Pulp Comics: Justice Inc.

With the arrival of the new Avenger comic-book series, I thought it would be a good idea to take a closer look at the previous comic-book stories staring this Street & Smith pulp character.

For those not aware, The Avenger was another attempt to find a successful character such as The Shadow and Doc Savage; this time by combining elements of both characters.

Richard Henry Benson is an exceptional individual with a wide range of skills and talents. When his wife and young daughter are killed by criminals, he sets out to avenge his loss, aided by a small group of others who have experienced similar losses. Banding together as “Justice Inc.” they set out to assist others.

One of the things that set The Avenger apart was his white hair and malleable, white skin, caused by the shock of his loss. Will Murray has stated that The Avenger was part of the “third wave” of pulp heroes who were more colorful than prior ones, seemingly taking their cue from the more colorful comic-book characters.

It is interesting that a character whose form seemed inspired by comic-book characters has actually not been very successful in comic books!

The Avenger’s first appearance in comic books was in backup stories of Street & Smith‘s own comics. I had heard that an Avenger comic book was planned, and when those plans canceled, what was already done was put into other titles. Most of these stories, if not all, usually about eight pages, were mainly adaptations of pulp stories. And most were pretty bad, due in no small part to S&S basically farming the work out to outside studios.

Among The Avenger stories in S&S comic books were:

• Shadow Comics, Vol. 1, No. 2-6, 1940 (No. 2, “Yellow Horde”; No. 3″Death in the Glass Mountain”; Nos. 4 & 5, “Frosted Death”; No. 6, “The Mysterious Ray”)
• Army & Navy Comics, No. 3, 1941 (“House of Death”)
• Doc Savage Comics, No. 16 (Vol. 2, No. 4) 1943 (“The Secret Formula”)
• Super-Magician Comics, Vol. 3, No. 7, 1944 (“The Smiling Dog”)

If some know which stories were original, that will help. The limitations of the comics are clear. In most cases, his aides don’t appear, or are limited (say, appearing only in the first story), nor does The Avenger look as he should in most of them. “The Yellow Horde” is where Nellie Gray joined Justice Inc. She appears in the story, but does not join. In “The Secret Formula,” Josh Newton appears in one panel, but doesn’t appear in any other story. It’s mainly Mac and Smitty helping The Avenger.

I did find many of these stories in scanned form online for those who may wish to check them out:

• Shadow Comics No. 2
• Shadow Comics No. 4
• Shadow Comics No. 5
• Shadow Comics No. 6
• Army & Navy Comics No. 3
• Doc Savage Comics No. 16

In the 1970s, DC Comics got the rights to The Shadow and soon got the rights to The Avenger as well. They had The Avenger co-star in an issue of The Shadow (No. 11), most likely to drum up support of their new Avenger comic, which was titled Justice Inc. to avoid issues with Marvel’s The Avengers. This title lasted four issues and was canceled by the end of 1975.

This series first adapted The Avenger novels “Justice Inc.” and “The Sky Walker,” then went to original stories. They had his aides, and had The Avenger use Mike and Ike. They had him wearing the same outfit we see on the covers of the Warner Paperback Library paperback reprints. (Warner Communications owned DC). Sadly, they had Jack Kirby do the artwork from the second issue on. While I love Kirby, I don’t think his style really fit the title.

In the 1980s, DC Comics again had The Shadow, and soon did The Avenger as well. Just as they had updated The Shadow to modern times, they did the same with The Avenger, but with poor results.

They first had The Avenger appear in a couple of issues of The Shadow Nos. 16 and 17. This lead into a two-issue Justice Inc. mini. They revealed a new origin for The Avenger, showing that he was basically created by a secret government group called “The Agency” so they would have an agent who could change his appearance. They also had all his aides basically becoming corrupted CIA agents. The whole thing was sad.

When DC did their recent “First Wave” series, they had the rights to The Avenger and again used him. If you thought their previous use of The Avenger was bad, this time it was worse.

They first had The Avenger show in in the First Wave mini, making it seem that he could change his appearance just by thinking of it (in the pulps he had to mold his face with his fingers, plus use makeup to cover up his white skintone). Here, he mainly impersonated Doc’s dead father, to lure the bad guys out.

Then he got a backup feature in Doc’s comic that lasted through issue No. 9. This take was very poor, making the characters more crime-noirish than pulpish, and making radical changes to his aides. They turned Justice Inc. into basically a skid-row pro bono detective agency on Times Square, and made the Avenger driven by vengeance to a degree not seen in the pulps.  As noted, they made changes in his aides that included their names and backgrounds.  They made Josh a gambling addict, and gave Smitty a criminal background, and it looked like they turned Nellie Gray, a blonde, into an Asian. A later one-shot special was done that starred Doc and The Avenger that was a little better, as it was written by the same author of the backup series.

Now we are getting a new comic from Dynamite by Michael Uslan that teams up The Avenger with The Shadow and Doc Savage, and somehow tie them in to The Avenger’s origin. This will be the first time all three characters are together. Hopefully this will lead to a stand-alone Avenger comic.  It will remain to be seen how well they do The Avenger this time.