October 1938: Avengers of Many Colors

The Green Hornet was clearly popular in 1938 — so much so that DC Comics offered two comic book pastiches of the radio superhero.

An urbanized, updated version of the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet had debuted on WXYZ radio in Detroit in 1936. By the spring of 1938, the show was being heard nationally on the Mutual network.

And in Detective Comics 20 (Oct. 1938), the Crimson Avenger took a bow.

“Whereas in reality the Hornet was Britt Reid, daring young publisher of the Daily Sentinel, the Crimson Avenger was Lee Travis, daring young publisher of the Globe Leader,” noted comics historian Ron Goulart. “The only person who knew the Hornet’s true identity was his faithful valet, Kato, and the Crimson Avenger’s secret was shared only by his Chinese servant, Wing. Like the Green Hornet, the Crimson Avenger never used a deadly weapon and preferred to put his adversaries to sleep with a blast from his gas gun. He wore a dark blue slouch hat, a domino mask and an Inverness-style cape of crimson hue.”

Elsewhere in Detective Comics 20, you could find a house ad for the More Fun Comics feature the Masked Ranger — DC’s version of the Green Hornet’s great-uncle, the Lone Ranger.

A little later, in Adventure Comics 40 (July 1939), DC provided readers with another masked, gas-gun-wielding man about town in a business suit. The Sandman added a cape to the ensemble.

“It’s anybody’s guess whether the Sandman was inspired by Superman or (like the Crimson Avenger) the Green Hornet,” observed comics historian Don Markstein.

Hornet or no Hornet, both the Crimson Avenger and the Sandman were examples of an evolution in melodrama already underway in comic books.

“Masks, hoods and villains with colorful names were becoming the norm in the stories even though many of them were still the evil Orientals at this stage,” noted comics historian Steve Thompson.

And Lee Falk’s Phantom had been haunting the funny pages since 1936.