Black Terror (Part 1)

[mistygeek]

When it was superhero chic to wear gold and purple one brave pharmacist would jump on to the scene dressed in black, a skull and crossbones across his chest.

The Black Terror hit the superhero boom in Exciting Comics #9 published by Standard Comics(to become Nedor. Six months after his introduction, he had his own comic. The only other character from the publisher to have the honor being the Fighting Yank.

Since his golden age run he has been echoed by others and revived to make a number of appearances. Most recently he is appearing in Project Superpowers. I wanted to show off how much of a loser interesting he was. Then I remembered this is scans_daily and you'd rather see him get run over by a helicopter and attacked by plants. So, you're getting both.

From Exciting Comics #9 (May 1942)

(Whoever scanned this wins a e-medal. This issue is impossible($$$) to find.)

This moment will be a trend. Tim is going to have such self esteem problems.

Well Tim, it's the 1940s and everyone and his boy side kick is getting powers. If they aren't evil Nazis they....

Jean Starr didn't stay one of those golden age girlfriends. Like Bob she did change over the next 8 years, depending on who was writing.

Black Terror supports quite a few writers who ended up big names. Richard Hughes who writes the story above and Patricia Highsmith...who didn't write anything in this post, but she did work on them!

 

Comments

[his_spiffynesss]

The Black Terror has sort of become the poster boy for the Public Domain superheroes. He's the one that everybody ends up using.

Interestingly enough, there was similarly styled hero from Fox Featrues called The Black Fury who actually came out over a year before, but never achieved the fame of Bob Benton.

[grazzt]

In a just universe, it would be Stardust the Super Wizard who would get all the glory.

[his_spiffynesss]

Well, Stardust is pretty popular too, I know a guy who did a comic featuring him recently (I also gave him a cameo in my comic) Dusty the wrathful star god is just so much fun to use.

[donnblake]

Okay, so the comptroller might have been a bit of an ass, but that seems a little extreme, Bob.

[michael_ellis_day]

I can't recall ever seeing another comic book in which the word "comptroller" was used.

Other than that, this story was more cringe-inducing than I would have expected. More please! Would it be possible to see a Patricia Highsmith installment?

[mistygeek]

Can do!

[gamerguy]

Black Terror is pretty interesting. The first four or five issues of his own book are equally jarring, artistically but people didn't much care about such things then :) Tim has a different hair color in every issue and his age seems to range from 11 to 16-ish. He also gets called 'Kid Terror' later on, rather than just 'Tim'.