{"id":497,"date":"2013-10-30T10:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=497"},"modified":"2022-05-17T16:48:36","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T20:48:36","slug":"review-mystery-men-women-vol-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2013\/10\/30\/review-mystery-men-women-vol-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: ‘Mystery Men (& Women) Vol. 3’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MysteryHere is the third volume of Airship 27<\/a>‘s “Mystery Men (& Women).”<\/p>\n

With this one we get four New Pulp<\/a> characters. There are a couple of differences with this collection.<\/p>\n

One is that three of the characters are non-white. This has become a minor trend in the New Pulp movement by some writers, to create non-white (black, Asian, etc) pulp characters, often set in the 1930s and ’40s, as there were few at the time, and fewer who were heroic.<\/p>\n

The second is that one of the stories focuses on a pulp villain<\/em>, instead of a hero. This was a continuation of a trend in the “villain pulps,” which focus on the villain Some were Fu Manchu<\/strong> clones (Wu Fang<\/strong>, Yen Sin<\/strong>), others were more original (Dr. Death<\/strong>, Octopus\/Spider<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The four characters featured in “Mystery Men (& Women), Vol. 4” are:<\/p>\n

The Skein<\/strong>, a black World War I veteran who takes on voodoo magic in New Orleans. The Skein had been involved in counter-spy work, and somehow (not explained) can speak to the dead. He must deal with a character called the Plague Priest<\/strong>, who has turned some people into zombies. While I found the character interesting, I thought there were some problems with the story. The local cops were a little too ready to assist The Skein, I thought; and the villain and his goals weren’t very well explained.<\/p>\n

The Brown Recluse<\/strong> is our New Pulp villain introduced here. The Brown Recluse is a mad scientist who wants to impose a technocratic rule on people. He is opposed by another scientist and a private detective, in the style of actor Ralph Byrd<\/strong>. While the villain is defeated, it’s hinted he may return.<\/p>\n

Kiri<\/strong>, a female samurai, deals with villains in New York. (She’s a double whammy: Asian and female). She is in pursuit of a villain who killed her father\/sensei and clan. While the story is a standalone, it could easily be a series, as there was no final confrontation.<\/p>\n

Mongrel<\/strong> appears in the second chapter of Derrick Ferguson<\/strong>‘s modern black hero, continued from the second volume of this series (and will be continued soon, maybe in the next volume).<\/p>\n

Overall, another good volume. I look forward to the next one. However, I did notice several typos and mess-ups, which is sadly a problem with some New Pulp publishers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is the third volume of Airship 27‘s “Mystery Men (& Women).” With this one we get four New Pulp characters. There are a couple of differences with this collection. One is that three of the characters are non-white. This has become a minor trend in the New Pulp movement by some writers, to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan reviews 'Mystery Men (& Women) Vol. 3.' #newpulp http:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-81","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[7,1,14],"tags":[84,3,865,15],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-pulp","category-pulps","category-review","tag-airship-27","tag-hero-pulps","tag-mystery-men-women","tag-villain-pulps"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2013\/07\/mystery-men-women-vol-3.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-81","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13396,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/13396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}