January 1942: Enter an Executioner

Flying, firing death rays from his eyes — MLJ’s Comet might have been regarded as a more lethal version of Superman.

But after only 17 adventures, for whatever reason, the publisher had him fatally gunned down, replacing him with a grimmer version of Batman.

“The Hangman was Bob Dickering, whose brother, John, was a minor superhero called the Comet,” noted comics historian Don Markstein. “He took over the Comet's sparse supporting cast, including girlfriend Thelma Gordon. This happened in Pep Comics 17 (July 1941), published by MLJ Comics (which changed its name to Archie Comics a few years later).” 

“Like Batman’s, the Hangman’s career as a costumed crime fighter was motivated by revenge. But he carried his ‘grim avenger’ role much farther — not just in his motif, far more terrifying to a criminal than a mere bat, but also in his methods. One reason the Hangman struck fear into the hearts of his foes was the gallows and noose he often projected in shadow form to herald his arrival. Another was his propensity for killing them whenever that struck him as appropriate.”

“Although lacking his brother’s superhuman powers, the Hangman was a more exciting character,” wrote Kurt F. Mitchell in American Comics Book Chronicles. “Bob Dickering played minds games with his foes before swooping in for the figurative kill, stalking them, terrorizing them, assuring them that their fate, as foretold by the projected image of a gallows, was inevitable.”

A year after the Comet’s murder in the pages of Pep, the title’s headliner, the Shield, permanently lost his super powers. So the company may have simply decided that masked vigilantes were a better bet than superhuman champions.

And indeed, the Hangman did well enough, expanding to his own title (first called Special Comics, then Hangman Comics) in January 1942.