“Exciting Pulp Tales” is Tom Johnson’s “sequel” to his “Pulp Detective” collection from Altus Press.
The new book is a collection featuring new stories of classic pulp heroes. All of these are lesser-known characters. In a few cases, these are characters I wasn’t familiar with. Thankfully, Tom’s intro gives some basic info on these characters.
First off is a story of The Angel (not to be confused with the even shorter-lived Angel Detective). The Angel is a character I had never heard of, and from what we read in the intro, was a short-lived character (only two stories, never reprinted to my knowledge) based on unsold Phantom Detective plots.
A kind of skid-row hero (from what seems to be a second- or third-tier publisher), he is really Steve Oakes, a movie stuntman and the son and brother of cops, instead of the usual “rich man about town” type. When his father is murdered, he returned to solve the crime as “The Angel,” with the help of his stuntman buddy. This story is meant to be a further story after the original two, with Steve and his buddy returning to New York during a lull in jobs, and helping solve a kidnapping.
Next is a Green Ghost story. He’s a better known, but short-lived pulp character. (Sadly, his stories are only available in an expensive reprint edition. Here’s hoping Altus Press will step in with a more reasonable price reprint.) Magician George Chance is the Green Ghost. Here, the Ghost and his associates deal with a dangerous gambling ring. The story features a cameo by another pulp hero at the end.
We then get a story of The Cobra, whose originally appeared in only three stories in the pulps. All are reprinted in Altus Press’ “The Cobra: King of Detectives.” Here, The Cobra is still operating in New York, going up against another villain with a snake motif, and adding a possible love interest.
A new Crimson Mask story is next. Altus Press is currently doing a reprint series of the original stories. One volume is out. The Crimson Mask is really a pharmacist who is also a master of disguise. He wears a red domino mask covering his disguised face. Here, he deals with a bizarre crime at a museum.
G-man stories is one area I am not familiar with, so I’m not familiar with “Gentle” Jones. This G-man appeared in only one original story. But this new story is well done, makes use of real characters and the growing Nazi threat in Europe at the time.
The next story is for another pulp hero that appeared once: Funny Face (though somehow I thought he was around longer. Go figure). Here, the hero hides his identity under a bloody mask, and solves the theft of a valuable diamond.
The next story is of a similar pulp hero, though he lasted four stories: the Purple Scar. Altus Press has collected all his stories. He’s a plastic surgeon who creates a mask based on the face of his murdered cop brother that had been scarred with acid. Here he deals with a crooked developer who is trying to run the poor out of their homes in a scheme to defraud the city.
A new Mr. Death story is next. Again, Altus Press has reprinted all the original Mr. Death stories, and this new one is set during the “revival” of the character. (The original stories had him dying at the end of the series.) And actually, I think this story is better than the original revival stories, and has Mr. Death wearing his proper hood and cloak, instead of the domino mask of the revivals. Sadly, Tom names the villian here after a pulp hero, which he also did in the prior Purple Scar story (Skull Killer and the Crimson Clown are pulp heroes). But he did this on purpose as a nod to these characters.
A classic pulp hero is in the next story under the name “Jungle Queen“. More of a vigenette, the Jungle Queen is more of an observer than an active participant in this story.
The final story is a long Ki-Gor story. And it’s actually the only one previously published. It appeared in a Wild Cat Book’s Ki-Gor collection. Ki-Gor was a long-running Tarzan knockoff, and Altus Press is reprinting his original stories. With Ki-Gor being in the public domain, writers can get away with writing Tarzan stories using the Ki-Gor character; that’s how this one started. It’s an interesting story of Ki-Gor’s adventures in a lost valley of dinosaurs and prehistoric men (shades of Edgar Rice Burrough‘s Caprona or Turok‘s Lost Valley), followed by a further adventure in a land of giant creatures.
Overall, this is another great collection of New Pulp stories of classic characters. Tom Johnson set out to write stories that are faithful to the originals, and of those I was familiar with, I think he succeeded.
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