(Jan 13, 2004)
From April 1938, this was the second of the Captain Satan stories by William O`Sullivan. For five issues, STRANGE DETECTIVE STORIESwas retitled CAPTAIN SATAN before going back to its original title. Satan was a cool hero whose premise had some possibilities; it`s too bad his series got yanked so quickly. As much as I like blazing death rays and African assassin cults, it`s refreshing to read a slightly more plausible story about some clever crooks pulling off an novel scheme.
PAROLE FOR THE DEAD has a great premise. Convicts in prison are starting to turn up dead with increasing frequency. The bodies are always severely burned or mutilated but positives ID are made by the dental records. And it`s only wealthy convicts that this happens to. Sure enough, Captain Satan finds a successful Jailbreak Gang in operation, taking in millions and setting vile murders and racketeers free (and since they`re thought to be dead, they`re not even on the run).
The gang`s methods are kind of high up on the improbability scale but not too far to be clearly impossible. When they start springing hoods from Alcatraz, and when Satan starts cutting in on their gig by pulling a jailbreak of his own, you have to let the momentum carry you through and start questioning later.
Captain Satan is very much an imitation Saint. Specifically, he`s a copy of the early Simon Templar stories, when the Saint`s true identity was secret and he ran around as chief of a group of young hooligans. The difference (aside from these stories not enjoying the benefit of having Leslie Charteris as a writer) is that Satan has none of that blithe cheerfulness and flashes of genius Simon Templar displayed. This guy is a grim, hard vigilante who acts as if he has severe heartburn. Once or twice, a smile or wisecrack manages to wriggle through his tight facade but he quickly gets all stern again. This surly pose seems to work, though, as he seriously intimidates everyone he meets.
Cary Adair is one more specimen of the slacker playboy who populated the pulps and Golden Age comics. We really owe a debt of thanks to that generation of avaricious heartless businessmen who amassed vast fortunes at the turn of the century; they left a dozen healthy, intelligent young heirs who had no need to work for a living but decided instead to fight crime. (You know, these playboys usually take up their heroic careers for no particular reason but I have to wonder if just possibly they were a bit ashamed of living off the family loot. Maybe the natural urge to do things and contribute to society was an underlying motive for putting on masks and shooting thugs.)
Satan is like the early Saint also in that his agenda is to rob crooks. ("It`s true not many know of him, fewer yet have seen him. The underworld knows of him as a freebooter, a pirate that preys on their big shots and wrecks them after he gets his swag.") The crew of a dozen men working for him is nicely presented. Although a few have useful skills in medicine or pickpocketry, most seem to be just tough guys following their chief. In fact, if it weren`t for their policy of not shooting cops or civilians, these men seem pretty much like the gang one of the masterminds would organize. Satan and his lieutenant know the real names of everyone but the members themselves only know each by code names like Big Bill, the Dutchman and Gentleman Dan.
We don`t really get to know them well but they seem remarkably human compared to other pulp hero gangs. The members of Satan`s Crew show a normal amount of apprehension or greed in the situations they get into ("Look, Captain... take what you got and quit this now," his lieutenant suddenly says. "Tip the Feds off to the game and get out. I`m -- scared".). At one point, Satan requires two of them to carry out some grisly alterations on a corpse, and they do it with real reluctance. One of the crew gets killed during the course of the story (evidently one or two of the team ends up slightly dead in each Captain Satan novel.) and there`s never a feeling that these guys are invincible or charmed. THE SECRET SIX would have benefited from some of this mood.
Captain Satan is regarded with almost comical horror and fear by the underworld. I`m starting to think that 1930s gangsters were a bunch of nervous wrecks. Everytime they look up, there`s a spider seal or a stick man with a halo, a skull imprint or (in this case) a drawing of a devil. All these logos make hardened killers have conniption seizures so completely that I wonder why the police didn`t start leaving some of these symbols around just to keep the crooks jittery. Captain Satan goes a step further. He has a trick cigarette lighter which is actually a powerful flashlight and has a devil outline on the bulb so it projects his sinister emblem. (I guess Peter Parker must have read some of Uncle Ben`s old pulps up in the attic.)
Still, devil imagery was a big factor in pulp stories and artwork. Right behind gorgeous women in their underwear and looming skulls, I would bet the Devil runs a close third for his appearances on covers. CAPTAIN SATAN covers are very cool and would make nice posters with the scowling man in trenchcoat casting a huge diabolical shadow, complete with pitchfork.