Sunday, March 26, 2017

THE BLACK BAT #3: THE BLACK BAT’S SPY TRAIL

The cowled Black Bat is one of my favorite pulp magazine crime-fighters. He’s part Batman and part Two-Face and part Matt Murdock of Marvel Comics fame. Attacked with acid while prosecuting a vile criminal, District Attorney Tony Quinn is known to be scarred from the attack and thought to be blind. But his vision was restored to him and enhanced. Now he fights murderous evildoers with his aides Carol, Silk and Butch.

The Black Bat #3: The Black Bat’s Spy Trail and Captains of Death  [$14.95; March 2016] features two book-length Black Bat adventures from the March 1940 and May 1943 issues of Black Book Detective. These stories are written by the prolific Norman Daniels under the Thrilling Publications house name of “G. Wayman Jones.” Here are the title page blurbs for each of these novels.

The Black Bat’s Spy Trail:

Battling valiantly against sabotage, wholesale murder and espionage, the nocturnal champion of the victims of crime flies into the Valley of Death - ready to fight grim traitors bullet for bullet and blow for blow!

Captains of Death:

When the diabolical Dr, Mars and a sinister crew of saboteurs stalk, the Black Bat and his allies go all out to exterminate the Nazi rats who plot destruction!

In “The Belfry,” author and pulp historian Will Murray’s discusses how the Black Bat proved himself very adaptable, switching from his domestic criminal foes to the Nazis and their ilk. In the earlier of this issue’s two novels, the villains were not explicitly called Nazis. Two years later, that wasn’t a concern.

Publisher Anthony Tollin adds the informative content of this book with “The Mask of Kin Platt,” the writer/artist who took over the Mask comic-book series - the name change was part of a deal struck with DC Comics over the similarities between Batman and the Black Bat - with the July 1940 issue of Exciting Comics. Finishing out this volume is that six-page comics story.

Sanctum always delivers considerable bang for your bucks. It’s why I recommend their books so highly and so often.

ISBN 978-1-60877-201-8

Keep reading the bloggy thing for more information on Sanctum Books publications.




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