Once again, Airship 27 assembles a great collection of new short stories of a classic pulp hero with “Black Bat Mystery, Vol. 2.”
For those not familiar, the Black Bat was a lesser known pulp hero, but still well remembered. The Black Bat wore a costume similar to Batman, who came out around the same time.
Unlike what is shown in most original pulp artwork, he has a full face mask (the cover and interior artwork of this collection correctly shows this).
What makes the Black Bat most interesting is that he was really former District Attorney Tony Quinn, who was blinded when a criminal threw a vial of acid in his face (shades of Two-Face). A secret procedure gave him the eyes of a slain police officer, and he was able to see in the dark. This, added to his heightened senses from when he was blind gave him a clear advantage over his foes.
He is aided by Carol Baldwin (daughter of that slain cop), who is a possible love interest, and two reformed criminals: “Silk” Kirby, a former con artist, and Butch O’Leary, a former pugilist. There is also Capt. McGrath, who is sure that Tony is really the Black Bat, and tries to prove he can really see. This provides a little comic relief in the stories.
This collection has four stories by several experienced New Pulp authors.
The first story pits the Black Bat against Nazi spies and a deadly poison. This is a good, solid Black Bat story, and introduces the main characters in this series.
The second story pits the Black Bat against “Super-Detective” Jim Anthony, another public-domain pulp character, in a story dealing with dirty cops. This is written by Joshua Reynolds, who has written several Jim Anthony stories for Airship 27, Black Coat Press and now Pro Se Press.
How Jim Anthony was handled in this story somewhat puzzled me. Set in 1940, it is said that Anthony is retired. That makes no sense, as his original stories were published from 1940-43. Unless the author is trying to say his published adventures happened much earlier than that. Also, there was a scene with Anthony kind of “passing the torch” to the Black Bat, as if the Black Bat represented the “new generation” of such heroes as compared to Anthony. But the thing is, both the Bat and Anthony are part of the same generation of pulp heroes. The Bat actually started a year before Anthony. So didn’t quite make sense to me.
The third story moves the Black Bat outside of his usual haunts, being set in a small town in New York State. His aides aren’t there to help him either, as he deals with a town plagued by what seems to be enemy planes. But it’s all a plot of the main villain, who gets away at the end. A good setup for a return in the future.
The fourth story is an interesting one that brings in baseball (and baseball scandals), with a criminal kingpin trying to horn in on owning a baseball team. This gave it a different feel from the usual gangster/Nazi stories we see too often in new pulp stories.
This is another good collection from Airship 27. I hope we see a third collection soon.
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