History
In the late 1930s following in the wake of a slew of magazine cancellations (The Skipper, Bill Barnes and The Whisperer "had failed to capture the audience loyalty" of Doc Savage and the Shadow) Street and Smith circulation manager Henry William Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic set out to create a new hero combining elements of Doc Savage and the Shadow. They obtained advice from Lester Dent and Walter B. Gibson in the creation of the Avenger, and hired writer Paul Ernst. Both Dent and Gibson met with Ernst to give him advice on his stories, Dent focused on characterisation and Gibson on plotting. The character of the Avenger, described by pulp expert Don Hutchison as "clearly an effort to form a hybrid of the company's more successful creations", echoed his forebears in other ways also. Whereas Doc Savage was known as "The Man of Bronze", the Avenger was described as "The Man of Steel". The Avenger's "marksman's eyes" echoed the "burning eyes" of the Shadow, who continued to be referred to as "The Masked Avenger."
When creating the Avenger, Paul Ernst drew on elements from characters he had previously created; Seekay (a private detective with a disfigured face who wears a plastic mask); the Wraith (a crimefighter who used a knife and a gun); Dick Bullitt (with gray features); Old Stone Face (a G-man with the emotionless visage); the Gray Marauder and Karlu the mystic.
In 1939 readers of Street & Smith's Doc Savage pulp magazine "thrilled to a special announcement" that a new periodical — The Avenger — "was soon to be published," and would feature stories "written by none other than Kenneth Robeson, 'the familiar creator of Doc Savage.'" Robeson was a Street and Smith house name used by Ernst and a number of authors, including Lester Dent, the actual creator of Doc Savage. The first issue of The Avenger was cover-dated September 1939, and featured a cover story/'lead novel' entitled "Justice Inc." Interior art was produced by Paul Orban, well-known to pulp fans for his "similar work on Doc Savage and The Shadow."
Read more about this topic: Avenger (character)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility—I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)