Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Fox Feature Syndicate, golden age, Green Mask
The Green Mask who debuted in 1940s Green Mask #1 was a complete reboot of the character whose previous existance had been a mystery indeed.
The creation of cartoonist Walter Frehm, the Green Mask was the cover-feature of Mystery Men Comics #1 in 1939, debuting in that issue alongside the likes of Blue Beetle and Rex Dexter of Mars. The Green Mask was more of a mystery than any other feature in early Mystery Men Comics, as he is portrayed as a pulp-style adventurer with no special abilities beyond basic athleticism and fighting skill, and used no special weaponry or gadgets beyond a normal handgun. The introductory blurb in the first issue alludes to the character as having a secret identity, but it is never named, and he is never shown in any form besides a masked vigilante. In fact, the only other regular character of the feature, newspaper reporter “News” Blake, typically does much of the leg work in these stories, leaving Green Mask to round up the bad guys in the end. This would all change dramatically when the character got his own series, and there’s a Green Mask #1 (Fox Features Syndicate, 1940) CGC VF/NM 9.0 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2023 September 28 The Fox Comics Showcase Auction #40239 at Heritage Auctions.
Both Blue Beetle #1 and Green Mask #1 add considerable backstories to those characters, but Fox took it much father in the case of the Green Mask. There appears to be some difference in opinion as to whether the character who debuted in Mystery Men Comics #1 is the same person as the character who debuts the next year in Green Mask #1, but I think they are best understood as having different and unrelated secret identities. He is now identified as Michael Shelby, son of a United States Senator. In the origin story, the Senator is assassinated by members of a villainous secret society called the Grim Circle. The attack leaves Michael Shelby near death himself, and in an attempt to save his life, his friend Professor Lascomb uses his “Vita-Ray Machine” on Michael’s mortally wounded body. The procedure works even better than expected, giving Shelby the power of flight and general superhuman strength. He decides to become the Green Mask to avenge the murder of his father. In the same story, the sidekick Domino the Miracle Boy is introduced, after a young boy is injured in an attack on the Green Mask and the Vita-Ray Machine is used to save him. This version of the character, which appears in Mystery Men Comics #13-31 and Green Mask #1-9, was effectively ended by Victor Fox’s Fox Publications, Inc. 1942 bankruptcy.
When Fox emerged from his bankruptcy in 1944 and started to put a comic book line back together, Green Mask returned in Green Mask #10 as a completely different character yet again. But like the rest of the Fox comic book line of that post-bankruptcy era, that’s another strange story. As it stands, this 1940 series debut has a very nice Lou Fine cover, and is a fair bit more important than many collectors realize. There’s also only one copy graded higher than this Green Mask #1 (Fox Features Syndicate, 1940) CGC VF/NM 9.0 Off-white to white pages up for auction in the 2023 September 28 The Fox Comics Showcase Auction #40239 at Heritage Auctions.
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