Kim Oh

Kim Oh

Creator: K.W. Jeter

Characters

Kim Oh

Donnie Oh

Cole

Monica

McIntyre

Our main heroine is an American born Korean girl who, along with her brother have lived in Foster Homes most of their lives. Learning book keeping, Kim got work with a mob boss "cooking" his records so the IRS and Feds could not get anything on him. When the kingpin decides to present a legitimate front, he brings in a Harvard accountant and fires Kim, throwing her out on the street. He was having all his competitors murdered by his assassin, Cole, and Kim ends up with records, which could likely benefit the FBI. Kim can't find work and she must pay rent, and feed her brother and herself (he's an invalid). When she learns that her boss had attempted to kill Cole, but left him paralyzed instead, she offers to pay him to assassinate their old boss. The assassin sees something of himself in Kim and wants to make her into what he once was.

Kim Oh is small and meek, a one-hundred-pound orphan, barely out of her teens, and caregiver for her disabled brother. She’s no martial artist and doesn’t wear a costume, but quickly learns weapons, and how to kill from her mentor. All Kim wanted was the job she’d worked hard for, but when her boss McIntyre threw her out on her ear, she began dreaming of revenge. She hires Cole, a psychotic assassin who was also dispensed with by McIntyre. Left crippled by McIntyre’s security guards, Cole tells Kim that the only way they’ll be able to pull off the hit is if she’s there with a gun in her hand. Before she knows what’s happening, Kim is training to be a professional assassin, with everything at stake and she’s only going to get one chance to pull it off.

Donnie is Kim’s wheelchair-bound younger brother. They had both been in the Child Protective Services, but now he was with her.

Cole was McIntyre’s hired assassin, until the boss wanted to look legal, and rid his company of unsavory characters, then he had his bodyguards kill the assassin – but they failed, only leaving him paralyzed. Now, he’s hiding out with his girlfriend, Monica.

Monica is Cole’s redheaded girlfriend.

Although this is set in contemporary times, like The Spider Kim only kills the bad guys. It was fun reading about the small Korean girl going from nerd office worker to professional assassin. It wasn’t a fast transformation, either. She gets better with each novel. Her brother learns what she is doing and wants to help, though he’s a prisoner in the wheelchair; still, in a later story, he does leave the chair and crawls to her assistance.

There have been four novels in the series so far:

“Real Dangerous Girl”

“Real Dangerous Job”

“Real Dangerous People”

“Real Dangerous Place”

More Pulp Heroes

More Pulp Hero

The Black Bat was a later pulp hero, beginning in July 1939 from the STANDARD pulp house, about the same time as Batman in the comic books. Very similar in appearance, there might have been a lawsuit to stop The Black Bat, but the pulp character was pretty well covered; they published a very similar version back in 1934, so DC couldn’t press them to cease, as they were first. Tony Quinn, blinded in the courtroom by criminals he was prosecuting, is forced to retire from law. Until a young girl brings him secretly to the Midwest, where her dying father has left his eyes to the New York attorney. Unknown to the world, the new eyes bring sight back to Tony Quinn, but he remains blind to the public, and battles crime now as The Black Bat. Very popular, the series lasted for 62 issues, ending with the death of the hero pulps in 1953.

Don Diavolo was a stage magician who also solved mysterious crimes that baffled the police, such as locked door mysteries or paranormal crimes. He only appeared in four issues during the 1940 & ’41 period from RED STAR MYSTERIES, and was a casualty of the war in Europe. Called The Scarlet Wizard, the stories were written by mystery author Clayton Rawson under the pseudonym Stuart Towne, who also wrote The Great Marlini novels.

Operator #5 was a fascinating series in its short run of 48 novels, from 1934 through 1939, under the byline Curtis Steele. Three authors wrote the series: Fred Davis, E. C. Tepperman, and Wayne Rogers. Jimmy Christopher was a Secret Service agent, code name Operator #5. He originally fought American criminals and foreign agents Under Fred Davis; then, with E. C. Tepperman begins the invasion of America. Known as The Purple Invasion, the Purple Army from Europe conquers America in 13 books; the 14^th novel tells of our reconstruction after driving the enemy from our shores. No sooner have we beaten the Purple Invasion from Europe, Wayne Rogers brings Asian soldiers to our shores in the remaining novels, and in the last published novel, November 1939, drop an atomic bomb on America, almost six years before America drops the atomic bomb on Japan.  The series then ends, though an unpublished story remains untold.

A Couple Pulp Ladies

A Couple Pulp Ladies

Although most women in the pulps fell under two categories: one, they were pretty damsels to be rescued, or two, they were Mata Hari’s or femme fatales.  A few exceptions do come to mind. Back in 1921, Johnston McCulley’s short novel, The Masked Woman was originally published as a serial in The Washington Post; this is another of McCulley's early costumed characters, appearing nearly two decades before The Domino Lady and The Black Cat. Like her future protégés, she brought beauty, brains, and sex appeal to the female vigilante long before they were popular. Calling herself Madame Madcap, she wears a sexy evening gown, long black cloak with hood, and a black mask to cover her features. Appearing mysteriously, she recruits a gang of hoodlums to do her bidding, demanding complete loyalty. Then she sets them up for a fall, handing them over to the police with enough evidence to convict. This was an interesting story from the very first. As with most of McCulley's stories, his characters are heroes who act outside the law, but for the good of society - or for a purpose, like Zorro. Though there are no gun battles or sword fights, we see plenty of fisticuffs. Madame Madcap's chauffeur and bodyguard is a huge, muscular black man, and her right hand man is a professor of anthropology, who is studying the criminal element of society.

The Masked Woman was the forerunner of The Domino Lady, a masked crime fighter that appeared in 1936. Truth is many of Johnston McCulley’s characters were the influence of the pulp heroes of the 1930s. Like The Masked Woman, The Domino Lady was a beautiful woman in a mask. Criminals had murdered her father, and she was after them, and any that got in her way. She wears a gown of either black or white satin, daringly cut and backless. The halter-neck of the negligible bodice revealed a gleaming expanse of faultless white bosom and creamy shoulders. She drew a cape of black silk around her shoulder, then a shiny black domino mask over her eyes. Her adventures appeared in SAUCY ROMANTIC ADVENTURES and MYSTERY ADVENTURE MAGAZINE.

Sheena, Queen of The Jungle, first appeared in comic books, but was so popular she moved over to movies and pulps. Wearing a leopard-skin, she is a golden-haired beauty. Slim, tall and bronzed, with blue eyes. Unfortunately, she was short-lived in the pulps; only two issues were published. Fiction House released SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE in 1951, with three novelettes; then a final story was published in JUNGLE STORIES in 1954.

Lady super heroes fared much better in the comic books, as the men seemed to dominate the pulp magazines, which to me is a surprise.  The Black Cat was merely a secondary character in The Angel Detective, which ran for one issue, then folded. However, there were comic books that featured The Angel and The Black Cat, but I’m not sure these were the same. Could be, though. I’ve never been able to figure out why there were so few masked heroines in the pulps. Of course boys were probably the majority readers of the pulps, and I’m sure they wanted to read about characters they could connect to. Still, boys were also fascinated with girls and they read comic books that featured them.

More Pulp Heroes

More Pulp Hero

The Spider was dated October 1933, and was pretty much a copy of The Phantom Detective for the first two issues. Long-time author R. T. M. Scott created the series, rewriting his characters from Secret Service Smith into the more violent Spider. Smith had already appeared in numerous novels and short stories in the 1920s. The Spider actually came into his own with the third story, December 1933, when Norvell Page took over the series under the Grant Stockbridge house name. Though very popular, the series only lasted 118 issues, ending in 1943 when the war paper shortage put an end to many magazines. The Spider was in reality Richard Wentworth, wealthy man-about-town, and amateur criminologist, until he put on the black slouch hat and cape, and became the nemesis of the underworld. New York is virtually destroyed in every story, as some menace releases deadly viruses and vermin among the people, and mobsters run wild in the streets.

Captain Satan was a fun series, and not quite as violent as The Spider. Written by William O’Sullivan, it lasted but 5 issues in 1938, and then was dropped. Very possibly influenced by Johnston McCulley’s The Rollicking Rogue in the December 1930 issue of ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, about a young man whose family had been ruined by a group of millionaire businessmen, he’s now out to remove their ill-gotten gain, wearing a devil costume to do so. Captain Satan, on the other hand, is a master criminal with a squad of assistants, consisting of safe crackers, and other specialists. A gentleman, he only goes after other crooks (another gimmick used by Johnston McCulley). Extremely rich already, Cary Adair divides the spoils with his men, and keeps them in line so that no innocents are harmed.

The Masked Detective was one of the latecomers to the pulp hero class. Likely due to the success of Superman in the comic books, between 1938 and 1940 the pulps quickly came out with a long string of new pulp heroes to attract more young readers to the pulps. Ned Pines’ STANDARD pulp line brought out several to compete with the growing comic book super heroes. One such was The Masked Detective, a reporter like Clark Kent, he was Rex Parker, a poorly paid crime reporter for a rag newspaper who had a secret: a martial arts expert – in savate – he donned a mask and went after the bad guys. A lot of fun, though a lot of the pulp heroes was using la savate and judo at the time. Again, the war paper shortage ended many new characters during this period too soon. The Masked Detective only lasted 12 issues in his own magazines, from Fall 1940 to Spring 1943, and then a 13^th story was printed in the back pages of THRILLING MYSTERY in Fall 1944, probably shortened from novel length. The series was written under the house name of C. K. M. Scanlon, created by prolific author Norman Daniels, and then turned over to a variety of other scribes.