The Dangerous Corpse

There has been very little news involving the Black Bat of late so I've directed a little time towards updating some of the pages at the top of the blog.

The "Reprint Resource" page now includes a publisher named Mystery House. Or rather, Mystery House is an imprint of Fiction house.

Fiction House has reprinted three of the character's early stories, oddly enough three stories that have already been reprinted (though perhaps FH released theirs first, I'm not certain). It appears as though the three were released in 2014, presumably as a result of the character getting some exposure from the Dynamite Entertainment series.

Also, the "Blitz" page has been updated to display covers and rough synopses of that German publisher's upcoming reprints. In May, they will release volumes 19-22. Must be in nice, in North America, we appear to be stuck at #18 with Altus Press.

Finally, there are been small corrections and additions to both the Black Book Detective and Fledermaus pages. And speaking of BBD...

I took the time to read The Dangerous Corpse again, one of the last Black Bat stories published (spring 1951).

When I read The Killer Who Wasn't (the issue following this one), I thought it would have made a great conclusion to the series. That description may be even more applicable to this story.

There are a couple of references to how long this group has been in the crime-fighting business. McGrath, early in the story, mentions that he's gotten old for the job. Carol, referring to a prank played on McGrath, confirms that they've been hiding Anthony Quinn's secret for at least ten years. And we get a "as long as there is villainy, team Bat will be there" kind of speech at the end. Again, it may be just me projecting, but it sounded like the series was winding down. If we were referring to a film, credits would roll.

As for the story itself, it's a decent enough mystery. A young lady is making her way to various businesses around a city neighborhood looking for someone named Whitey. When she returns to her rented room, a man is waiting for her inside. In a fit of anger, he strangles her to death and runs off. The people she spoke to earlier in the day are also targeted so many questions are raised around her identity, who Whitey is, why she sought him, the motive for the assault on her, etc. Being that she is young and clearly in need of help, Norman A. Daniels created a compelling victim for his story.

There is another unique (or at least rare) aspect; someone else has concluded that Anthony Quinn is the Black Bat and attempts to expose him. It makes for a nice change from McGrath trying to do so.

This was a pleasant read. The early Black Bat stories often feature large-scale organized crime, Nazis and/or flamboyant villains. These final couple of stories were far more down-to-earth and the variety was appreciated.