Daring Mystery Comics #4

(May 1940)

Mechanics You Need This Book- Know! Your Car (Table of Contents: 1)

Theo. Audel & Co.: Audels New Auto Guide / advertisement / 1 page (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Letters

typeset

Indexer Notes

Found on the inside front cover.

[Busting a Banker] (Table of Contents: 2)

The Purple Mask / comic story / 8 pages (report information)

Script

Will Harr ?

Pencils

Maurice Gutwirth [as M. Gutwirth] (signed)

Inks

Maurice Gutwirth [as M. Gutwirth] (signed)

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

superhero

Characters

The Purple Mask [Dennis Burton]; Whalen (villain, introduction); Whalen's gang (villains, introduction)

Synopsis

A daring bank robbery leads the Purple Mask after the gang responsible and he discovers that the bank's President is involved with the crime.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

Last Golden Age appearance under this name, but as Will Murray notes in the introduction to the second volume of Daring Mystery Masterworks, the Falcon in the next issue is just a slightly modified continuation of this character.
Dennis Burton as The Laughing Mask appears next in The Twelve (Marvel, 2008 series) #1.
Chesler shop material.

[The Zeppelin Attack] (Table of Contents: 3)

K-4 and His Sky Devils / comic story / 6 pages (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

aviation

Characters

Sky Devils [K-4; Lt. Ronald Wolverstone; Lt. Rene D'Auvergne]; the Nazis (villains)

Synopsis

K-4 and his assistants are assigned the job of tracking down an enemy zeppelin that is being used to drop mines by parachute over vital installations.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

Previously credited to Maurice Gutwirth (pencils) / Jack Alderman ? (inks), but the Masterworks lists this as by unknown artists despite tentatively identifying Alderman as the artist of the K-4 story in issue #2 and Gutwirth as the artist on several other features.

As of January 2012, Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. (via the Timely-Atlas list) does not think either story is by Alderman, but that both are primarily by the same artist, possibly with a different artist providing face and other details in #2. This story may alternately be by a different artist who used the story in #2 as a close guide.

Chesler shop material (based on panel borders and general look and feel compared to other stories in this issue).

[no title indexed] (Table of Contents: 4)

Monako Prince of Magic / comic story / 10 pages (report information)

Script

Larry Antonette (signed)

Pencils

Larry Antonette (signed)

Inks

Larry Antonette (signed)

Colors

?

Letters

?

First Line of Dialogue or Text

Monako is on the trail of an Oriental fiend who is trying to...

Genre

adventure; superhero

Characters

Monako; Josie; Mr. Muro (villain); Tashu (villain; introduction)

Synopsis

Monako must go up against his old enemy, Muro, who is attempting to gain control of the Pacific and west coastal areas of the Americas, specifically the Panama Canal.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

Funnies, Inc. material.

Creator credits confirmed by Shaun Clancy and the Comics History Exchange list on Facebook from the personal records of Larry Antonette which included pages of stories he worked on torn from the original comic books (21 February 2015).

[Mars Attacks] (Table of Contents: 5)

Whirlwind Carter of the Interplanetary Secret Service / comic story / 8 pages (report information)

Script

Fletcher Hanks

Pencils

Fletcher Hanks

Inks

Fletcher Hanks

Colors

?

Letters

Fletcher Hanks

First Line of Dialogue or Text

'Whirlwind' lives on the highly civilized planet of Venus...

Genre

science fiction

Characters

Whirlwind Carter (introduction); Brenda Hale (introduction); the Martians (villains, introduction)

Synopsis

Carter rescues an Earth girl, Brenda Hale, who is agent of the Space Army, Women's Division, 4th Regiment and whose ship has been grounded by the Martians, and he learns that Mars intends on invading the Earth to make it one of her colonies.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)
• in You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! (Fantagraphics, 2009 series) (June 2009)
• in Fletcher Hanks : œuvres complètes (Actes Sud, 2018 series) (mai 2018)

Indexer Notes

Likely produced through the Iger shop along with all of Hanks' other known output.

[The Spike Green Case] (Table of Contents: 6)

Marvex the Super Robot / comic story / 8 pages (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

Hal Sharp

Inks

Hal Sharp

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

superhero

Characters

Marvex; Jim Hansen (introduction); Clara Grandall; Spike Green (villain, introduction) Spike's gang (villains, introduction)

Synopsis

Marvex looks into the troubling case of a man sitting on death row awaiting execution for a crime in which witnesses in his favor disappeared mysteriously before the trial.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)
• in All Select Comics 70th Anniversary Special (Marvel, 2009 series) #1 (September 2009)

Indexer Notes

Chesler shop material.

[The Missing Airliner Fleet] (Table of Contents: 7)

G-Man Don Gorman / comic story / 8 pages (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

Alex Schomburg ?; Gus Ricca ? (see notes)

Inks

Alex Schomburg ?; Gus Ricca ? (see notes)

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

aviation

Characters

Don Gorman (introduction); Betty Nestor (introduction); Anson Dictor (villain, introduction); Nazis (villains)

Synopsis

Foreign agents attempt to steal the secret super-charged engine invented by test pilot Don Gorman, an invention allowing airplanes to achieve speeds over 1000 mph!

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

A similar aviator character, illustrated by Alex Schomburg (signed), subsequently appears as "Captain Daring" in USA Comics (Marvel, 1941 series) #7 (March 1943).

Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. believes that this looks more like Schomburg (whose interior illustration style was simpler than his cover illustration style) than Gus Ricca.

Dr. Michael J. Vassallo agrees that this is possible in his blog entry on the USA Comics Masterworks, Vol. 2, but also observes that the panel layouts in each story are typical of their year of publication, so the later story was not an inventory piece held for several years before publication. No known interior art by Schomburg from 1940 exists for comparison.

Henry Andrews observes that Schomburg illustrating this story may explain why it was chosen for the cover feature, but the depiction of a suit-wearing tommy gun-wielding Don Gorman on the cover is completely unlike the aviator character in this story, which seems odd if both were produced by Schomburg.

If this is by Schomburg, it was almost certainly produced as a freelance job, as Schomburg produced Timely's covers as a freelancer. Gus Ricca would imply a Chesler shop job, although the thicker borders that appear on other Chesler stories in this issue are absent, making the Ricca credit less likely. Given the mixture of source in this issue, it is difficult to come up with a more likely theory.

The World of Savages (Table of Contents: 8)

Breeze Barton / comic story / 7 pages (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

Jack Binder [as Binder] (signed)

Inks

Jack Binder [as Binder] (signed)

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

adventure; aviation

Characters

Breeze Barton; Ann Barclay; Frenchy (introduction); a band of savages (villains, introduction), their chief (villain, introduction, death)

Synopsis

Breeze has made good his escape from Miracle City with Ann and enter into the civilized world, where they are informed by Frenchy that civilization as they knew it had been destroyed by the War of 1945.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

Chesler shop material.

Outlaw-Buster (Table of Contents: 9)

text story / 2 pages (report information)

Script

Rex Evans (signed)

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Colors

?

Letters

typeset

Genre

western-frontier

Characters

Sheriff Holcolm; Cougar Karns (villain); "Mile Away" Morgan (villain)

Synopsis

Sheriff Holcolm intends on cleaning out the criminal activities in Ambush Canyon.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

Studio source unknown, although possibly produced in-house.

[The Secret Soldier] (Table of Contents: 10)

Trojak the Tiger Man / comic story / 7 pages (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

Arnold Hicks (see notes)

Inks

Arnold Hicks; ? (see notes)

Colors

?

Letters

?

Genre

jungle

Characters

Trojak; Balu (the tiger); Edith Alton; Jerry Alton (introduction, Edith's brother); the Nazis (villains)

Synopsis

Edith's brother, a member of the Nazi forces, convinces Edith to keep Trojak out of their invasion attempts, not knowing it's all a plan to capture Trojak.

Reprints

• in Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Daring Mystery (Marvel, 2008 series) #1 ([January] 2008)

Indexer Notes

There is some confusion over who drew this story. Harry Mendryk reports on atlastales.com that he showed the story to Joe Simon and Simon was "very insistent" that he did it. Dr. Michael Vassallo, after examining that art along with that in Daring Mystery Comics #5 does not think that Simon did it, although he may have had some involvement, and does not know who it might have been. Henry Andrews speculates that most of the art looks more like Arnold Hicks (who drew the feature in Daring Mystery Comics #5) but some of the close-ups on Trojak's face look very different, and more like Joe Simon's work.

Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr. stated on the Timely-Atlas list (2010-09-08): "The Trojak story in Daring Mystery #4 is primarily the work of Arnold Hicks. Definitely his pencils, most likely also the majority of the inking."

Note also that Simon was editor at Fox at this time, although he did moonlight elsewhere.
Based on panel border thickness, this is likely Chesler shop material.

[no title indexed] (Table of Contents: 11)

Remington Deluxe Noiseless Portable Typewriter / advertisement / 1 page (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Letters

typeset

First Line of Dialogue or Text

This Beautiful Desk for Only $1.00

Indexer Notes

Found on the inside back cover.

Money and Big Prizes (Table of Contents: 12)

The Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. / advertisement / 1 page (report information)

Script

?

Pencils

?

Inks

?

Letters

typeset

Indexer Notes

Found on the back cover.