Golden Age Goodness: Action Comics #42

    This week's installment finds us still in the Golden Age with another DC book, Action Comics #42.  It is November 1941, and while there is plenty of competition, DC is the preeminent publisher, with the most quality titles.

    Action Comics #42 leads off of course, with Superman, in "City in the Stratosphere".  Influential citizens from all over Metropolis are disappearing, and while Sgt. Casey blames a kidnapping ring, Clark Kent isn't so sure.  What a fun romp this was.  Clark investigates clues that point to Casey being right, but the evidence literally blows up around him.  It all comes back to Luthor with a plan that is both ludicrous and fantastic.  From a city in the clouds with a death ray and a machine that allows him to hypnotize Superman via hypnosis, he kidnaps the men and convinces them to stay under the ruse that he is an alien explorer.  What he hopes to get from this is never revealed, nor does Seigel bother trying to explain how he escaped being blown to bits in his last appearance.  It is prototypical Golden Age Superman with gangsters and mad science.  The art is credited to Shuster, but he already using ghosts at this point.  Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics credits the pencils to Lee Nowack.  Nowack does a good job of aping Shuster's iconic faces, but the linework is cleaner, less crude.
     Two important firsts in the next story: "The Origin of Vigilante" gives us Greg Sanders, the troubadour of the prairie who fights crime as Vigilante written by Mort Weisinger.  It isn't Mort's first work for DC, he started writing for them two month's ago with the debut of his speedster creation, Johnny Quick, and last entry's the Tarantula, however, this is his first work in Action, and while it isn't on the character he would steward for the next 2 decades, I feel it is worth calling out.  In the story, a gangster is blackmails a coroner into faking his execution and must be brought to justice "posthumously" by Vigilante.  I've always liked the Vigilante as a cowboy in the modern era of the 40's and 50's.  While he seems antiquated now, he was actually quite timely in the eras of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and the Lone Ranger.  The are by Mort Meskin, while not as dynamic in panel layout, reminds me a lot of the work of Joe Simon of the era.
     In "The Ship Spies", the Black Pirate barely escapes an ambush after taking on a stowaway to attempts to betray the crew.  The Black Pirate is difficult to cover as it is normally short, 6 pages, and a serial with very tight continuity.  This one is an exception, but the plot is rather normal focusing on John Valor escaping from his locked room and not the ensuing ship battle, and Sheldon Mordoff, still channeling Alex Raymond like he does in Hawkman delivers very taut and tense work.  This Black Pirate's last appearance in Action for now, moving to Sensation comics in its premiere issue.
    No strip has gone through more changes then Tex Thompson, aka Mr, America.  Originally a mystery tale, the story quickly changed to an adventure strip with Tex meeting Bob Daly travelling the globe, becoming a spy/crime strip when they got to America, then becoming a mystery-man strip with Tex taking on the identity of the whip wielding  Mr. Anerica, which made Bob somewhat redundant.  Ken Fitch and Bernard Bailey attempt to tackle the problem in 'A Modern Flying Carpet' which sees Bob adopt the identity of Fat Man in a costume similar to Red Tornado's (substitute a lamp shade for pot for the mask and a blanket for curtains for the cape) and becoming the humorous sidekick similar to the role that Doiby Dickles fulfills for Green Lantern.  Also in this story, Tex invents a way to make his cape act as a flying carpet and uses it to defeat the Queen Bee, a female mob boss who uses the sexism of the time and people's underestimating her to her advantage.  The story tries to a do a little too much in a 8 pager, and I'm not sold on Fat Man.  Bob has been competent hand-to-hand combatant, so I don't want him to become a boob.  Bernard Bailey's art is a it of an acquired taste with very elongated faces.  One of the pioneers of the late 30's, a cleaner style is starting to emerge as the norm, and Bailey's art suffers in comparison. 
    Congo Bill gets to the bottom of the jinx that is hampering a film crew in 'The Jungle Film'.  With the departure of Black Pirate, Congo Bill and Three Aces become the only non-mystery men features in the book.Its to Fred Ray's credit that Congo Bill looks and feels fresh.  There are several jungle strips, but they almost all are the Ape Man stereotype, not the hunter.
    Last,, but not least, is Zatara in the 'Man Who Could Control Minds', in which Zatara must defeat a gangster who accidentally is given the power of mind control.  The Tigress is here as well as an accomplice of the gangster, but her main purpose is to flirt with Zatara.  A highlight of the Zatara strip is the artwork by Joseph Sulman.  While the faces are rather simple, he seems to relish illustrating Zatara's spells.  There is a great deal of whimsy to them as a safe grows hands to shove back a thief and car assumes a face and begins to act like a bucking broncho.