Number 2488: Rex the Wonder Dog ain’t just a-woofin'

Rex the Wonder Dog is a super-smart dog we love to imagine. Dogs may astonish us sometimes, but they are not as smart as fiction makes out. Rex the Wonder Dog, for instance, can smell out evil. I understand that a dog’s smeller is one of nature’s marvels, but I’ll be dog-boned if evil is smellable. According to the Grand Comics Database (using editor Julius Schwartz’s records), the story was written by Robert Kanigher, and he endowed Rex with that ability. I haven't read beyond that story, which I read mostly because Alex Toth and Sy Barry did the artwork for this evil-sniffing anthropomorphic canine.

Oh, wait! I look again and see the story is titled “Trail of the Flower of Evil.” So there you go. The flower smells like evil. Puzzle solved!

The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #1, which is our source for the story, came out in 1952, and lasted 46 issues until 1959. 

Number 1885: The Phantom Stranger and the Moon ©ult

DC’s initial run of the title, Phantom Stranger, lasted six issues. It was another of Julius Schwartz’s books, and as I have mentioned with his equally short-lived Danger Trail, it may have had something to do with his newer titles of that era, Mystery In Space and Strange Adventures, both hits needing his close attention. Or, it could just be that Phantom Stranger, despite provocative covers and good art, just didn’t survive in a crowded comic book market. It is too late to ask any of the principals involved.

“The Three Signs of Evil” is by John Broome, drawn by Carmine Infantino, inked by Sy Barry and Joe Giella. The first thing that struck me was the "c" in the circle, which here is an evil sign, but is also the symbol for copyright, as in “Copyright © 1952 National Comics Publications, Inc.”

Unlike my example, the boilerplate indicia DC used in that day doesn't use the symbol. So, for the purposes of this posting an evil symbol it is, and forget I said anything.

From Phantom Stranger #2 (1952):

In 2012 I showed the debut of the Phantom Stranger. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1852: Writer of other worlds, Ed Hamilton

Alex Toth and Sy Barry drew “Artist of Other Worlds!” for Strange Adventures #13 (1951). Typical of comic books at that time the artists got no credit, but in an unusual turn, the writers did...at least in the early issues of the science fiction comics edited by Julius Schwartz. Edmond Hamilton is bylined as the author.

Hamilton had a long history of writing science fiction for pulp magazines. His first published story was published in Weird Tales in 1926,* and he remained popular with readers for his entire 50-year career. He went into comics when the pulp markets were drying up in the 1940s. (See the short article below the story, with quotes from Hamilton about his history with DC Comics.)

Hamilton, who had written Captain Future stories in the early forties, was invited into comic books after pulp editors Mort Weisinger, Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz moved from the pulps to the comic books. Comics seemed a natural for science fiction writers (Otto “Eando” Binder is another example), especially someone who had a reputation for writing stories about heroes who did extraordinary things. That was Hamilton’s history, and it made him a natural for comic books.

 *“Monster-God of Mamurth,“ which can be found here.

***********

“Fifty Years of Heroes” is an autobiographical piece written by Edmond Hamilton in 1976, and published  in Byron Preiss’s anthology series, Weird Heroes Volume 6. It went to press just after Hamilton’s death in early 1977. In the article Hamilton gives an entertaining view of his long career writing science fiction (including when he was known to fans as World-Saver Hamilton), and a brief history of his 20 years writing comic books. To quote the article:

    “In 1946 I heard again from Mort Weisinger. He had returned from his war service to take up his job again at National Comics Publications, as DC Comics were known at the time. He and Jack Schiff had left Standard Magazines in 1941 to work in the comics field, and later on Julie Schwartz had joined them at DC.

    “Mort wanted me to write comic scripts for DC magazines, to start with Batman. I had some doubts at first, as the format was quite different from fiction stories. In those days after the war, the pulp magazine market was very poor . . . I had to write a few very poor scripts before I began to catch on to the ways of comic writing.

    “For the first year or two, all my scripts for DC were Batman stories. Mort and Jack Schiff were the nicest guys in the world to work for, but they took their work seriously, and if I made a stupid error or scuffed over anything, they told me so at once, and loudly.

    “After a year or two I started to do Superman stories, also. I think I did better on Superman than Batman, simply because it was more science-fictional.

    “Julius Schwartz first edited the science fiction magazines at DC — Strange Adventures, Mystery in Space. . . I did a good many sf stories for those, and when I started doing them I thought, “This will be a breeze . . . writing for an old pal like Julie will be no trouble.” I was wrong! Friendship cut no ties when Julie read a story, and he was as strict with me as with anyone else. I guess that’s why he became one of the greatest editors in the business.

    “I wrote for DC Comics from 1946 to 1966. During that time, I was still writing science fiction and produced a good many sf books and magazine stories. When I resigned from comic work in 1966, it was only because Leigh [Hamilton’s wife, author and screenwriter Leigh Brackett] and I were about to go on some long-deferred world travels — to Egypt, India, and so on — and I would not be able to fill any schedules. But I always enjoyed working for the hero comics, particularly for such a great bunch of guys.”

Number 1251: Phantom Stranger makes his debut

The Phantom Stranger has a whole history with DC Comics, encapsulated in this Wikipedia entry. For our purposes today we're ignoring all of that to show you the first Phantom Stranger story from The Phantom Stranger #1 (1952).

[SPOILER ALERT] This is shown with a caveat: it's a story that appears to be supernatural but is shown to be a hoax. That was a basic trademark of DC's mystery comics line, which during the horror comics fad of the early '50s fell short of horror due to the debunking done in virtually every horror story. There's a fictional tradition of this type of mystery, and while a gimmick, it's a clever gimmick. For those who prefer their supernatural straight with no twists at the end to spoil the illusion, years later DC went full-bore into the supernatural, including the stories featuring this character.[END OF SPOILER]

This first series featuring The Phantom Stranger had a short run, just six issues. It was edited by Julius Schwartz.

This story is written by long-time DC scripter John Broome, and is drawn by Carmine Infantino and Sy Barry.

Number 937


I'd walk a camel for a mile


All American Western was the continuation of DC Comics' All American Comics. Western comics were popular in the late '40s and superheroes had lost their audience, so All American added "Western" to its banner and covered another genre entirely. This issue, #126, is the last under that title. In 1952 All American Western was canceled and replaced by All American Men of War, a title that lived on until 1966.

The last we see of Western action hero Johnny Thunder he and his girl are watching their horses return to them in the desert. They had just had an adventure with some Arab raiders on camels who tried to kill them. It's probably a story not likely to decrease tensions between our cultures. But camels in the Southwest, imported as pack animals, were a reality. The experiment of using them in the deserts of the United States territories just didn't work and by the Civil War the experiment was essentially over. As Western historian Will Bagley writes:

It wasn't that the camels couldn't adapt to the West; the West couldn't adapt to camels. They were not friendly animals, even to fellow camels, and they held grudges. Despite their bad temper and ability to spit the contents of their stomachs with the accuracy of a Kentucky marksman, it was camel stench that helped do them in. Odor usually was not an issue for Western muleskinners, but the slightest whiff of camel stench played havoc with a mule train. Sometime in 1865, camels stampeded a pack train bound for Missoula and turned the whiskey-bound town's Fourth of July celebration into Montana mud. It was not long before camels were banished from northern mining camps.

Their vast advantage as pack animals notwithstanding, it was America's affection for horses that doomed Western camel caravans. Camels and their legends long survived among the boomtowns and ranches of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah. A grizzled sideshow camel with a U.S. brand turned up in San Antonio in 1903. Arizona declared camels extinct in 1913, but hunters reported seeing them in the desert around Yuma into the 1950s.

As interesting as the history is, and it probably influenced this Johnny Thunder episode, it wasn't noted by the writer or editor Julius Schwartz, who loved to drop these types of facts into stories in the form of footnotes.

"Phantoms of the Desert" is written by Robert Kanigher, drawn by Carmine Infantino and Seymour Barry, from All American Western #126, 1952.

Number 721


Alan Ladd, Star of stage, screen and comic books


Alan Ladd, an actor popular in the 1940s and '50s, had a comic book series from DC that went for nine issues in 1949 and '50.

In the comics Ladd was presented as what he was, a movie star, albeit a star who got into adventures apart from his movie career. According to the Grand Comics Database, "The Damascus Diamond," from Alan Ladd #1, is drawn by Joe Certa and Sy Barry. It takes its plot from The Maltese Falcon. Ladd's comic book co-stars story remind me of Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor.