Duke Douglas: Secret Agents, Spies, Espionage, Intrigue

Duke Douglas, recruited by Army Intelligence in 1942 while in his last year of medical school, proved to be just the sort of deep cover agent America needed to face the insidious Soviet threat of the mid-1950s. Reading Duke’s adventures today the influence of Ian Fleming’s super spy seem obvious but keep in mind that in late-1953, when Duke Douglas debuted, only Casino Royale was in print, there had been no films, and very few people had ever heard of James Bond. Clearly, the creative team at Comic Media were at least a heartbeat or two ahead of the game. Duke first appeared on the cover of Comic Media’s Danger #6, cover dated November 1953. Only one of his stories credits a writer, Ken Fitch. Illustrations are provided by Don Heck, Pete Morisi, and Bill Discount. Boardman Books’ character collections bring together the adventures of rather obscure golden ago comic book characters in single volumes. The point of the volumes is not to focus on a particular artist but to rediscover a character generally lost to comics fandom. Stories are reproduced from vintage originals from the collection of the publisher (and other sources) with only rudimentary cleaning to make the art more legible and therefore suffer all the drawbacks that implies. If you are looking for an exposition, or diatribe, on this artist or that, these books are not the place to find it. However, if you wish thrilling adventures as only comic books can convey, these might be the publications for you.