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Comic Strip Pulp heroes/Pulp Heroes

18:53 / 19.09.05

What is the story with the Shadow? He was one of my Dad's favorite crime fighters but I really don't know much about him other than he was created by an actual magician.
Who is the Phantom? Why is he the Ghost that walks among men?
Are there any other heros of yesteryear that I am missing? Any extra info on Doc Savage would be appreciated.

19:04 / 19.09.05

The Shadow of the radio plays was millionaire playboy Lamont Cranston who visited the Hidden East at some point and learned the arts of mental mysticism: fancy psychic powers to do with hiding stuff. By the end of the radio plays it was revealed that Cranston wasn't The Shadow but an alias being used by presumed dead WWI spy-ace Kent Allard (while the real Cranston travelled the world).

Doc Savage is the prototype for Superman (along with Hugo Danner). Doc was raised transcendant scientist-mentor parents to be the pinnacle of human potential. Raised on a strict diet of science, education and torturous physical exercise. Doc was simply the best at everything. He fought crime from his laboratory headquarters on the 86th floor of the Emprie State Building with his five loyal sidekicks and sometimes his equally brilliant cousin Patricia Savage. Doc was shy around women and occasionally made a weird whistling bird noise when he got intriguied by something.

19:19 / 19.09.05

Before being a radio series, the Shadow was a series of novels by Walter Gibson, written under the name "Maxwell Grant." Gibson was indeed a stage magician, as well as a newspaper journalist. The Shadow's power was basically hypnosis-slash-invisibility, and he had a bunch of assistants.

The Doc Savage novels were written by Lester Dent, aka "kenneth Robeson." ThePulp.net is a great source for info about these two. Unfortunately, info about Doc & the Shadow is kind of scarce on the Web, because the rights-holders (Street & Smith Publications) sent out a shitload of cease & desist letters a couple of years ago, when there was a Doc Savage movie in development.

The Phantom had his origins not in the pulps, but in the comic strips. He was created by Lee Falk, who also created Mandrake the Magician. Conceptually, the Phantom is kind of a mess: he's a mish-mash of about a dozen boy's-adventure archetypes—a white adventurer who lives in a skull-shaped cave in the jungles of Africa and is served by a native tribe and wears a purple leotard and a mask and is a crack shot and rides a white horse and has a trained wolf and wears a ring that leaves a skull imprinted on the bad guys' jaws when he punches them. Oh, and he fights pirates.

And he's part of a dynasty. Being The Phantom is a family job, passed down from father to son for hundreds of years, but creating the illusion that it's just one very long-lived guy... or a vengeful spirit. Hence "The Ghost Who Walks."

The strip is still being published in newspapers all over the world, and the character is still quite popular in Europe, especially Scandinavia, despite being totally bugfuck retarded.

19:20 / 19.09.05

Better question: What made them so great? Individually, what does each bring to the archetypical/popcult table?

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

20:29 / 19.09.05

I'd recommend Don Hutchinson's book "The Great Pulp Heroes" to know what made them so great. They were...man. Damn.

Me? I love G-8 and Operator #5. I don't know why. Well, and John Carter and Tarzan. But then again Burroughs rocks.

I think that the pulp heroes just aren't something we see a lot of these days. They're stories that didn't worry about being realistic, or really sensical at times. There were seldom issues of continuity, and they heroes were larger than life but at the same time not reaching the silliness of stuff like The Authority and JLA.

I still have another 5 John Carter books to read...

miss wonderstarr

20:40 / 19.09.05

Planetary had interesting metatextual comment on these pulp heroes as I remember... weren't they effectively killed off by a type of Justice League, or Silver Age hero, in a metaphor of team conflict as genre evolution. Could... reach... for Planetary tpb... but... too... lazy

21:30 / 19.09.05

Exactly. PLANETARY #1 had analogues of Doc Savage, Tarzan, The Shadow, G-8, Operator 5, Tom Swift, and Fu Manchu in mortal combat with thinly-disguised versions of the JLA's classic "Big 7"—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, The Flash, and Green Lantern.

miss wonderstarr

21:38 / 19.09.05

I think the idea there was that the pulp heroes are archetypes, or rather direct prototypes, of the Silver Age league.

In the pages where the pulp heroes clash with the sorta-JLA, the African explorer (Tarzan) is battling the Amazon (Wonder Woman), the scientist is zapping the Barry Allen variant, "Doc Savage" is head to head with "Superman", the Shadow/Spider is engaged with the Batman character and the Fu Manchu "alien other" is scrapping with the Martian Manhunter.

This is all explained with far more intelligence and in far more depth in a book I have recommended many times, Geoff Klock's How to Read Superhero Comics and Why. I'm just remembering some stuff from his early chapter here.

As I recall though from other sources, The Spider actually was one of the influences on Batman. I'm pretty sure this is all detailed in James Van Hise's book Batmania II, which unfortunately is on a high shelf that I can't reach from this chair.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

05:02 / 20.09.05

It'd make sense. The Spider was...quirky. Very, very quirky. According to Ellis from Planetary #1 script: "Like Batman, but without the mood stabilizers".

A

06:17 / 20.09.05

The Phantom could perhaps be considered to be the first comic book superhero. He doesn't have any super powers, but he's got a skin-tight outfit, a mask, an emblem, abilities beyond those of normal men, and fights crime. He first appeared a year or two before Superman did, if I remember correctly.

12:09 / 20.09.05

Grr- don't you be talkin' about the Phantom! He doesn't rule the pygmies- he just lives there. The little fat bastard with the lampshade on his head is the chief.
I recommend Phillip José Farmer's "A Feast Unknown", "Lord Tyger", "Tarzan Alive", "Flight to Opar", and "Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life" to anyone getting into the pulp heroes. Also his bizarre short story "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod", where he retells the story of Tarzan as written not by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but by... you guessed it, William S Burroughs.
There was a Doc Savage movie by George Pal (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds), which is either awful or classic, or both, depending on your taste.
There was also The Avenger, who, because of emotional trauma suffered in a personal tragedy, had a face of eerie, clay-like consistency which could be molded to resemble other people, which he used in the usual one-man war on crime.
Superman did borrow from Doc Savage, they both were named Clark and had a Fortress of Solitude on the polar ice caps.
Man of Bronze, Man of Steel...
There was an old Batman story where he met The Shadow and worked on a case with him- afterwards The Shadow left him a pair of his silver-plated Colt .45's for his trophy room.

12:42 / 20.09.05

Any Lady Pulp?

13:35 / 20.09.05

Chad, I believe The Spider's Nina Sloan filled in for her fearsome fang-faced beau in a number of stories while he was captured or otherwise up shit creek.

Most ladies: generally confined to titcake cheeseshots on the front cover.

13:39 / 20.09.05

Then where does Moore's "Cobweb" come from?

13:49 / 20.09.05

iirc Edgar Rice Burrough's female characters were particularly bad: very much the damsel in distress school of writing. Despite this the Barsoom series is still well worth reading, and mostly available on Project Gutenburg.
Has anyone read any of the Bulldog Drummond series? Ridiculously dated, and much less fantastical than the above, but entertaining none the less, though often you are laughing at it, ratherthan with it. Possibly though discussion of the latter is best suited to the Books forum.

A beautiful tunnel of ghosts

13:54 / 20.09.05

AFAIK, Moore's Cobweb is a homage to the Phantom Lady, Lady Luck, et al.

14:37 / 20.09.05

I’m loving this thread (cause I've always liked those old pulp heroes). Whatever happened to the Doc Savage movie that was rumored to happen several years ago?

15:00 / 20.09.05

Still in development hell: as of 2000, Schwarzenegger was briefly attached, so perhaps it's a mercy the whole thing has gone into turnaround.

miss wonderstarr

15:02 / 20.09.05

There was an old Batman story where he met The Shadow and worked on a case with him- afterwards The Shadow left him a pair of his silver-plated Colt .45's for his trophy room.

You would think that Batman wouldn't accept a pair of guns for a trophy room.

Are Being Stolen By Bandits

15:25 / 20.09.05

The strip is still being published in newspapers all over the world, and the character is still quite popular in Europe, especially Scandinavia

This is very true - I recently moved to Oslo, and it's nigh-on impossible to go into a newsagent's or a supermarket here without seeing at least a couple of Fantomet books on the shelf - I've never actually bothered to check if they're new stories or 'classic' reprints, and should probably do so, because I regularly wonder. I suspect the latter, since reprints of old Modesty Blaise stories are similarly popular here.

15:40 / 20.09.05

Mm. I have a deep admiration for the Norwegian people in many ways, but the Phantom's continued popularity amongst them makes me wonder if perhaps something is Not Quite Right in the national psyche.

I mean, World War II ended sixty years ago. Yes, I wake up every day thankful for my freedom, but that doesn't mean that I listen to Kate Smith records all day.

18:09 / 20.09.05

Yeah, having Captain America still fighting Nazis is COMPLETELY NORMAL.

18:20 / 20.09.05

Fear, if you wake up in some grim alley with a skull-shaped scar on your jaw and fragmentary memories of a dark, growling stranger with a lightning-fast right jab, then you'll know I've gotten to you. And finally used the ring I've treasured, lo, these many years.

----

I'm under the impression that The Shadow's dame was a bit more active than many other pulp molls. Lois Kent? Was that her name? No, no... Margot Lane. I've only read *about* her, but I seem to recall mention of one story where she does all the crime fighting on Lamont's behalf.

----

How old is Zorro?

18:44 / 20.09.05

How old is Zorro?

Older by just a decade over most of these guys. 1919 or 1920, I think.

Yeah. Sure enough. 1919.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorro

The Fox has always been one of my favorites. Does anybody know if Isabel Allende's Zorro: A Novel, and all the backstory fill-in she does, is any good?

18:51 / 20.09.05

Quite the jackpot source here, created by the guy who does the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations.

The Pulp Heroes: Introduction

I'd totally forgotten about the Black Hood. Wasn't there several revamps by DC or Marvel in the 90s to resuscitate the Black Hood, The Fly, the Jaguar and a couple of other pulpy heroes?

19:00 / 20.09.05

By Warren Ellis standards, does that mean Doc Savage killed Alan Quartermain? And did Alan Quartermain kill Davey Crockett? Who killed the 3 Musketeers?

20:40 / 20.09.05

You would think that Batman wouldn't accept a pair of guns for a trophy room.

He took Grifter's (WildCATS.) Maybe he only takes guns from parallel universes.

04:13 / 21.09.05

So tell me about G-8 and Operator #5. Great names.

07:42 / 21.09.05

Hieronymus: I'm a big Zorro fan as well, and have been ever since I saw the Tyrone Power film as a child. The Allende novel is quite entertaining if extremely frothy.
I'm not so keen on the introduction of Zorro's native american heritage just because I always thought that his aristocratic background was a major part of his character. It does make a certain amount of narrative sense though.
If you can pick it up at library, go ahead, but I'd be more wary about shelling out cash for it, especially in hardback.

11:44 / 21.09.05

The Shadow wanted Bats to use them. I think Bruce was just keeping them to be polite, who knows what Cranston's like when he gets huffy...

20:52 / 21.09.05

G-8 was, as I recall, a heroic pilot in the Sky Captain mold, albeit with a less fancy plane.

Operator #5 was the world's best spy before Bond drank his first martini.

22:13 / 21.09.05

This started with ladypulp considerations and spiraled off into random notes.
I could've sworn I'd thrown Grace Culver in here, but apparently not. Back-up to the Shadow: detective/secretary, nosey, redhead, liked chocolate and actually got to damage people, which was somehow something even violent women in pulps usually needed a guy to do for them.
Anyhow, Margot Lane of 'The Shadow' fame actually did get to be usefully heroic once in a bit, which was rare for the era and genre.
Same for Deja Thoris and many of the women from Burroughs' Mars tales.
Pat Savage from the Doc Savage adventures was usually useful and often shooting someone.
Jane from the Tarzan stuff was entirely useless and that's not just a childhood bias. Philip Farmer's bit about her getting jealous of Tarzan getting it on with a big cat might be the most enjoyable I've ever found her.
Were there women in 'The Phantom'? Somehow, at least in the Lee Falk strips, I don't really remember a whole lot other than very temporary appearances in distress and/or bondage.
Chaykin's Shadow comic was interesting, but I don't know that I really enjoy it as a continuity thing. That I'm troubled - even slightly - by how something sits in continuity, proves I might need to be shot for my own good.
Warren Ellis outdid himself on the pulp hero reiterations. That Spider/Shadow/Green Hornet was far beyond what I'd expected. Better than the western stuff from the same issue, which was also pretty top notch.

09:44 / 22.09.05

Yeah, the Green Hornet's original incarnation was during the Pulp Era.
The Phantom had Diana Palmer, who was always a scrappy tomboy adventuress, and Sala, Queen of the aviatrix air pirates, and they all needed a damn good spanking! Yes, spanking was to the Phantom as bondage was to Wonder Woman. Spoiled princesses, dragon ladies, pirate queens, voodoo witches, all would be taken over the big purple guy's knee and firmly paddled, after which they would invariably fall in love with him. See, rehabilitation without any of Doc Savage's bloody brain surgery! Heroes these days are just too afraid to take the belt to the bottom of EVIL! Alright, I think I've calmed down now.