1934
NEIGHBORHOOD IN PERIL
Jim
Anthony works to protect the non-Anglo Saxon residents of a New York
neighborhood from a racist group. Officer Burland secretly meets with Jim to
discuss the situation. Gibbons, the Managing Editor of Jim’s paper, the New York Star, tells Jim that Gunigun at
the Sentinel says one of his delivery
boys in the neighborhood got hit by a truck. FBI agent Dan Fowler asks Jim not
to get involved with the investigation. Jim threatens to go to Frank Havens of
the Clarion with the story, and
suggests that someone in the U.S. government may be working with a “pure
America” group like the Knights of the Open Palm. Jim is later visited by G-2
agent Jeff Shannon, aka the Eagle, who refers to a man named Ashton-Kirk. After
the villains are defeated, Jim shakes hands with Dan, the Sentinel’s elderly owner.
Story by Erwin K. Roberts in Jim
Anthony: Super Detective Volume Four, Ron
Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2013. Officer Kip Burland is the alter
ego of the comic book hero the Black Hood, whose adventures were published by
MLJ, the company later known as Archie Comics. The character also appeared in a
short-lived pulp magazine, Black Hood Detective. It is unconfirmed whether Burland ever operated as the Black Hood in
the CU. “Gunigun” is a reference to Bill Gunnigan, the City Editor of the Daily
Sentinel, the newspaper owned by Britt
Reid, aka the Green Hornet. Dan is Britt’s father, Dan Reid Jr. Since the Green
Hornet was based out of Detroit in the CU, Gunnigan and the elder Reid must have
been visiting New York to work with the paper’s branch in that city. The year
of this story is conjecture based on the fact that it takes place before Britt
took over ownership of the Sentinel from
his father. FBI agent Dan Fowler was created by Major George Fielding-Eliot and
appeared in the pulp G-Men Detective.
Frank Havens and the Clarion newspaper
are from the pulp magazine The Phantom Detective, written by a number of authors using the pen names “G. Wayman Jones”
and “Robert Wallace.” The Knights of the Open Palm are from Carroll John Daly’s
short story of the same name, the first of a series of tales about P.I. Race
Williams that appeared in the pulp Black Mask. Jeff Shannon, aka the Eagle, appeared in four stories in the pulp Thrilling
Spy Stories and one in Popular
Detective, all written by Norman A.
Daniels as “Kerry McRoberts.” Ashton-Kirk was a Sherlock Holmes-like detective
(albeit based in New York) who appeared in stories by John T. McIntyre for The
Popular Magazine, which were collected in
four books.