmail money to the adept. Fate tracks the globe, catching it with his bare hands! It roars and hisses with black thunder, but Fate forces it back, following its trail of heat all the way to a rock-bound, desolate coast where the adept's stone castle sits.

Robert Reed

But when Fate and Inza breach the castle, the adept summons his ultimate defense: the Shrouded Dead! These are the legions of the Styx, robed, skeletal figures who swarm over Inza, dragging her down into the castle depths. Fate is forced to battle through these ancient, grasping wraiths, using his atomic energy to blast through solid stone walls until he finds Inza strapped to an altar, with the adept preparing to incinerate her with the flaming globe!

Simon Carver

It is an incredibly tense rescue! Fate leaps into the chamber, catching the adept completely by surprise and knocking him out with a swift blow. But instead of killing him, Fate uses his elemental force to compress the adept's molecular structure, transforming him into a tiny, harmless statue of clay! He tells Inza to seal the clay figure in an ebony cabinet forever, and then unleashes his power to completely disintegrate the evil castle, leaving nothing but dust. The scale of these conflicts is just breathtaking!

Robert Reed

It really is, Simon! And in More Fun number 58, cover-dated August 1940, the wizardry gets even more ancient. A sinister, red-robed mage steals the legendary Book of Thoth from its resting place beneath the River Koptos in Egypt. Armed with its lost magic, the wizard chants a forbidden spell, causing the giant trees of a nearby forest to literally come to life, bending their massive, wooden branches to strangle anyone who gets close!

Simon Carver

The strangling trees! Sherman draws those panels with such a twisted, gothic energy, Robert. The branches look like grasping, muscular arms. When Fate flies in to stop him, the wizard uses the Book of Thoth to summon giant, prehistoric killer fish to block their escape! But Fate grabs the trunk of a massive tree, using his elemental strength to wield it like a giant whip, driving the evil forest back before using his atomic power to burn the Book of Thoth to ashes, breaking the spell forever.

Robert Reed

But then, Simon, in issues 59 and 60, the strip takes this wild, sudden turn into pure science fiction! In number 59, a massive, metallic flying saucer lands in the South Ocean. Out steps a race of green-skinned, globular space invaders wearing purple helmets. They have these high-tech searchlights that magnetize ocean liners, pulling them toward their island base, and they carry glowing, hand-held disintegrator globes that can burn a man to ash from the inside out!

Simon Carver

It is a brilliant genre mashup! Fate flies to investigate, boarding their spacecraft and realizing their disintegrator globes run on pure, concentrated electricity. He literally absorbs the electrical force from one of the globes, using his own body to generate a massive bolt of lightning that destroys their supply base! When the space men try to escape, Fate uses his atomic energy to magnetize the ship, dragging it back to Earth before it can escape into the cosmos.

Robert Reed

And the sci-fi weirdness continues in More Fun number 60, where Inza is driving her yellow roadster through the Catskills and hears some strange, eerie music. She gets out to look and finds a group of little men, not even a foot high, loading a small red spaceship! It turns out they are the creations of three towering, purple-skinned giants hidden in a nearby cave. And these giants are actually the Norns -- the Fates of ancient mythology!

Simon Carver

The Norns in the Catskills! That is pure Gardner Fox. The giants reveal they formed the tiny men from clay and breathed life into them to conquer the world. But Doctor Fate flies into their cavern, declaring their tiny army is a threat to mankind. He uses his magical force to permanently strip the Norns of their creative power, sealing the entrance to their cavern forever so no more little men can ever threaten the Earth.

Robert Reed

But the absolute peak of cosmic scale has to be More Fun number 61, cover-dated November 1940. A giant, flaming nebula enters the solar system, threatening to disrupt the gravitational balance between the Earth and the Sun. Fate flies straight up into the stark heavens, traveling all the way to the planet Uranus to find a weapon powerful enough to stop it!

Simon Carver

To Uranus! That is an incredible journey, Robert. On Uranus, Fate retrieves a highly advanced weapon called the "Atom-Shatterer." But while he is away, a mad scientist in the Andes mountains uses a massive, high-tech gravity projector to pull the Earth completely out of its orbit, sending our planet plunging into the freezing depths of deep space!

Robert Reed

The Earth is freezing over! People in the cities are wrapping themselves in heavy coats as the temperature drops. But Fate rushes back, uses the Uranian Atom-Shatterer to destroy the gravity projector, and then uses his own body's elemental force to push the entire planet Earth back into its proper orbit! He then disintegrates the mad scientist's laboratory in a spectacular, burning pyre. It's just mind-boggling, Simon!

Simon Carver

It really is. And that brings us to More Fun Comics number 62, cover-dated December 1940, which features a story that feels incredibly close to the wartime anxieties of today. An aged, bitter scientist named Raymond Rall builds an unstoppable army of giant, metal, radio-controlled robots. He unleashes them on America's coastlines, carrying bombs and guns, easily overpowering our coastal defense units!

Robert Reed

These robots look terrifying, Simon! They've got these blocky, metallic bodies, grinning skeletal faces, and claws for hands. When Inza's car is blown up by one of their hand-bombs, she screams for help. Fate hears her thought transference and flies in, catching a giant metal robot by the neck just as it's about to crush her!

Simon Carver

It is a classic clash of magic versus machinery! Fate realizes the robots are controlled via radio signals from Rall's secret station. He flies up, releasing a tremendous, crackling wave of electrical power from his hands. This atomic energy completely disrupts the radio frequencies, causing the entire robot army to freeze in their tracks! Fate then uses his magnetic power to drag the metal monsters into the ocean, leaving them to rust away to nothingness in the salty waves.

Robert Reed

He literally lets 'em rust! Then he tracks Raymond Rall to his laboratory. Rall tries to fire a giant, experimental lightning cannon at him, but Fate just stands there, breathing in the radiant lightning, completely unharmed. The sheer electrical feedback causes Rall's machinery to explode, consuming the mad inventor in his own flames. It's a fantastic, explosive end to a truly legendary run of stories.

Simon Carver

It is a magnificent run, Robert! And as we look back on these eight issues, what strikes me is how Doctor Fate stands completely apart from the other mystery men of the era. He doesn't deal with the police, he doesn't care about ordinary laws, and he operates on a purely cosmic, mythological plane. But Robert, we are running out of sand in our hourglass for tonight. What have we got lined up for our listeners next week?

Robert Reed

Well, friends, for our next broadcast, we are going to be diving into the delightful, hilarious debut of Johnny Thunder across these very same Flash Comics numbers 1 through 13, All Star Comics number 2, and the 1940 New York World's Fair Comics! It's going to be a real hoot, so make sure your dials are locked in. And if you've got questions, favorite panels, or want to write us a letter, send 'em to distinguishedcomicsradio@gmail.com!

Simon Carver

That is distinguishedcomicsradio@gmail.com. We also have to tip our hats to our mysterious patron, Mr. Moore, who keeps sending us those bizarre, encrypted letters from some impossible future, talking about websites, Patreons, and other fantastic inventions that sound like they belong in one of Doctor Fate's ancient libraries!

Robert Reed

He's a regular man of tomorrow, that Mr. Moore! Keep your dials tuned, keep your chin up in these historic times, and from a bright, hopeful Chicago, this is Robert Reed saying good night, and keep your eyes on the skies!

Simon Carver

And from a quiet, blacked-out London, where the stars still shine behind the clouds, this is Simon Carver saying good night. Keep your courage high, and we'll see you on the next program!