The Avenger: Red Moon - Kenneth Robeson

[jkdunham]

The Avenger #26: Red Moon by Kenneth Robeson
Warner Paperback Library, July 1974
Cover illustration by George Gross
_{(better quality cover scan to follow)}

Following the enormous success of Bantam's paperback reprints of Doc Savage's adventures, which reached the peak of their popularity in the 1970s, Warner Paperback Library opted to revive the pulp exploits of The Avenger - "by the creator of Doc Savage, Kenneth Robeson".
Well, yes and no. They were and they weren't. The Robeson house-name, synonymous with The Man of Bronze, was used by a number of writers working for pulp giants Street & Smith on Doc Savage Magazine. But Paul Ernst, the author of The Avenger's two dozen original adventures (and who also created Doctor Satan for Weird Tales) wasn't one of them. Nor did Lester Dent, the original, the most prolific, and the greatest of all Kenneth Robesons, contribute to The Avenger. The two crime-fighting heroes were, however, from the same stable and cut very much from the same cloth.
So was mysterious millionaire adventurer Richard Benson little more than an attempt to cash in on the success of Doc Savage (and, for that matter, The Shadow)? Well, yes. Yes, he was. But that doesn't mean that Doc fans won't also find much to enjoy in "this thrilling series!"
Having reprinted all of Paul Ernst's stories from Street & Smith's relatively short-lived The Avenger magazine (1939-1942), Warner Paperback Library turned to Ron Goulart (perhaps most fondly thought of on Vault as the author of the Vampirella novels) to produce 12 new Avenger titles. Red Moon was the second of these.
And I must say that Mr Goulart did a pretty good job. Although perhaps not quite as well written as Ernst's original adventures, the best compliment I can pay Red Moon - and it's no faint praise - is that if you didn't know otherwise, you would't have much trouble at all believing that it had first appeared as a forties' pulp.

Small yet spunky Nellie Gray is driving down to snowy Brimstone, Connecticut to visit some of her folks when she comes across the body of a well-dressed man with his throat torn out, apparently by some ravening wild beast. But if that's the case, why the trail of bare human footprints in the snow? When she reports her grisly find to the local police they appear somewhat uneasy but don't seem to be taking the little lady's story any too seriously. Sure enough, when she returns to the scene shortly afterwards, the body has disappeared and all that remains is an odd silver charm.
Brimstone, Connecticut (Population: about a dozen, Major industry: home-brewed cider) is a quiet, little town. Used to be a person could go quietly about his cider-drinking business without getting his throat ripped out by a wolfman, and now there's been three such mysterious killings in as many weeks. That's an increase in werewolf-related murders of, like, 300%! What gives here? And why are the authorities so anxious to keep things hushed up? Could it have anything to do with the Top Secret government Project 20 and its research into biological weapons? ("Our country will probably never use them, but the Axis nations don't have the same ethics. That's why we have to do what we're doing." Yeah, that seems fair enough. I mean, as long as you'll probably never use them...) Maybe Nellie will get some answers if she goes out to the old disused cider mill, alone, and meets up with that mysterious caller who calls her so mysteriously. Yeah, shrewd move, Nellie.

Time to call in Dick Benson, The Avenger! And just as Doc Savage has his 'fabulous five' aides, The Avenger has his 'Justice Inc.';

Algernon Heathcote "Smitty" Smith, a giant of a man you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of (i.e. underneath) as he weighs about 300 pounds, though on the inside he's a bit of a soft get (he has a 'thing' for little Nell). He's also the man to see for all your gadget/gizmo needs. Basically he's like a seven-foot 'Q'.

Fergus "Mac" MacMurdie, professional Scotsman, and no slouch on the chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering front either. Very handy bloke to have around, as long as you can put up with his bizarre speech patterns which suggest he might be a character who's wandered in off the set of 'Whisky Galore' - "Whoosh! 'Tis a lass in trouble... By the beard of the great Red MacGregor... Go easy, mon... Yon building is dirrrectly over the lab those two lads are mayhap using... ('tis) something I'm nae quite surrre of... Ye fixed the tracking box well enough, but I'm afeared 'tis on the blink once more... Mon, be ye alive or dead up therrre?", etceterrra...

(As - with the exception of a good lawyer and an archaeologist that talks a lot of shite - Smitty and Mac pretty much cover everything between them that Doc Savage's sidekicks could do, that doesn't really leave very much scope for the rest of Justice Inc. to distinguish themselves...)

Cole Wilson, six feet tall, dark-haired, good-looking, All-American, somewhat disillusioned by recent world events - "All we get nowadays is Hitler. I miss the ax murderers and bathtub slayers". Essentially a romantic figure.

Josh Newton, he's black (Ok, call it 'tokenism' if you like, but this was a pretty good gig for a black character back then - that said, he does spend most of Red Moon 'posing' as The Avenger's chauffeur)

and our Nellie, feisty certainly but, on the strength of this outing, seems as though she'd be about as much use in a tight spot as Daphne from Scooby Doo.

Between them, Dick and the team soon make short work of settling the psycho-wolfman's hash, rounding up a bunch of treacherous fifth columnists in the process. It's good, pacey stuff with some nicely done werewolf attacks and a finale which sees The Avenger battling beastie boy on top of a bell tower. Extra points too for featuring an actual beast man, albeit "not the kind of werewolf you get in horror movies". Fans of deranged scientists, wolfmen, cider, and unconvincing rrregional accents should lap this up like a slavering brute.

[dem bones]

I was slavering at the first mention of Ron Goulart and from the rest of your wonderful post it's clear this is well up to the standard of the Vampirella classics.

I was fortunate enough to land a Robert Weinberg collection of Dr. Satan stories, wrote it up and forgot all about it!

Paul Ernst - Dr. Satan:Pulp Classics #6 (Robert Weinberg, undated)

Introduction - Robert Weinberg

Paul Ernst - Doctor Satan (Weird Tales, Aug. 1935)
Paul Ernst - The Consuming Flame (Weird Tales, Nov. 1935)
Paul Ernst - The Devil's Double (Weird Tales, May 1936)
Paul Ernst - Beyond Death's Gateway (Weird Tales, March 1936)
Paul Ernst - Mark Of Death (Weird Tales, Aug-Sept. 1936)

Gene Ellerman (Basil Wells) - Crusader (Fantasy Book #5, 1949)

I've no idea what the Basil Wells story is doing in there, especially when there was at least one more Dr. Satan outing, Hollywood Horror! Robert Bloch hated Dr. Satan even more than he loathed Conan, but then he wasn't keen on de Grandin either. The Ernst stories seem to have been Weird Tales' attempt at luring the detective audience and set crime-buster Ascott Keane versus the fellow in the devil costume who - I seem to recall - was ever holding New York for ransom.

[pulphack]

Thanks for bringing this up, Steve - I've not read any of the Goularts, but have a couple of early Avengers - Justice Inc (no1), and Murder On Wheels (no13). This latter introduces Cole Wilson, whose presence is ambivalent for at least half the book. You're not sure what side he's on to begin with, and this adds a nice edge to what is a fairly simple plot. In this one, Benson's face and hair return to normal, too, after an electric shock (if memory serves - a few years since I read it). I don't know if they took him back to being the ice-faced wonder after, but I would hope so, as it was a great piece of schtick: I always loved the way he could rearrange his facial muscles when they were paralysed, and so assume new identities.

The first book gave its title to the DC comic version in the 70's, which is where I first encountered The Avenger, and also The Shadow (until I hit my twenties, I always thought they were comic characters and had no idea they were old pulp heroes). Benson and The Shadow faced off in about the tenth issue of The Shadow's comic, and soon after that I found Justic Inc lurking in a local newsagent. The first issue followed the first book, and was ok but a bit lacking. The next three were incredible (I never saw one after #4, sadly), as they were written and drawn by Jack Kirby during that insane DC period that also saw him doing OMAC and Kamandi. Mad art deco lines and that chunky, kinetic Kirby style, where everyone has huge muscles and granite jaws. An acquired taste, admittedly, but nothing has ever hit me like Kirby's art did at that time. I prefer the likes of Jesus Blasco these days (my Steel Claw fetish), but my God, Kirby's work jumped off the page.

And the stories were mental - basic adaptations of the novels, and as mad as the Shadow issues. Aftre the heat of pulp invention, other comics started to read very dull.

Speaking of manic white heat of invention (which we were, sort of), consider that Lester Dent, Walter Gibson and Paul Ernst were writing at a rate of 15,000 words a week. Edgar Wallace and Erle Stanley Gardner did more, perhaps, but they dictated. John Creasey did the same, in longhand. Gibson wore out typwriters. They did this week in, week out, with little rest between. Now, when circumstance has dictated, I've worked at that pace for a couple of months at a stretch, but by then have needed a break as the writing and revision is mentally exhausting (which may be because I'm not as naturally quick or good as they were). They didn't have that luxury. Which makes it astounding to me that these guys kept up such a consistent quality. A lot of people (not necessarily on here, mind) moan about the inconsistencies of high-turnover writers - but given the pace, it always astounds me that they can keep ANY level of consistency!

But back to the Avenger - is it worth searching out the later ones, then? How do they compare to Goulart's other work?

[jkdunham]

Oct 19, 2008 10:28:23 GMT pulphack said:

In this one, Benson's face and hair return to normal, too, after an electric shock... I don't know if they took him back to being the ice-faced wonder after, but I would hope so, as it was a great piece of schtick: I always loved the way he could rearrange his facial muscles when they were paralysed, and so assume new identities.

It's beyond me why Street & Smith decided to take away what were pretty much The Avenger's only distinguishing features. I suppose they thought that whole ghostly avenger/weird facial paralysis thing just wasn't working. But, as you say, the "face as white and dead as a mask from the grave" bit was his thing - without it he was basically just another emotionally-retarded millionaire crime-fighter with surprising strength and a nice line in gadgets.
I've got #15 House Of Death on the go at the moment and he's still referred to as 'icy' and 'steely' and such, but there are these constant odd references to his lovely thick head of black hair. It's really quite off-putting. In one of the book's most credibility-straining sequences - where Benson allows himself to be framed for murder - rather than being a master of disguise, he has an actor friend impersonate him (sporting a wig of lovely thick black hair obviously).
However in Red Moon, Goulart does have him rearranging his face to assume the identity of the head of a spy-ring. Not sure how that fits into the chronology but it made me happy anyway.

I get the impression that Goulart made much more use than Ernst ever did of the Cole Wilson character, who seems to have been something of an afterthought in the original series.

I remember D.C.'s Justice, inc. comic. It was fine indeed, although personally I always preferred the black & white Doc Savage magazine from Marvel or Curtis or whoever it was.

Which makes it astounding to me that these guys kept up such a consistent quality. A lot of people (not necessarily on here, mind) moan about the inconsistencies of high-turnover writers - but given the pace, it always astounds me that they can keep ANY level of consistency!

Couldn't agree more. Another thing you often hear is people talking about 'cynical hacks'. This may well have been true in some cases but the best pulp writers seemed to take a considerable amount of pride in the stuff they were turning out. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Lester Dent burnt himself out trying to meet deadlines, almost to the point of having some sort of breakdown, before other 'Kenneth Robesons' were brought in to ease the load a little - and even then he'd go through the scripts changing things and doing rewrites. He wasn't happy about stuff he considered sub-standard going out, even under a house name.

Red Moon is the only Goulart Avenger I've read so far but on the strength of that one I'd say they're a lot of fun. Particularly keen to get hold of titles like The Blood Countess and The Purple Zombie.

[pulphack]

as it happens, goulart is a perfect example of the kind of writer sometimes derided as a cynical hack, but who truly loves his work and cares about it, just has few illusions.

the truth is, most 'hacks' work on other peoples property - series fictions of all kinds - because it's hard to get your own thing going. and when you do, you have to keep worjking at a day job because it's going to be a while before you build an audience bog enough to financially sustain you. if at all. unless you're lucky.

lots of variables there. but most of us don't earn that much, we just swap job satisfaction for big bucks, and as long as we can scribble we're happy. a lot of pulp hacks have wanted to write something else other than what they do, and sometims they get the chance. but writing is more fun that an office or a building site, and so what if we have to use other people's characters? we can still put all our own stuff into it, as long as we keep to some kind of guideline.

and it's true that the notion of slapdash is bollocks - as you say, dent and ernst worried at their work, and when they had to have subs take on the load they worried about them, too. john creasey is another example. about 600 books in his career, as in the early days he figured that he would have to write one a month in order to support his family. as sales increased, he didn't have to do this, but he felt obliged to his readers. he also used to revise old titles when they were republished and he felt he could improve them. does anyone care now? of course not, they were only cheap paperbacks to most people. but he wanted his work to be the best it could be, regardlesss. writers like peter leslie and mike avallone were the same - they might not revise old work, but they did every job to the best of ther ability. latter day writers like LJ were the same.

sometimes hack writers look like they don't care as they're not actually very good (pierce nace, anyone?). but i bet they do - you can always spot it. it' why barbara cartland was so popular while other romane writers came and went. same for catherine cookson. neither of them great stylists, byut by god they loved their work - they were hacks to begin with (BC only took it up as a divorce left her with two sons and no income, despite her posh roots, while CC was dirt poor and determined to make a better life), but they didn't HAVE to keep it up when they got successful. fact is, they loved it.

i suspect most hacks aren't as cynical as they make out - it's a shield against generations of Leavis influenced critics laughing at them.

and how many people did the Leavis' ever entertain, i wonder?