Detective Comics #15, cover-dated May, 1938, sale date April 1938, 68 pages, 8 features:
Speed Saunders - "The Mystery of the Darby Pearls"
Speed escorts a female friend on a cruise ship and helps her fend of a ship-wide conspiracy to rob her of the Darby pearls she was gifted by her uncle. Speed Saunders' adventures have by now fallen into a theme, Speed meets or is travelling with a female companion, the female is involved in trouble or the victim of a plot, Speed intervenes. I find Speed interesting because, in a magazine devoted to detectives/cops, he has at this point lost the distinction that set him apart, the dubious distinction of being part of the River Patrol, the write quickly finding the milieu of a police detective only involved in crimes on boats, wharves, and harbors too tight of a restriction. However, I do admit Speed is typically my second favorite feature in Detective at this point, and other must also seen potential in him, as he was used as Kendra Saunders, Hawkgirl IV's, grand-father and retconned to be the cousin of Shiera Saunders, Hawkgirl I, in the late 1990's relaunch of JSA. Also somewhat unusual for this feature, this is the first of two parts. The theft of the pearl's is thwarted, and the apparent gang's ringleader is killed, but a continuation of the 'The Mystery of the Darby Pearls' is promised next issue.
Buck Marshall - "Heels and Toes"
The lone western-style strip, Buck Marshall features a travelling 'Range Detective' who typically stumbles on some plot or arrives in town in time to help the local sheriff solve a case that perplexes him. In this installment, Buck catches a hold-up man who frames an ex-convict Apache Indian for the wagon train robberies. The tip-off to Buck is that the real thief left tracks that didn't mimic an Indian's gait.
Larry Steele - "The Plot to Kill Larry Steele"
Larry Steele is a non-descript generic private eye type. The somewhat unique angle on this story is the gangsters invite trouble by deciding to pre-emptively assassinate him. This is the first of a multi-part story.
Bruce Nelson - "To Many Crooks"
Bruce Nelson is another generic private detective. His first two serials in Detective both involved running afoul of the Tongs in Chinatown. In this, the second part of his third serial, Bruce is on-board a yacht investigating a smuggling operation. He's foiled two robbery attempts of a jeweler who is traveling with diamonds, only to apparently kill him to protect his cover. This is actually a pretty good story with the jeweler's partner who has seemingly swapped the diamonds with fakes without the jeweler knowing it, the multiple attempts to steal the diamonds from different parties, and the faked murder. It suffers a little bit from being the second story in the same issue to involve a jewel theft at sea and being the second part in a three part story, but I'm actually looking forward to its conclusion.
Spy - "Mr. Death"
Aaah, Spy. Before I get into the story, let me talk just a little bit about Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster. At this point in their career, their ultimate legacy, Superman, has not yet been published. I have some opinions about Siegel and Shuster that probably aren't very popular. I try to view things in the context of the era and times in which they occur. I don't believe Siegel and Shuster by the great martyrs of comics. They sold their rights to Superman several times for significant values at the time in relation to when the deals occur. I don't believe they are inherently owed anything because their creation grew to be more successful and worth more to DC, then they ever could have predicted. All of that said, it so often gets overlooked how prolific they were in the early Golden Age. At the main company (which at this time only had 3 titles) producing original, non-licensed comics work, they had 5 strips that were regular features: Steve Carson-Federal Agent, Spy, Radio Squad, Dr. Occult, and Slam Bradley.
Spy has a unique flavor, reminding me of Hart-to-Hart or Remington Steele, in that the premise is a former police office and his fiancee are government agents, his fiancee, Sally, being inducted after helping him on a few cases when she refused to believe he broke off their engagement. Sally in many ways is a proto-Lois Lane. She is rarely the damsel-in-distress, and is often the brains in the operation, with Bart doing most of the fighting. In this story, their tasked with bringing in a serial killer, and its Sally, not Bart, that conceives a way of goading the killer into revealing himself.
"Bring 'Em In Brannigan"
A nice little mystery. Though never featuring the same characters, Russell Cole, writing and drawing under his pseudonym, Alger, has a feature with little mystery vignettes done in the same humor style as Ol' Oz Bopp and Sam the Porter and the other humor features he was doing for DC. This mystery involves the kidnapping of two bankers carrying a large sum of money for a stock purchase.
Cosmo, The Phantom of Disguise - "The Plane Crash Mystery"
Cosmos's shtick is that he is a master of disguise. What makes this story unique is that it does not involve Cosmo adopting a disguise. Cosmo is on a plane that crashes. Cosmo gets help, then solves the mystery of the death of the pilot, some missing gold, and the cause of the crash. The story telegraphs in the beginning the villain of the piece, but it was still a good read despite the abandoning of the feature that makes Cosmo unique among the other detectives featured in Detective.
Slam Bradley - "The Lady-Killer"
Slam and Shorty are accused of a woman's murder by Sergeant Gage when they report it and our found at the scene. They find a book of women's names and race to get ahead of the killer and clear their names by beating the killer to the last victim. Slam Bradley is probably the best known character among those in this issue, primarily thanks to Ed Brubaker's use of him in Catwoman, and clearly at this time he is the lead feature. Among 5-8 page features, Slam merits 13 pages. A rough and tumble private eye who seeks out trouble and fun with his wisecracking partner, Shorty. Slam's stories are always energetic and move at a break-neck pace. I also love how Slam doesn't take crap from anyone. Sgt. Gage accuses them of the first murder, simply because they were on-hand and when he gets a tip that they are at a warehouse, he waits until the killer confesses and has fallen in the same trap he has Slam and Shorty put in--a pit filling with water, before attempting to help Slam and Shorty. When Sgt. Gage says he waited because he thought they deserved it, Slam promptly shoves him to see how he likes it!
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