September
16-23, 1989
CRIME OF THE ARTS
The
Voice teams up with a woman named Dana to take down the militia to which the
man who disfigured her belonged. The hero uses his father’s gas gun, and quotes
the First Master Detective, “Watson, you see, but you do not observe.” The
Voice uses a meditative technique one of his honorary uncles taught him rather
than go to sleep. The Voice compares a female scientist working with Dana’s
victimizer to the original Victor Frankenstein. The woman’s father worked at a
secret facility that reprogrammed people located near a town in upstate New
York. The Voice calls his friend Curt Van Loan of Havens International Media.
The Voice uses his Uncle Kent’s mental trick to fall asleep nearly instantly,
and teaches Dana his Uncle Jethro’s technique for reducing pain without drugs.
The Voice remembers seeing a picture of the militia’s leader in the New York Clarion. The Voice thinks that
Matt Helm would have taken a practice shot at a tree, but he can’t alert
whoever is approaching. Dana compares the militia’s headquarters to Fu Manchu’s
lair, but the Voice replies “If old Fu owned this place, we’d probably be dead
by now.”
Story by Erwin K. Roberts in Casebook of
the Voice, Modern Knights Press, 2014.
The Voice’s father is the pulp hero Secret Agent X, who was created by Paul
Chadwick under the pen name “Brant House.” The First Master Detective is
Sherlock Holmes. The Voice’s honorary uncle who taught him the meditative
technique is Michael Traile, “the Man who Could Not Sleep,” the archenemy of
Donald E. Keyhoe’s pulp villain Dr. Yen Sin. The reference to “the original
Victor Frankenstein” is consistent with numerous books, comics, and movies in
which relatives and descendants of Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein engage in
experiments of their own. The secret facility near upstate New York is Doc
Savage’s Crime College. Curt Van Loan is the son of Richard Curtis Van Loan,
aka the Phantom Detective, who appeared in a titular pulp magazine by several
authors using the pseudonym “Robert Wallace.” Van Loan’s girlfriend in the
original pulp stories, Muriel Havens, is Curt’s mother; her father, Frank
Havens, was the publisher of the New York Clarion newspaper. Uncle Kent is Kent Allard, alias the Shadow, while Uncle
Jethro is Kendell Crossen’s pulp hero The Green Lama, whose real name was Jethro Dumont. The references to Matt Helm and Fu
Manchu could be interpreted as allusions to fictional characters, but given the
Voice’s familiarity with a number of other heroes and villains, I am treating
them as valid crossovers.
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