Today, as we embark on our journey to discover the Avengers, we are sure you are ecstatic! Just a moment. I am hoping you have noticed something is missing. Without Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and other Super Heroes, the world would be a much darker place. Instead, Fergus Mac Murdie, Algernon Heathcote Smith, Nellie Gray, and a few others would be present. What is in a name, anyway? Why don’t you study the names and put your memory to the test? We may perform a quiz on The Avenger’s associates.
Anyway, meet Richard Henry Benson, the famous pulp hero of Street & Smith, who is a robust, immensely knowledgeable, globe-trotting explorer. The Avenger was established in September 1939 by combining two other S&S pulp heroes, The Shadow and Doc Savage, just like Conan the Barbarian was made out of the Kull stories by Robert E. Howard in Weird Tales Magazine.
Under the pen name Kenneth Robeson, author Paul Ernst was hired to develop and write about “The Avenger” Paul Ernst was led by Lester Dent, the creator of Doc Savage, and Walter Gibson, the author of “The Shadow,” in combining the two iconic characters into The Avenger.
The Avenger’s first story, titled “Justice Inc,” introduces us to Richard Henry Benson and his family, who have mysteriously vanished off a flight. The trauma of losing his family transformed Richard Henry Benson into the Avenger, a vigilante who seeks out and avenges all misdeeds that come his way. Others who had suffered in a similar way joined him.
They banded together to start “Justice Inc” a non-profit dedicated to bringing justice to everyone who has suffered in a similar fashion. Aside from the magazine, a radio show presenting pulp stories was also held at the same time.
Comic books were not forgotten. The Avenger and “Justice Inc” stories were converted into comics, first as backup stories in S&S and then by DC Comics. In the 1970s, Warner Paperback Library reprinted the Avenger in paperback. Moonstone Books has just released three volumes of avenger stories written by a range of authors. We will go through these details in more depth later.
The Avenger Started as a Pulp Magazine Character
During the late 1930s, the success of the Doc Savage and The Shadow prompted S&S circulation manager Henry William Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic to introduce a new pulp hero by merging the two aforesaid characters. After consulting Leister Dent and Walter B. Gibson, they hired writer Paul Ernst to create the integrated character of the Avenge. Doc Savage was better nicknamed as “the man of bronze” while Avenger came to be known as “the man of steel.”
The Avenger’s ”Markman’s eyes” could likely be related to the “burning eyes” of the shadow. Lots of features of the Avenger were inspired by different characters that Paul Ernst had created earlier, an example being the character ”Seekay”, who was a private detective with a disfigured face. Then there was ”The Wrath” who was a crimefighter wielding a knife and a gun among others.
Finally, in 1939, the Avenger was introduced to the readers of S&S, written by Kenneth Robeson, the famous creator of Doc Savage. By the way, Kenneth Robeson was actually an S&S house name used by different authors of S&S, including Lester Dent, who actually created Doc savage. Consequently, the first story of The Avenger, titled “Justice Inc,” was released in September 1930. The interior art of The Avenger was looked after by Paul Orban, famous for his work on other characters of S&S magazine. Let us now explore the members of “Justice Inc.”
How Richard Henry Benson Became The Avenger
Let us begin with The Avenger himself. As already mentioned, his real name was Richard Henry Benson, who was a globe-trotter. His adventures in different countries included discovering rubber in South America, mining amethysts in Australia, emeralds in Brazil. He also found gold in Alaska and diamonds in Transvaal.
No wonder he became a millionaire and finally decided to have a family and lead a peaceful life. But his dreams were totally shattered when his wife Alicia and daughter Alice were killed in a plane while traveling from Buffalo to Canada. He went to the washroom, and after returning, he discovered that his family had simply vanished without a trace.
Every other passenger denied their presence on the plane. The shock of losing his family had a tremendous impact on him as his face was paralyzed while his skin and hair turned white. The facial flesh turned malleable like modeling clay, enabling him to change the shape of his face as required.
According to the writer, His face was “… dead, like something dug out of a cemetery. The muscles were paralyzed so that never under any circumstances, could they move in an expression. This dead, weird face was as white as snow- as white, in a word, as you’d expect any dead flesh to be! In the glacial expanse of the face were set eyes so light-gray as to seem completely colorless.”
Eventually, Richard took the vow of avenging all criminals on behalf of the people who had suffered like him. As already mentioned earlier, The Avenger’s face was malleable as clay and thus could be given any shape as desired with fingers. Apart from this, he would color his hair with different dyes and uses multiple colored contact- lenses. With different looks each time, The Avenger also came to be known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces.”
On his quest to search for his family, he met his associate Algernon Heathcote “Smitty” Smith, an electronics genius who otherwise appeared stupid. He was gigantic and powerful, with a height of 6’9″. He was falsely accused of a crime, which he didn’t commit, and later joined the Avenger in his mission.
He also met Fergus “Mac” MacMurdie, who was a promising chemist and pharmacist. His family was slaughtered by some hooligans, rendering Fergus vengeful, and thus he joined hands with The Avenger.
Benson, Smitty, and Mac together formed “Justice Inc” and opened an office with the sole purpose of providing justice against crime.
He had quite a fantastic collection of weapons like bulletproof garments, knockout gas bombs, two-way radios, and especially a glass pellet which was capable of releasing a black gas that gave an impression of instant night. He carried two special weapons named “Mike” and “like.” Mike was a streamlined .22 revolver with a silencer, and Ike was a needle-pointed throwing knife.
The Avenger used Mike in such a way that the shot would just touch the head of the criminals and knock them off, while with the Ike, he could even impale a fly from a distance of twenty feet. His car had unique features like James Bond’s, with a bulletproof body and windows, equipped with invented gadgets for offense and defense. The vehicle could speed up to 130 mph and could fire miniature torpedoes that released knockout gas. To be noted, speeding at 130 mph in the year 1939 was not a matter of joke.
Nellie Gray was the next to join the anti-crime group. Her beauty and delicate looks could deceive people, but in reality, she was a champion of jujutsu and other martial arts. Her father was an archeologist and was killed by the criminals to steal the buried Aztec gold he had found.
The couple, Josh and Rosabel Newton joined ”Justice Inc” next, whose employers were also killed by criminals. The couple was brave, intelligent, and possessed excellent investigating capabilities.
The last person to join the group was Cole Winson, who was the light-hearted contrasting character of the Avenger group. Cole was introduced in the series in the thirteenth issue titled “Murder on Wheels.” He was initially an opponent of the Avenger and trapped him in a machine that gave some sort of nerve shock that turned the facial flesh of the Avenger to normal and his hair also returned back to being black.
People started enjoying The Avenger stories as the plots combined mysteries with slight science-fiction. The Avenger was well known as “the master of the last-minute escape.” He was mentally as strong as Doc Savage, yet he was incredibly calm and intellectual.
He is also famous for manipulating the criminals into their own traps rather than finishing the criminals by himself. He still used to disguise himself after turning to normal, but the way his face could be molded could not be done anymore. The famous pulp expert Don Hutchison appreciated the plots and characterization, but according to him, there was “an unusual amount of attention paid in detail” by Ernst.
There were three stories written by Ernst,” Nevlo,” House of Death,” and “Death in Slow Motion” before The Avenger had become normal again. So, they had to be rewritten to fit into the timeline. Unfortunately, The Avenger didn’t gain so much popularity as other pulp heroes like Doc Savage, The Spider, G-8, The Shadoe, The phantom, etc.
The Avenger Gaining Popularity Through Radio, Comics, and Novel
The novels written by Paul Ernst had been published in 24 issues in “The Avenger” magazine for three years. The first thirteen stories were written and published in order, but as told earlier, some rearrangements had to be made to continue the timeline after the thirteenth issue. The last story published by S&S was” Midnight Murder” in September 1942.
After S&S stopped publishing, the Clues Detective magazine published five short stories and one backstory in the backstory of “The Shadow” magazine between 1942 and 1944, which Emile C. Tepperman wrote.
In the year 1972-1975, Warner Paperback Library reprinted the original 24 novels and eventually engaged writer Ron Goulart to continue the Avenger series with 12 new novels, while they totally discarded the short stories written by Tepperman.
The new series covered by Goulart started with “The Man from the Atlantis,” which was considered as the 25th issue and ended with “Demon Island” as the 36th issue. The artwork for the cover was done by Peter Caras at the beginning but was later taken over by George Gross.
In early 2000, under editor/publisher Joe Gentile, Moonstone Books started publishing comic books on pulp, detective series, and other famous characters, starting with “Phantom.” In 2008 a new collection of stories on The Avenger was printed with covering artwork by Dave Dorman and Peter Caras. Joe Gentile and Robert Hopkins also penned a few stories apart from editing all of them.
The other writers included Ron Goulart, Will Murray, Win Scott Eckert, and many others. The books published by them include” The Avenger Chronicles” in October 2008,” The Avenger: The Justice, Inc. Files” published in 2011, and “The Avenger: Roaring Heart of The Crucible” in 2013.
In 2009, Sanctum Productions started printing the 24 original novels in the same format as they were, beginning with black and white illustrations and original front and back covers. Oh, God! Even I am getting so confused now. Why don’t they leave the Avenger alone?
It is not over yet! We are back to good old 1940 when S&S tried to adapt The Avenger in their own Shadow Comics, but they were hardly successful with seven appearances in total.
In 1975, DC comics started the comics on The Avenger, titled “Justice Inc,” at the same time it was featuring The Shadow. But the comic continued for four issues only. After a brief comeback in 1980, DC comics started a miniseries that lasted for two issues and was written by Andy Helfer and artwork by Kyle Baker. This miniseries focused mainly on the origin of The Avenger.
August 2014 saw the reappearance of The Avenger miniseries in five parts, published by Dynamite Entertainment, and finally, a particular issue of Justice Inc was seen in December 2014, whose title was “The Television Killers.”
A radio serial was performed by Station WHN in New York City, based on the original stories from the magazine but didn’t run long. It was aired for 62 weeks on many stations across the United States, but unfortunately, the recordings of the show are not available. The only things available are the seven scripts of the show.
Is There An Avenger Movie or TV Series In Work
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It was heard that CBS TV Studios was coming up with an updated version of The Avenger novels. Instead of Richard Benson avenging the death of his family, his daughter would be featured in the series. Alice was presented as “a young woman who, in the wake of her parents’ murder, discovers she possesses a superpower as a result of genetic bio-hacking, which allows her to transform her appearance at will.
Alice will use her face-altering talents to investigate the mystery of her parent’s death and uncover the origins of her strange ability”. But I guess the project couldn’t be completed as no such series had been produced. It is true that after the incredible popularity of The Avengers, it is difficult for The Avenger without the ‘s’ to be popular, but it is unfortunate and disappointing that after being highlighted in the novel, comics, and radio program, there is no film produced on “Justice Inc.” We are genuinely looking forward to seeing such exciting characters and plots turned into some blockbuster.
Now for some quiz time. If you can say who the Avenger’s pharmacist expert was and who was the last one added to” Justice Inc” without going back to the beginning of the video, then give yourself a pat on the back and say “Marvelous.”