You know what? Let's take a look at another Hangman story (see our previous post HERE too!) And if you're temporarily thrown off by the cute Mother Goose splash page, well, you shouldn't be, --because once this story gets going, 'ol Mama G literally becomes one of the creepiest Halloween-esque wicked witches in all of pre-code comicdom! Lots of great art and atmosphere, and some wildly violent moments in this one --plus! a couple of nice good girl moments courtesy of long-legged Thelma! But is The Hangman himself any more effective here than in our previous story? You'll just have to read it and find out for yourselves! From the August 1942 issue of Pep Comics #30, and with art possibly by Harry Lucey.
3 comments:
The Hangman doesn't really seem too concerned about his secret identity. Also just kinda shows up randomly, no one seems surprised, lol.
I like the previous art better but this one has its charms, too, there's lot of great gothic buildings and windmills and such and it has some good expressions and some moody shadows, like the last panel on page 4. That's certainly a cliche but well done and I like the camera angle.
BTW -- this is twice now that the murderer ... kind of has a good reason. Not that the murder is legitimate but his anger and hate do come from reality. Which makes the whole hangman thing really strange that this is the well (ha) they keep going to. It makes a more interesting villains but it also seems to make the Hangman the clean-up crew for real jerks.
And, again, he shows up as a civilian for absolutely the flimsy of reasons (I swear he's the hangman because he's bored), bosses everybody around in and out of a secret identity, promises safety and gets them killed and should himself been killed but NO the villain has to get theatrical (the batman tv show superpower.)
... and he basically does nothing. Saves one guy. Thelma comes to the rescue, at least.
That said, another great one. You kind of get the idea that the point of the story is the villain; give a good villain, a couple good deaths, and the Hangman is pretty much just a bland vehicle for the mayhem. A lot of 40s superhero comics kind of work around this, and it's a good gimmick.
Mother Goose peering down the well is a great image!
So far on THOIA we have seen The Hangman, The Doll man (in The Adventure with the Corpse), and Mack Martin, Private Eye in The Murder Masquerade, they all have a pretty high body count in their stories.
Back in the early days of comics it didn't seem to matter how many people the bad guy bumped off as long as the good guy defeated him in the end.
One thing that would have separated The Hangman from other superheroes is if he worked as the executioner at the local penitentiary. At least That would have given him a reason to catch the killer- to stay employed!
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