Better Than A Box of Cracker Jacks! An Intro by Michael T. Gilbert

In comics’ earliest days, once you got past the lead feature, any backup would do. With sixty-four pages to fill every issue, golden age comics weren’t too picky about what they stuffed between their garish covers. Like the treasures hidden in a Cracker Jack box, sometimes the prizes were great, and sometimes you’d shake your head and wonder, “What were they thinking?” 

Silver Streak was no exception.

When publisher Arthur Bernhard debuted Silver Streak Comics in 1939, the main attraction was the villainous Claw. He took the cover spot in the first two issues, followed by two-fisted adventurer Lance Hale, who was featured on the cover of Silver Streak #3. In that issue, with little explanation, Lance transformed from a jungle soldier-of-fortune to a space travelling sci-fi hero. In effect, Jungle Jim became Flash Gordon.

That’s how they rolled back then.

Now Lance was a fine, upstanding fellow, but he simply didn’t have the raw star power to take on The Claw. Even handsome art by John Hampton—and later, Fred Guardineer—didn’t help much. But the publishers didn’t give up. They were determined to find a hero worthy of comics’ greatest monster. The following issue, no less than four features graced the cover, including (finally!) a newly- minted hero titled after the comic itself. 

The premier Silver Streak strip appeared in issue #3 in an unsigned story often attributed to artist Jack Binder. Back then, “Silver Streak” referred to the fastest racing car in the world rather than a flashy superhero.

That story, “The Mystery of the Monstrous Fly,” introduced the car and its owner, who was a sinister-looking swami. It seemed that the mystic was in a bit of a pickle. A giant fifty-foot killer bug, owned by a racing rival, had killed all of the car’s previous drivers. Naturally, no one else was fool enough to drive the cursed car––no one except for one nameless taxi driver desperate for a job. After hiring him, the swami hedged his bets by hypnotizing the guy.

“You are a great and fearless driver. You are the Silver Streak––the strongest, bravest, fastest man in the world. Do you understand? The swami speaks!”

It sounded good, but on his first race a giant fly attacked and killed the poor guy. Ah, but the swami had one more trick up his sleeve! Sneaking into the graveyard, he dug up the driver’s corpse and brought him back to life with his magic swami-vision. And just for good measure, he gave him strange powers and christened him “Silver Streak.” Whew!

It was a weirdly entertaining story, but Fate was about to take Silver Streak (and his comic!) in a very different direction. Lev Gleason took over the publishing chores from Arthur Bernhard with Silver Streak #3, changing the company name from Rhoda to Lev Gleason Publications in the process. Actually, the publishers of Silver Streak had a number of company names including Your Guide Publications, New Friday Publications, Comic House, and News Book Publishing Corp. Confusing, no?

Cartoon genius Jack “Ralph Johns” Cole was promoted to art director around that time, and he made big changes to the strip. The racecar was ditched, and its driver became a supersonic costumed hero dubbed “the fastest man imaginable.” Maybe so, but I imagine he was peeved that DC’s Flash beat him out of the starting gate by a couple of months!

The Silver Streak sported a flashy new Cole-designed costume, including suction shoes so he could “race up the sides of buildings like a fly.” Considering that he could essentially fly, it seemed a bit redundant––not to mention the whole “suction-cups-slowing-him-down-to-a-crawl” thing.

But Silver Streak Comics finally had a hero to tie in with its name––and about time, too! The speedster quickly scored a crime-fighting pet (Whiz, King of Falcons!), and the obligatory kid-sidekick, Meteor (introduced as Mercury in his first appearance). In the case of the kid, an injection of The Streak’s “secret serum” upped his speed-quotient.

The strip, brilliantly written and drawn by Cole, seemed destined for comic book stardom. And indeed, the Streak appeared in nineteen issues of Silver Streak Comics (sometimes cover featured)––as well as in Dime Comics #1. Silver Streak #22, a solo special released by Newsbook Publishing Corporation, featured an entire issue of early Cole Silver Streak reprints. But when the dust settled, another hero stole the show. 

Before we get to that, I wanted to mention two Silver Streak stories in this volume of particular interest. A story in issue #10 includes a killer robot named Iron Jaw. While the metal monster only lasted one issue, the name was too good to give up. Shortly thereafter, a killer Nazi with an iron jaw stole the name. Under the guidance of Charles Biro, Iron Jaw became Crimebuster’s greatest foe in Lev Gleason’s Boy Comics. Hey, no use wasting a good name! That issue’s Silver Streak art was by Bob Wood, who would later play an integral role in the company. 

Silver Streak Comics issue #13 featured a genuinely shocking Silver Streak tale, “The Adventure of the Laughing Hyena”––a brutal story about racial lynchings. It was courageous for anyone to tackle such a hot-button theme in 1941, much less in a superhero comic. But a willingness to publish socially conscious, reality-based stories would soon become a hallmark of Lev Gleason comics.

The comic’s next potential superstar was a fellow named Captain Battle, introduced in issue #10 as the youngest combatant in “the World War.” The war wasn’t called World War I in that first story because, for America at least, there was only one World War when the first Captain Battle story was published. That tale, cover-dated May 1941, came out mere months before the US officially entered World War II on Dec. 8, 1941!

With his badass eye patch, Captain Battle resembled Marvel’s sixties-era secret agent Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.LD. The Captain also had Fury’s high-tech arsenal, including a futuristic TV (Curvoscope), flying jet pack (Luceflyer), and a really cool death ray (Dissolvo gun).

The Captain came courtesy of scripter Carl Formes and artist Jack Binder. Binder (brother of premier Captain Marvel writer Otto Binder) packaged entire comic books for various publishers in the thirties and forties. Employing a staff of fifty at one point, he and his crew cobbled together some of the earliest Marvel, Fawcett, Nedor, and Gleason comics. While his own art style was fairly pedestrian, Binder oversaw the creation of many early Lev Gleason heroes. One of these became Lev Gleason’s greatest star. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Captain Battle. Oh, he had a respectable enough run, appearing in twelve issues of Silver Streak Comics, many of them cover features. But the Captain was a fairly generic hero, and his own title only lasted a mere five issues, with the last three from another publisher. Additionally, Image Comics published an imaginary final issue of Silver Streak Comics in 2009 that included a Captain Battle origin story, beautifully illustrated by Alan Weiss.

There was also a 1943 spin-off starring the Captain’s son, Captain Battle Jr., which lasted a very unimpressive two issues. 

So who was left to battle The Claw? There were lots of other backup characters, and some of them were promising. But were any good enough to carry an entire book? 

The best of these was Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor. Dickie was a brilliant homegrown scientific genius, in the mold of Donald Duck’s inventor pal, Gyro Gearloose. Dickie was the kind of kid that finds old batteries and junk in the basement and somehow cobbles together a time-TV or a magnet-powered car. 

Creator Jack Cole had a special fondness for Dickie. His scripts were inventive and funny, and the art was a thrill-a-minute carnival ride. Cole’s fantastic inventions were described in such detail that, especially to young kids, seemed possible. As an extra treat, Cole would sometimes toss in plans for a clever gizmo that the kiddies could actually make, like a homemade ant farm!

Dickie Debuted in Silver Streak Comics #3, Cole’s first as art editor. Issue #10 was his last hurrah before heading off to create Plastic Man for a rival publisher, but those eight issues laid the groundwork for other talented cartoonists. And while Dickie never graduated to his own title, he remained surprisingly durable, appearing in nineteen issues of Silver Streak Comics and twenty-nine issues of Daredevil. Not bad for a kid inventor!

Okay, let’s see what our next Cracker Jack prize is . . .

Hmmm! Readers, meet the Pirate Prince, whose swashbuckling career began in Silver Streak #7. This pirate-with-a-heart-of-gold made it his mission to attack slave ships and return their human cargo to Africa. That was one socially conscious cutthroat! Cole only produced the first episode before passing the strip on to Dick Briefer, a brilliant, underrated comic book pioneer. His work on the Pirate Prince and Dickie Dean has a fun, energetic feel that was fully in the spirit of Cole’s work.

Briefer (aka “Richard Norman” and . . . Ahem! . . . “Rem Brant”) drew Rex Dexter of Mars for Fox Features and Flint Baker for Fiction House. However, his most enduring creation was a sometimes-humorous Frankenstein series, produced from the late thirties to the mid-fifties for Prize Publishing. Briefer’s art looked casual and dashed-off, but his writing was funny and endearing.

There were many other backup characters in Silver Streak—too many to mention here. Joe Simon’s one-shot wonder, Solar Patrol, as well as Mister Midnite, Planet Patrol, Ace Powers, Cloud Curtis, The Wasp, the Duke, Spiritman, Captain Fearless, Red Reeves, and Sky Wolf. They came, and they went. But try as they might, none had the star quality needed to tangle with the Claw!

Ah, but there was one hero crazy enough to do just that: The Daredevil—Master of Courage!

Daredevil started inauspiciously enough. He didn’t pop up in Silver Streak Comics until the sixth issue, and then as just another backup.

As related on the first Daredevil story’s splash page, crooks kidnapped young Bart Hill’s family in order to steal an invention his father had created. When mom and dad refused to cooperate, they were killed. The killers then tried to find where Bart’s dad hid the invention by torturing young Bart with a boomerang-shaped branding iron. Bart refused to talk, and in fact he couldn’t talk, since the torturing had rendered him mute!

Later, inspired by his strange brand, he became a boomerang expert, clad in a garish crime-fighting costume. The editors published a completely revised origin later.

The author of the story is unknown, but Jack Binder drew it. Binder’s primitive style had a crude power, and his Daredevil costume was striking.

Still—the new hero wasn’t quite there yet. Evidently no one else thought so, since The Claw, not Daredevil, was cover-featured on that issue. A Jack Cole Silver Streak story took the lead, with the Daredevil tale buried deep inside the comic book Cracker Jack box. But Jack Cole saw the character’s potential. When he brought him back in the following issue, he made Daredevil a star.

Silver Streak #7 featured a sixteen-page Cole extravaganza, “Daredevil Battles The Claw!” The comic’s official Silver Streak logo was scrapped for the issue, and the title squeezed into tiny lettering at the top. With Daredevil’s name displayed in giant letters, readers could be forgiven thinking they’d bought the first issue of a new Daredevil comic. And for all intents and purposes, they were! 

With Daredevil, the Claw finally had a hero worth fighting!

So who was the Claw? He was a classic “Yellow Peril” villain in the mode of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. Jack Cole created him in 1939 for the very first issue of Silver Streak in an era when distasteful racial stereotypes were the norm.

Offensive as today’s readers may find the character, Cole’s Claw was so exuberantly over-the-top it was hard to take seriously. The Claw was always crushing people under his giant feet or gobbling them down with gusto. In his first story, the Claw—who ruled a small South Pacific island—was described as “. . . a mammoth creature of supernatural powers who keeps a constant reign of terror over the island’s 10,000 inhabitants!” 

With his bright yellow skin and sharp fangs, the Claw made an awesome first impression. Standing a mile tall, he even scared Hitler! For the record, the Claw could change his size at will and had the power to hypnotize. He and his legion of tiny yellow-skinned slaves worked tirelessly to achieve total world domination. In those early days, his nemesis was “chemist-adventurer” Jerry Morris, a handsome, two-fisted scrapper. As heroes go, he was pretty good, but no Daredevil. Still, he managed to foil the Claw’s insidious schemes more than once.

The Claw disappeared from Silver Streak after issue #2, but returned four issues later. In the unsigned lead story in issue #6, (attributed to Jack Binder by the Grand Comics Database), the villain (now called the Green Claw) battled Major Carl Tarrant, another two-fisted “scientist-adventurer.” These scientist-adventurers were pretty interchangeable, apparently. At story’s end, the readers were promised that the Claw would “join battle again with Major Tarrant in the next issue of Silver Streak Comics!” But that didn’t turn out to be the case.

Silver Streak #6 was also Daredevil’s debut issue, but he and the Claw didn’t meet until the following month. When they did, though, it was explosive!

Jack Cole returned with issue #7, pitting Daredevil against The Claw (the “Green” part was dropped). The story was Cole at his boisterous best, with visual thrills aplenty and delirious plotting. More importantly, Cole redesigned Jack Binder’s Daredevil’s costume, getting rid of Binder’s clunky “DD” insignia and changing the main color from yellow to a more devilish red. The result was magic!

The story (reprinted in Silver Streak Archives Volume 1) proved to be one of the greatest battles of the golden age, cementing Daredevil’s position as a hero on the move.

The two tangled regularly after that, with Cole orchestrating rematches in issues #8, #9, and #10. The art looks rushed (this was just before he left Gleason), but the stories still sizzled. The following issue featured the final Daredevil/Claw rematch, this time drawn by Don Rico. “The World’s Greatest Monster” would later wreak havoc in the pages of Daredevil Comics and Captain Battle Jr.—going claw to toe with a new hero, The Ghost. But issue #11 was the last time The Claw would show his evil face in the pages of Silver Streak Comics.

Daredevil was cover-featured on the next issue, with Don Rico returning to write and draw the lead Daredevil story, as he would every issue until Daredevil’s last Silver Streak appearance in issue #17. The Claw may have gone, but Daredevil worked just as well solo.

Good thing, too, because an ad that issue announced that Daredevil was about to get his own new magazine. Lev Gleason had finally reached into that box of popcorn candy and pulled out the best prize of all—a superhero who became one of the most popular heroes of the golden age!

As for the Claw, he left Silver Streak to begin a long run in a backup series in Daredevil Comics. The Claw—a second-stringer in his greatest foe’s comic?

Just desserts, indeed, for one of comics’ greatest monsters!

––Michael T. Gilbert