Episode 11: Early Near-Misses Before the Icons

Robert Reed

[excited] Welcome to the show, friends -- or, uh, welcome to whatever exactly this is. You’re tuned to KDCR, New York, Distinguished Comics Radio, and this is somehow our eleventh episode, airing Sunday night, September 15th, 1940. I’m Robert Reed, filling in where I probably ought not to be.

George Wilson

[dryly] And I’m George Wilson, which means two things right away. One, Simon Carver is not in the booth. Two, if management asks, this was his idea.

Robert Reed

[laughs] It was NOT his idea. Folks, Simon’s away, the regular schedule got tangled up, and then we got a sack of listener mail big enough to choke a horse. A lot of you wrote to say, “Hold on, you birds are sprinting into 1940 and leaving half the old oddballs in the ditch.”

George Wilson

And you were right. There are a bunch of early National and related characters we have not covered. Now, some of those poor saps are still limping along on the stands, so maybe we can get to them later. But this little batch? According to Mr. Moore and his impossible mailbag from the future, these ones are already finished. Cancelled. Kaput.

Robert Reed

[curious] And he says -- I swear this is what he says -- some of these folks may someday belong to something called a “DC multiverse.” George, that sounds like a dime-store headache powder.

George Wilson

It sounds like a tax scam. But the point is, these are forgotten acts from New Fun, More Fun, New Adventure, Feature Funnies, and Action Comics. Not stars. Not even sturdy second-stringers. But they matter because they show you what the line was trying before Superman and Batman hogged the marquee.

Robert Reed

And September of 1940 feels like a decent time to talk about near-misses. You read the papers this week -- London getting hit night after night since the 7th, the Battle of Britain still roaring, folks here talking air raid shelters, defense plants, registration, radios. Whole world feels like it’s testing every machine and every nerve it’s got.

George Wilson

That’s the token for me: the 7th. September 7th. Once London starts taking those sustained night raids, every old comic about masked justice, sabotage, secret service work, or strange men in the dark picks up a little extra current. Even the weaker strips start to feel like cousins to a real fear.

Robert Reed

So tonight we’re sneaking through the back door with Bobby and Binks from New Fun number 1, Sandra of the Secret Service from More Fun 15, Jack Woods from More Fun 22, Ivanhoe from More Fun 25, The Masked Ranger from More Fun 36, Nadir from New Adventure 19, and a paired finish with The Hawk from Feature Funnies number 2 and Scoop Scanlon from Action 11.

George Wilson

[matter-of-fact] Forgotten now, canceled already, and interesting precisely because they didn’t quite make it. Let’s start at the beginning -- New Fun number 1, February 1935, Bobby and Binks. Or, more accurately, two kids, one cave, one “Magic Crystal of History,” and a whole lot of noise.

Robert Reed

[warmly] Bobby and Binks is rough stuff, but kinda lovable. New Fun number 1, ten cents, February ’35, and there they are in “The Magic Crystal of History.” Bobby’s the eager kid, Binks is the sidekick pal, and the whole strip runs on that oldest engine in the world: one boy says “let’s go,” the other says “gee, I dunno,” and in they go anyway.

George Wilson

The specific beats are wonderfully primitive. They find a cave. They hear “Oooh! It’s haunted!” One of them spots a light. Then the light gets brighter, brighter still, and suddenly a booming voice says they’ll be carried back 4,000 years to ancient Egypt. That “4,000 years” is the detail that sticks. It’s not subtle.

Robert Reed

[laughs] No, sir. It lands like a pie in the face. And that’s really the strip in miniature. Broad physical comedy, broad surprise, broad expressions. It doesn’t feel finished the way later DC features do. It feels like a shop trying out its first wrench. “What if two mismatched kids got shoved into history by a glowing crystal?”

George Wilson

And the mismatch is all it really has. Bobby’s the go-getter, Binks is the fretful one, and the energy comes from reaction. But what’s missing? A stronger hook than “boys in trouble.” Clearer stakes than “look, an adventure.” And visually, there’s no one image you could slap on a cover and make a kid say, “That one. Gimme that one.”

Robert Reed

That’s EXACTLY it. Superman’s got the cape and the car overhead. Batman’s got the ears and the moon. Bobby and Binks have... a cave and a crystal and a little bit of racket. Fun? Sure. Memorable? Sort of. But it’s like an old trail bike without a painted tank -- engine may run, but it don’t announce itself.

George Wilson

And because the story engine is just momentum, not precision, the strip can move but it can’t deepen. You can do one cave, one scare, one magic blast. But after that, what are they? Not detectives. Not mystery men. Not really comics clowns either. Just boys getting shoved at spectacle.

Robert Reed

So there’s your first near-miss. Plenty of pep, not enough identity. Which, funny enough, is almost the opposite problem from Sandra of the Secret Service, where the lead herself is strong, but the strip around her never quite settles into a shape.

George Wilson

[curious] More Fun number 15 gives us Sandra of the Secret Service, and this one has real snap. The page says Sandra, as Marie Montell, is in Resbia serving as a Gavonian spy. She’s trying to save Lorenz, who’s been arrested. There’s a drumhead court-martial, a death sentence at dawn, and a prison fortress called San Lazar. That’s a lot of plot for a few pages.

Robert Reed

And I like her right away. She doesn’t sit around waiting for rescue. She studies the fortress. Follows an old apple woman. Bribes her for clothes. Dresses up in the old woman’s shawl and basket. Then she walks straight into the place like she belongs there. That apple-basket disguise is the token. It’s clever, plain as bread, and it works.

George Wilson

Then once she’s inside, the strip gets friskier. She slips a pistol from under the shawl, forces a guard to unlock Lorenz’s cell, and nearly gets away before another guard hears the door. That’s good espionage rhythm -- disguise, infiltration, reversal, another reversal.

Robert Reed

[excited] Yeah, Sandra’s got guts. Prison breaks, fake names, border crossings, forts, firing squads -- this thing moves. If you want to know whether early comics could carry a lady lead with nerve, the answer’s yes. She’s not the problem.

George Wilson

No. The problem is the world around her. The art and pacing still feel early. Panels can be stiff, transitions abrupt, side characters mostly uniforms and obstacles. Lorenz matters because the plot says he matters, not because he becomes vivid. Same with the officers and guards. There’s no Dr. Death, no Ultra-Humanite, no villain you can picture after supper.

Robert Reed

And no real stable supporting gang either. Lois Lane helps Superman because she keeps showing up as Lois Lane. Commissioner Gordon helps Batman because he gives him a whole city structure. Sandra needs a recurring somebody -- friend, rival, boss, heel, somebody -- to make her world feel like a world.

George Wilson

Exactly. Also tone. Is it hard espionage? Romantic melodrama? Foreign intrigue serial? It keeps shifting. Lively, yes. Durable, less so. You need a tonal center if you want kids to know what promise they’re buying with their dime.

Robert Reed

Still, I’ll say this for her. With Europe on everybody’s mind in September 1940, Sandra feels unexpectedly modern. Secret borders, military courts, disguises, prison forts -- those aren’t quaint now. They’re suddenly close to the bone.

George Wilson

And that leads neatly to Jack Woods, who isn’t modern in the same geopolitical way, but he does understand darkness, tunnels, and the feeling that bad things are always one step ahead of you.

Robert Reed

[lower voice] More Fun 22, July 1937. Jack Woods. Now this one I kinda dig, even if it’s a little lonesome. The pages we’ve got are all shadows, tunnels, mine shafts, and men whispering in the dark. Jack’s caught around a cave-in or mine trouble, hears a woman crying for help, and the whole strip slides into underground menace.

George Wilson

The name of the place doesn’t matter as much as the sensation. Hidden tunnel. Secret passage. Floodwater. Silhouettes in a circular opening. Those are the images. At one point Jack says, “I came in thru a secret tunnel I found.” Another panel gives us a row of black figures framed in light. That silhouette shot is strong. I’m never going to forget that one panel even if I forget half the dialogue around it.

Robert Reed

And there’s motion all over it. Men rushing the entrance, shots, Jack leading pals underground, then water coming in, then a fight in the dark. It’s got gumption. But -- and here’s the hitch -- Jack himself doesn’t own the scene the way Superman or Batman would later own theirs.

George Wilson

Right. He wanders into menace instead of defining it. He’s brave enough, sure, but he’s not iconic. No singular moral angle. No one visual signature. No mythos. Batman gives you the bat and the vow. Superman gives you the champion of the oppressed. Jack Woods gives you a hat, some courage, and a lot of excellent shadows.

Robert Reed

[reflective] That “excellent shadows” bit is the heart of it. Atmosphere can carry you only so far if the lead doesn’t snap into place. It’s like jazz with no melody line. Fine mood, good horns, but after three choruses you wanna know what tune you’re supposed to remember.

George Wilson

And because the strip is so diffuse, everything stays provisional. Is he a detective? Adventurer? Mine-country troubleshooter? Noir drifter? It never quite decides. Near-miss is the right word. Fascinating to look at, hard to build on.

Robert Reed

Still, if some kid read Jack Woods and then a year later warmed to Batman in a cave or Sandman in a tunnel or some other midnight customer, I wouldn’t be shocked. You can feel the medium learning how to be dark before it learns exactly who should walk through the darkness.

George Wilson

And then sometimes the line went the opposite direction -- not tunnels and noir, but old swords, monks, abbots, and Sir Walter Scott. Which brings us to Ivanhoe.

George Wilson

More Fun 25, October 1937. The page says it outright: “Ivanhoe, from the novel by Sir Walter Scott.” That’s both the attraction and the problem. You get costume adventure, old-world melodrama, Athlestane, Friar Tuck -- or a monk of St. somebody, hard to make every caption clean -- chains, cells, pursuit, swordplay. It’s all there.

Robert Reed

[matter-of-fact] Yeah, and I don’t dislike that stuff. I like a good swashbuckler. A fella in a tunic hauling at chains, a torch on the wall, wicked abbots, galloping horses -- that’ll play. There’s one panel where he’s practically wrenching himself free from the stable door by brute force. Good picture. Good oomph.

George Wilson

But the token you just named -- Sir Walter Scott -- is the problem. It feels borrowed. Respectable, literary, established. The strip is adapting a prestige adventure instead of becoming its own thing. On a crowded 1937 newsstand, being respectable isn’t enough. You need to feel new.

Robert Reed

Exactly. It’s wearing hand-me-down trousers. Fine cloth, but not cut special for the boy in the room. Comics can use old material, sure, but if the feature’s whole promise is “remember that novel?” then some kid’s just gonna wander over to the masked detective or the ghost fighter instead.

George Wilson

And serialized tension is weak. You can enjoy a prison break or a monastery threat scene, but there’s no durable hook beyond “what chapter of the classic are we on?” Batman says, “Come back for the Bat-Man.” Superman says, “Come back for Superman.” Ivanhoe says, “Come back for more Ivanhoe.” That’s thinner.

Robert Reed

[chuckles] Which sounds a little like asking for more oatmeal. Good for you, maybe. Not what the hungry kid grabs first. What it needed was either a fresher premise or a meaner serial cliffhanger. More crackle. More “oh boy.”

George Wilson

And once you say “more crackle,” you’re halfway to a masked hero. Which is exactly what The Masked Ranger tries to supply in More Fun 36 -- not literary prestige, but direct action and secret-identity justice.

Robert Reed

[excited] Now we’re cooking. More Fun 36, October 1938. The Masked Ranger. Right away the page gives you a stronger promise: fiery horse, raids, a masked figure who vanishes quicker than cattle rustlers can blink. That’s a cleaner sales pitch than Bobby and Binks, cleaner than Ivanhoe too.

George Wilson

And the setup’s solid. He’s got a secret identity -- Bill Clayton, unless I’m misreading the caption -- and he can move in and out of the outlaw world while remaining hidden. There are raiders, stagecoaches, warning cries from Pedro, windows shattered by gunfire, and the hero whipping through the action with an actual visual logic.

Robert Reed

That “visual logic” is the token. Big hat, mask, scarf, horse, six-gun. You can spot him. Not as singular as Batman’s ears or Superman’s cape, but you can spot him. And the action’s direct. No hemming and hawing. He smashes through doors, chases stagecoaches, clears roads, takes on raiders. Nice and square. I like square.

George Wilson

He also points toward superhero logic without getting there. Secret identity, cleaner mission, repeated interventions in favor of the decent people being squeezed. That’s stronger bones than a lot of the features we’ve discussed tonight.

Robert Reed

But not mythic enough. That’s the rub. He’s too close to the pulp herd -- Lone Ranger country, masked western avenger country, righteous rider country. Plenty enjoyable, but not distinct enough to own a whole era. If your outline on a napkin sounds too much like three other fellows on the rack, you’re in trouble.

George Wilson

And the costume, while serviceable, still isn’t singular. A good mask helps. A better silhouette would help more. Batman wins partly because one black shape tells the whole story. Masked Ranger still needs dialogue and genre furniture around him.

Robert Reed

Still, I’d call him one of the more respectable casualties on tonight’s list. If he’d had one unforgettable villain, one deeper origin wound, or one crackling visual signature, maybe he hangs around longer.

George Wilson

Instead he becomes another stepping-stone. And the next stepping-stone is stranger still -- Nadir, Master of Magic, from New Adventure 19. A feature that feels like it wants to be bigger than it quite knows how to be.

George Wilson

[skeptical] New Adventure 19, October 1936. Nadir, Master of Magic by Will Ely. The title alone makes a promise. The page opens with Major Merton questioning Duprez about a pearl robbery. Nadir’s involved because he’s trying to help prove the innocence of the servant Henri Duprez, who’s under suspicion after the pearl vanishes. So right away it’s crime, but crime with a magician’s label hanging over it.

Robert Reed

And that’s why it’s odd. You keep waiting for full-bore wizard business, but what you get is a mix -- locked room, suspicion, a disappearing floor panel, a body named Joe maybe, some rat business, a fight, and a lot of “maybe there’s some trick in the room.” It’s mystery with a pinch of stage magic and a pinch of occult hooey.

George Wilson

The disappearing floor panel is my token. One minute the room seems ordinary, next minute the floor drops and the whole thing turns into a trap mechanism. That’s good comic-book business. It reaches for more than a plain detective strip.

Robert Reed

Yeah, but Nadir himself never quite burns through the fog. Is he a magician? A detective with mystical branding? A master of real magic? The strip likes the uncertainty, but uncertainty can be poison if you haven’t also got a very sharp personality at center.

George Wilson

That’s the near-miss exactly. A fascinating premise without a memorable recurring world. He needs a den, a rival, a supporting cast, a city, some stable furniture around him. Otherwise each story feels like a curious room you walk into and then leave behind.

Robert Reed

[reflective] In other words, it’s a good booth at the carnival, not yet a full midway. I’m fond of it. I really am. But if you ask me why kids didn’t line up around the block for Nadir, I’d say because they couldn’t tell, in one sentence, what promise Nadir made that nobody else did.

George Wilson

And that missing sentence is what separates the survivors from the curiosities. Which gives us a nice place to end -- two final examples, The Hawk and Scoop Scanlon, two paths early comics tried before the winners hardened into place.

Robert Reed

[curious] Let’s start with The Hawk, from Feature Funnies number 2. The page we’ve got says “Introducing -- The Hawk” by Geo. E. Brenner, creator of The Clock. James Harrison gets introduced in the lounge of the Dark Cave Club, and there’s a note about two men and a brown raincoat and a murder job. Then out in the field you get those eerie black shapes and two red eyes in the dark. Boy, that red-eye silhouette is something.

George Wilson

That’s the token for me too -- the red eyes. A recovering field from a bridge, a running man, gray trousers, and then those eyes. It’s vigilantism trying on atmosphere. Less polished than Batman, but you can feel the family resemblance: night figure, pursuit, crook in motion, sudden intervention.

Robert Reed

Then Scoop Scanlon in Action 11 goes a different route. “Five Star Reporter.” Now that, I understand. Newspaper angle. Lar -- or maybe Lou -- Rowan gets exonerated, Ruth goes free, there’s a City Airport sign, a red car roaring off, hoods and gunmen and Scoop chasing leads the way a good city reporter oughta chase leads.

George Wilson

Scoop has movement. Cars, airport, phone calls, planted evidence, gangsters, night chases. If Superman hadn’t already swallowed so much reporter oxygen, you could imagine that lane developing further. But compared with Clark Kent and Superman together, Scoop is missing the multiplier. He’s just the reporter half.

Robert Reed

Right -- and The Hawk’s missing the opposite half. He’s got mood and intervention, but not enough mission. Scoop’s got mission and city pace, but not enough icon. Put the two together and you might have something: the clean newspaper engine plus the unforgettable night silhouette.

George Wilson

That’s the larger lesson, isn’t it? The characters that survived usually gave you three things at once: a sharper icon, a clearer mission, and a better promise on the cover. Superman: impossible power for the oppressed. Batman: grief in a bat-shape stalking crime. Sandman: gas-mask mystery man. These others each have one piece, sometimes two, but rarely all three.

Robert Reed

[warmly] And that doesn’t make ’em worthless. Just early. You can see the shop learning. One feature figures out pacing. Another figures out masks. Another figures out ladies with nerve. Another figures out shadows in tunnels. Another figures out the newspaper hustle. Then the big boys come along and grab the best tools from the whole box.

George Wilson

So there’s our illicit little supplement. A sneaked-in episode for the canceled cousins before the “multiverse” -- whatever in heaven’s name that means -- becomes a word anyone expects us to understand.

Robert Reed

Hopefully next time Simon will be back at the controls and we can return to something resembling standard broadcasting. If you’ve got letters, complaints, forgotten favorites, or proof that George and I shouldn’t be trusted alone with the microphone, send mail to distinguishedcomicsradio@gmail.com.

George Wilson

[deadpan] That’s distinguishedcomicsradio@gmail.com. Still sounds fake. Still apparently works.

Robert Reed

Alright... how do we do this without Simon? [pauses] This is Robert Reed, saying keep your chin up, keep your dimes dry, and don’t let the forgotten funnybooks gather too much dust.

George Wilson

And this is George Wilson saying, uh... good night, I guess. Watch the shadows, watch the headlines, and if the station manager asks, this booth was empty.