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:
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)