‘The Moon Man: Showdown on the Plains’

The Moon Man is an interesting pulp hero that several have written new stories for.

Not your traditional pulp hero, The Moon Man is sometimes called the “Robin Hood of the pulps,” as he steals from the unjust rich during the Great Depression, distributing the money to the needy of Great City. He is really Det. Sgt. Stephen Thatcher, who is the son of Police Chief Peter Thatcher. This gives a great deal of tension in the series as he must avoid giving away who he is, as it will destroy more than just his life. As The Moon Man, Stephen Thatcher disguised his features beneath a one–way Argus glass globe, hence the name.

He is helped by his loyal aide, former boxer Ned “Angel” Dargan and his fiance, Sue McEwen, the daughter of the man sworn to capture him, his own boss, Lt. Det. Gil McEwen, in distributing money to those in need.

Created by pulp author Frederick C. Davis, The Moon Man’s exploits appeared in the pages of Ten Detective Aces, published by Ace, for 38 stories from 1933–37. With the character in the public domain, several have written new stories, some where he mets other pulp heroes. This time Erwin K. Roberts tries his hand in The Moon Man: Showdown in the Plains, put out under his own Modern Knights Press. Full disclosure, I was sent a copy of the book.

At first glance, the story seems to take its inspiration from the “Black Police” trilogy of The Spider. Using what seems to be legal means, an outside group takes over Great City due to the plans of a local mastermind. The police chief is removed, the captains and most lieutenants are replaced by corrupt Chicago PD cops. Steven finds himself on desk duty, being observed. And the bad guys work to setup phone monitoring and try to shutdown the local paper.

The Moon Man has his job cut out for him, but does have help. Frank Havens, owner of the Clarion newspaper chain, “buys” the local paper to help in the fight. He is a major character from The Phantom Detective. Angel and Sue can’t help him, but he starts to put together an informal team, a kind of “gang of merry men” since The Moon Man is kind of “Robin Hood.” This includes a engineer with a connection to a classic character who has built a new kind of airship, a motorcycle cop that has a strange tricked-out silenced motorcycle, and a female archer who takes the name of Atalanta.

This is a great read. While not a traditional Moon Man story, it is true to The Moon Man who sometimes had to go after criminal gangs in his original stories. I wonder if any of what happens here ties to the world of Robert’s own pulp character, The Voice. Will the new characters he created come back in other stories? And when we’ll get that promised third volume of The Voice?