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The Avenger #6
The Blood Ring
An ancient Egyptian ring, pale red until dipped in living blood. Then its 600-year-old cure is renewed and a great museum becomes a killing ground. Can The Avenger stop the curse, or will he become its final victim?
In the roaring heart of the crucible, steel is made. In the raging flame of personal tragedy, men are sometimes forged into something more than human.
It was so with Dick Benson. He had been a man. After the dread loss inflicted on him by an inhuman crime ring, he became a machine of vengeance dedicated to the extermination of all other crime rings.
He turned into the the person we know now: A figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both; A mechanism of whipcord and flame; A symbol to crooks and killers; A terrible, almost impersonal force, masking chill genius and super normal power behind a face as white and dead as a mask from the grave. Only his pale eyes, like ice in a polar dawn, hint at the deadliness of the scourge the underworld heedlessly invoked against itself when crime's greed turned millionaire adventurer Richard Benson into The Avenger.
In the roaring heart of the crucible, steel is made. In the raging flame of personal tragedy, men are sometimes forged into something more than human.
It was so with Dick Benson. He had been a man. After the dread loss inflicted on him by an inhuman crime ring, he became a machine of vengeance dedicated to the extermination of all other crime rings.
He turned into the the person we know now: A figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both; A mechanism of whipcord and flame; A symbol to crooks and killers; A terrible, almost impersonal force, masking chill genius and super normal power behind a face as white and dead as a mask from the grave. Only his pale eyes, like ice in a polar dawn, hint at the deadliness of the scourge the underworld heedlessly invoked against itself when crime's greed turned millionaire adventurer Richard Benson into The Avenger.
158 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
44 people want to read
About the author
Kenneth Robeson
917 books134 followersKenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular character Doc Savage and later The Avenger. Though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent, there were many others who contributed to the series, including:
William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson
Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.
All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.
William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson
Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.
All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 26, 2020
As a long-time Doc Savage fan, I’ve always been interested in this other series, The Avenger. That’s probably due to the author’s pseudonym used on both series, Kenneth Robeson. When I first started reading Doc books as a youngster, I had no idea what a house name was or that more than one person had authored them, so I naturally assumed the same guy had written both series. Anyway, it wasn’t until about two years ago that I finally read the first in The Avenger series and even though it wasn’t quite a “Doc” yarn, there were many, many similarities and it was still pretty good. While a lot of reviewers don’t care for them as much, now that I’ve read the first six, I can honestly say that I quite enjoy them.
This novel describes how Richard Benson (The Avenger) and his team deal with a mysterious Egyptian mummy cult where it appears an actual 4,000-year-old mummy comes to life, walks and talks, and generally causes museum security guards to panic and flee. There is also a curse, (of course) that speaks of a ring that must be dipped in fresh blood every 48 hours or else the ring's owner will die. All members of the team get into the action, some of them perilously so, until Benson is able to uncover what is really happening and explains the technology behind the curse and the mummy.
This is the first story in the series, as I recall, that doesn’t go into any details regarding the origin of Richard Benson, especially his eerie ability to mold his face into any shape he needs for disguises. Here, it merely mentions a “dramatic event” that caused it. I suppose the first five times were enough for readers to know the tale, at least for those reading the books in order. Thus, I would recommend readers begin with book one in the series, Justice, Inc. and then proceed. The rest of the first 12 books can be read in any order but the thirteenth sees a major change to the Richard Benson character as well as the introduction of a new team member so I suggest those be read after the first set of twelve.
This novel describes how Richard Benson (The Avenger) and his team deal with a mysterious Egyptian mummy cult where it appears an actual 4,000-year-old mummy comes to life, walks and talks, and generally causes museum security guards to panic and flee. There is also a curse, (of course) that speaks of a ring that must be dipped in fresh blood every 48 hours or else the ring's owner will die. All members of the team get into the action, some of them perilously so, until Benson is able to uncover what is really happening and explains the technology behind the curse and the mummy.
This is the first story in the series, as I recall, that doesn’t go into any details regarding the origin of Richard Benson, especially his eerie ability to mold his face into any shape he needs for disguises. Here, it merely mentions a “dramatic event” that caused it. I suppose the first five times were enough for readers to know the tale, at least for those reading the books in order. Thus, I would recommend readers begin with book one in the series, Justice, Inc. and then proceed. The rest of the first 12 books can be read in any order but the thirteenth sees a major change to the Richard Benson character as well as the introduction of a new team member so I suggest those be read after the first set of twelve.
May 12, 2023
Written by Paul Ernst. Reincarnated priests from Ancient Egypt and a powerful mystic blood ring makes things difficult for The Avenger and his aides, leading to an inevitable death trap and the revealing of the evil man behind it all.
January 2, 2020
One of the better Avenger books. It starts slow and then picks up about 1/3 of the way through. It will keep you guessing until the end.
January 11, 2023
An obvious Doc Savage knock off: self-plagiarizing. Even so, it's a fun series. And had rather progressive attitudes towards Blacks.
December 13, 2015
The Avenger, Richard Benson, was one of the greatest pulp crime-fighters. He and his band of associates comprised Justice, Inc., and, armed with keen gadgets, clear genius, stout hearts, good humor, and the force of right set forth from their Bleek Street headquarters to thwart evil, defend goodness, and protect American society. The adventures were published as "by Kenneth Robeson, the creator of Doc Savage," (which may have led to the perception that The Avenger was something of a second-rate Doc), though the originals were actually written by Paul Ernst and then continued by Ron Goulart many years later. Armed with Mike & Ike, a very special knife and gun, Benson was teamed with Mac and Smitty (analogous to Monk and Ham from the Doc Savage series) from the beginning, and then joined by blonde and diminutive Nellie Grey (who could definitely have held her own with Pat Savage or Nita van Slaon) in the second book, Josh and Rosabel Newton, perhaps the best-depicted African-American couple from the era in The Sky Walker, and light-hearted Cole Wilson in the thirteenth adventure. The stories were well-paced and exciting and very well-written for the context of the era. Benson's origin, as recounted in Justice, Inc., the first story, was similar to Bruce Wayne's in that the loss of his family spurred his decision to fight crime; his wealth and physical prowess allowed him to do so. The loss of his wife and daughter resulted in a weird facial
deformity that made his skin lose its pigmentation and left it malleable like wax so that he could reform it and made him "the man of a thousand faces"; the loss of this ability in the thirteenth novel was a downturn in the series. The series continued for a second dozen adventures in the 1940's, and then revived for a third dozen in the 1970's when Warner Books had Goulart continue the series for another dozen volumes after they put out the first two dozen in paperback. It was a fun and thrill-packed intelligent series, more down-to-Earth than the Doc Savage books and much less crazy than The Spider series.
deformity that made his skin lose its pigmentation and left it malleable like wax so that he could reform it and made him "the man of a thousand faces"; the loss of this ability in the thirteenth novel was a downturn in the series. The series continued for a second dozen adventures in the 1940's, and then revived for a third dozen in the 1970's when Warner Books had Goulart continue the series for another dozen volumes after they put out the first two dozen in paperback. It was a fun and thrill-packed intelligent series, more down-to-Earth than the Doc Savage books and much less crazy than The Spider series.
June 12, 2016
Washington, D.C. has never seen anything quite like it. Ghosts of ancient Egyptian priests, or are they reincarnations? Mummies that talk, and seemingly walk. An ancient ring that grants great power to the owner, if recharged in the blood of sacrificial victims!
It's a heady mix, and the Avenger calls the members of Justice, Inc. to support him in unravelling this mystery. The author skirts as near as he dares to outright horror fiction (the powers of the ring are never actually disproven) without going over. And some of the "scientific explanation" is pretty dubious itself.)
Great fun, but perhaps best read in a dark room at night for best effect.
Check out more pulp reviews here: http://www.skjam.com/tag/pulp/
It's a heady mix, and the Avenger calls the members of Justice, Inc. to support him in unravelling this mystery. The author skirts as near as he dares to outright horror fiction (the powers of the ring are never actually disproven) without going over. And some of the "scientific explanation" is pretty dubious itself.)
Great fun, but perhaps best read in a dark room at night for best effect.
Check out more pulp reviews here: http://www.skjam.com/tag/pulp/
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 26, 2015
As usual, a generally entertaining pulp story filled with super crooks doing endless odd crimes only to be stopped by our heroic Avenger. I read them for the shear fun of it.
March 21, 2019
Much like Doc Savage the Avenger fights crime with the help of his aids. While the stories aren't as exciting and world ranging as Doc he is still a great pulp character and read. Very recommended
November 17, 2018
read some time in 1985
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews