Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery, Vol. 2

Marvel Masterworks #133

by Bill Everett, Carl Burgos (Illustrator), Joe Simon

Written by GEORGE KAPITAN, JOHN COMPTON & MORE
Penciled by JACK KIRBY, JOE SIMON, BILL EVERETT, CARL BURGOS, BEN THOMPSON, STEVE DAHLMAN, GEORGE KLEIN, HARRY SAHLE, LARRY ANTONETTE, ED ROBBINS, MAURICE GUTWIRTH, HARRY DOUGLAS, HENRY FLETCHER, FRED SCHWAB, BUD SAGENDORF, FRANK PRETSCH, FRANK BORTH & MORE
Cover by JACK KIRBY
There's no age like the Golden Age! Timely Comics' second, sensational comic book series started off with an eclectic array of heroes and artistic talents that mixed pulp rawness with the exploding energy of the comic book medium. Now, with a fix on the new field, DARING MYSTERY COMICS brings in the big guns and lets loose! Featuring a who's who of Golden Age talent, these stories are a rollicking ride through the frenetic era that gave birth to America's greatest fictional creation, the super hero. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby bring you the original Marvel Boy, the 31st century space opera of Captain Daring, and the Fiery Mask. Bill Everett, master of the maritime hero, creates The Fin-Robin Hood of the Seas. Carl Burgos's Thunderer debuts as the powerhouse of justice. Ben Thompson unleashes the Blue Diamond, bullet-proof man. Harry Sahle introduces the super heroine Silver Scorpion. And Citizen V battles his way across war-torn Europe for victory! Also featuring Dynaman, Trojak the Tiger Man, K-4 and His Sky Devils, Monako Prince of Magic, Marvex the Super Robot, Breeze Barton, Stuporman, the Flying Flame and Mr. Million, DARING MYSTERY COMICS is a cornucopia of action and adventure! Collecting DARING MYSTERY COMICS #5-8
280 PGS./All Ages

Genres: Comics, Superheroes

263 pages, Hardcover

First published February 17, 2010

About the author

William Blake Everett, aka Bill Everett, was a comic book writer-artist best known for creating Namor the Sub-Mariner as well as co-creating Zombie and Daredevil with writer Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. He was a descendant of the poet William Blake and of Richard Everett, founder of Dedham, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

It really gets better in the last two issues. The first of these issues is more of the same as the first volume, including another Whirlwind Carter adventure by Fletcher Hanks, who could draw his title character's head from only two angles. I think he had one image of the head that he pasted around using the methods available to him at the time, because they always look identical. He is deservedly known as the Ed Wood of Comics, but this time he managed to get his name on the cover. In the previous volume, he not only didn't get on the cover, but was credited as "Hank Fletcher" (he signed the stories "C.C. Starr"). The volume benefits greatly from the work of Simon and Kirby, whose story of Marvel Boy is interesting and well drawn (Hercules asks Jupiter to be reincarnated). Captain Daring is also a well-drawn feature in both its installments (the first of which is by Simon and Kirby, the second by Frank Borth), the second of which leaves him in the thrall of Hitler and his top staff who have cryogenically frozen themselves to awake in 3050. This volume covers a wide swath of time, ending in January 1942, because the series sputtered and failed.

My favorite was the origin story of The Fin. It felt like a story about a mutant discovering his powers, or like Stuart Gordon's film Dagon, an interpretation of some H.P. Lovecraft stories in which a man discovers that he is a fish man only after killing some of his own people. The second Fin story has no further development of his character, just has him fighting the Barracuda, the Nazi as mustache-twirling villain. The other Nazi portrayals in the book, and in comics of the period in general are more stoic. Hitler appears in several of the stories, and the Captain Daring Story also includes Goebbels, Goering, and von Shatz. The Marvel Boy story uses "Hiller" as a villain, with lackeys who all have obviously German names. Everett's art style is easily recognizable from his work on the Sub-Mariner.

The Thunderer was DC knock-off all the way--the superhero whose girlfriend wants him to be more like that very same superhero. Interesting that Thor was the only Silver Age Marvel character to really follow that formula. The Thunderer has no particular powers. The most interesting thing about him is that as Jerry Carstairs, he works as an FCC monitor. Blue Diamond is intriguing at first because his origin literally has him being embedded with blue diamonds. Like Citizen V, he is drawn and possibly written by Ben Thompson, best known for his work on Ka-Zar. Unfortunately, the art in the second and final Blue Diamond story is much weaker including horrible proportions in the bottom corner of page 260.

Stuporman by Harry/Douglas is a really funny superhero parody--his thing is that he sleeps all the time to build energy. Superman didn't have a Fortress of Solitude in 1940, and it's touch to see obvious connection to Superman beyond the name. His costume looks like a tattered version of the same team's The Blue Blaze in Mystic Comics, with a ? symbol attached to his head. More obviously a take-off of Superman is Steve Dahlman's Dynaman, which disappeared probably has a result of threat from National (now DC). Dahlman's style, especially on the splash page, is easy to recognize from his Electro stories in Marvel Mystery Comics. Interestingly, though, Dynaman comes form the land of Korug, and we get a few panels that hint to us about its culture. In 1940, Krypton had not been named, and we knew absolutely nothing about it apart from that it exploded and Superman (whose indigenous name was not given) had escaped from it aboard a rocket.

The Falcon is a reworking of The Laughing Mask/The Purple Mask, but since his civilian identity has a new name, he's not, continuity-wise the same character, even worse is Tigerman--Trojak the Tiger Man as an Indian. Even his companion Tiger, Balu, has the same name. The Challenger also givers us an origin story, but he's just a master fighter. Mr. Million is a one-off about a rich guy who hires a boy to be his office boy after he refuses to take money for his mother's medicine.

The Fiery Mask and Monako the Magician also return. The opening story is kind of lame, but "the jelly of doom" is not as silly as it sounds, turning people into skeletons. Harry Sahle does better artwork on the intriguing female superhero, The Silver Scorpion, preceding Wonder Woman but having no super powers, just a jujitsu master in a costume. The art and storytelling are better on the next Fiery Mask story, by Simon and Kirby, which depicts him fighting demons that may or may not be there. Monako gets to tell his origin, and it's kind of racist. Breeze Barton's story is imperialistic. The art by Jack Binder is a little better than Burgos, and occasionally impressive, although putting a futuristic, gun-toting heroine like Ann Barclay in sandals with her fighting togs didn't quite work for me. Ben & Okie, artist Ben Flinton and writer Bill O'Connor, give us the Flying Flame. The opening tells us that's the name of the plane, but by the end of the story it's been used interchangeably with Captain Red Ruff, another short, red haired, character like Al Pratt, the same team's Atom for DC. At least, I think he's supposed to be red-haired. The magenta used to color his hair makes him look anachronistically like a 1980s punk.

There are also some humor stories here besides Stuporman. Frank Pretsch's "The L'il Professor and Rudy the Robot" has by far the strongest potential as a blend of science fiction adventure and family sitcom humor. Rudy looks a cross between the Tin Woodman and Marvex, whose last story until recent years appears here, looking less like Shatner than before but still only hinting at what someone like Kirby to do with the concept in a series like Machine Man. Bud Sagendorf's experience with E.C. Segar causes him to create a character more appropriate for the Popeye universe than the Marvel Universe. An advertisement for the never-reprinted Red Raven Comics #1 shows Officer O'Krime with a Hitler-like mustache; now Al Weine shoes him with a very long one indeed. If you don't like cops, you will probably find this 2-page caricature amusing. Ray Houlihan's "Tubby 'n Tack" seems to belong more in the Sunday funnies.

Hardly the greatest volume of Marvel Comics, but an improvement on the previous volume by far. Marvel needs to be commended for showing us their Golden Age work, however. DC has limited it to well-knowns of the Justice Society (and mostly not finished collecting them)--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate, the Sandman, the Spectre, and two volumes of JSA All-Stars (Doctor Mid-Nite, Hourman, Johnny Thunder, Red Tornado), along with the complete All Star Comics featuring the Justice society. Our only opportunity to see lesser known DC characters of the Golden Age without money and the good fortune to find rare originals are in The DC Comics Rarities Archives, Vol. 1 and The All Star Comics Archives, Vol. 0 . Even well known Golden Age characters like Giovanni Zatara, The Phantom Stranger, and Doctor Thirteen have not been warranted popular enough to have their stories reprinted yet by DC. I suspect this volume has not been a great seller for Marvel, but that it exists is a boon to Marvel fans, even if they'll want to just get it form the library as I did. The copy I read (after about four interlibrary loan requests) came from Wildwood, Sumter County, Florida.

[John Peel · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the Golden Age of comics there were many that didn't last very long, and "Daring Mystery Comics" was one (8 issues in all). The reason was quite clear - the heroes and stories were not very good. Most of the individual characters didn't even manage to make it through three appearances. Unless you're a real fan of these old comics, you can afford to give this one a miss.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this, the second and final volume in this line of Masterworks, we get a hodgepodge collection of stories ranging from brilliant to banal for the era. In Daring Mystery No. 5 we get The Jelly of Doom, a Fiery Mask strip by Joe Simon and Kack Kirby, where the Fiery Mask fights Dork, Evil Scientist. Yes, that is his name...Dork. The interesting thing about the story is that the "jelly" is really more of a "blob", and pre-dates that movie by 18 years. Simon & Kirby also help launch Captain Daring, a Buck Rogers knock-off who quickly fell back to Earth. There are lots of fun and worthwhile reads here: Monako, Prince of Magic; The Falcon; Blue Diamond; The Silver Scorpion; The Fin, by the always Godlike Bill Everett; Dynaman. All of them are quite good. Then we get Marvex, the Super Robot, which is asinine, and I am dumber for having read it.

As is the case with all Masterworks of the last few years, everything is perfect: paper, binding, restoration, coloring, etc., are all well within my OCD sweet spot range. Everyone has a vice, and mine is high-end hardcover reprints like this.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent reprint of these forgotten heroes from the Golden Age of comics. Great reads if you are a comic fan interested in the beginnings of the comic era. Recommended