Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Avenger!

























Huzzah! With the most recent publication, Sanctum Books has put all of the vintage Avenger pulp tales back into convenient print ready for the eager fan to gobble down. The Avenger, the steely-eyed gray-faced crime fighter was a later attempt by Street and Smith to find the old Doc Savage and Shadow magic. It seemed at first to find the balance, offering up a strange but nonetheless heroic figure who led a motley but capable team of people dedicated finding justice in a world all too often bereft of it. To that end they dubbed themselves "Justice Inc." and for twenty-four issues they did just that.

After the cancellation of the The Avenger's self-titled magazine, short stories appeared in Clues magazine and a final novella wrapped up the saga in The Shadow.



All of those stories are included in Sanctum's reprints along with insightful background information on the stories and the people who cobbled them together. The greatest name in that list is Paul Ernst who wrote as did Doc Savage's scribe Lester Dent under the "Kenneth Robeson" pen name. Ernst wrote most of the Avenger stories, both long and short.

It's fantastic to have these stories at my fingertips, and recently I was able to locate an early issue I'd missed. So now all of the original Avenger yarns are ready and waiting. I read the first half-dozen or so as they came out, but fell off. This spring seems a heady time to dive back in and chase evildoers beside Richard Benson and his colleagues once again.

Thanks goes to the Anthony Tollin and whomever aides him at Sanctum. Soon I hope to say the same for Doc Savage, another milestone I'm eager to reach.

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4 comments:

  1. Where in the name of all that's good and holy do you find this stuff, anyway?
    P.S. I kinda liked the comic book version. I'm a Kirby fan.

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    Replies
    1. I like the Kirby version too, though not my favorite. As for the source of most of this splendor see this wonderful website:

      http://www.philsp.com/index.html

      Rip Off

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  2. Love The DOJO
    Yes, We all love The Shadow, Doc...
    Thank you for recognizing The Avenger
    Here's where Hollywood should start some fun.
    CGI Face Changing, Bad Ass Hero.
    And the DC Comics
    They are so Kirby Cool.
    Talk about undiscovered.
    All The Best,
    -Sam

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  3. Regrettably, I don't think Tony can reprint the 12 new Ron Goulart-scripted novels Warner Books ran after the original 24 stories.
    Admittedly, not all of them were classics, but #27 "Purple Zombie" and #36 "Demon Island" were the best of the bunch...and "Demon Island" ended on the note that Benson's wife and daughter might still be alive!

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