Cover Cavalcade

 

The month of May is brought to you by the Letter G.

A 1937 cover by Frederick Blakeslee.

Cover Cavalcade

 

A wonderful Frederick Blakeslee cover from 1937.

Death Rides the Ceiling.

We've visited with master spy and ace pilot G-8 before. Robert J. Hogan, who wrote all 110 G-8 novels, could always be depended upon to give us bizarre but internally consistent plots peppered with great action set pieces. Frederick Blakeslee provided wonderful covers, with this one (November 1936) being particularly action-packed.

The story that goes with it is equally action-packed, even though it starts with both the hero and the villain on vacation. German mad scientist Herr Doctor Krueger is recovering from the near-fatal injuries inflicted upon him by G-8 pretty much every time the two butt heads. When he learns that
G-8 is taking a few days off on the Riviera, the doctor decides to combine recuperation with a little spying and arranges to be smuggled into the Riviera himself.

I'm not sure this is the world's most brilliant plan, but the book allows the Germans to be extremely clever opponents to the Allies throughout most of the novel, so I'm feeling forgiving about this. Anyway, the end results of these shenanigans is that both G-8 and Krueger learn that some sort of powerful magnetic force is being used in the German town of Neurthrum--something that can literally pull planes out of the air. Krueger orders a strafing attack on G-8's hotel, but the spy survives and soon manages to capture the German.

So far, the novel is off to a swift and entertaining start. But it gets better. G-8, disguising himself as an old woman, enters Neurthrum and gets a job scrubbing floors in the town hall, which seems to be the epicenter of the magnetism. He soon makes progress in spying (and in cleaning--he's all over that place with his mop and bucket). He pretty much figures out that the head janitor is behind the magnetism.

There is a plot thread left dangling here. Does the janitor intend to use his invention to help the Germans or does he have his own agenda? He does use his device to help G-8 escape a firing squad later on and there's a scene that implies he's later tortured by Krueger to give up that device. Is he pro-Ally? Neutral? Just plain nuts, as most scientists in G-8's universe seem to be? This is never resolved.

It's actually an indication of how much fun this novel is that a significant plot thread left blowing in the wind doesn't spoil the story at all.

German agents in Paris pull off a complex but really very clever plan to rescue Krueger from his prison cell. This puts G-8 at risk, because Krueger knows the spy has gone to Neurthrum. This results in an edge-of-your-seat escape sequence, in which G-8 (still in his old woman disguise) has to fight past a guard, steal a car, survive being strafed by a Fokker, crash his car, steal another car and then steal a plane to get away--taking a bullet to his shoulder for his troubles and then nearly getting shot down by his own men. This is Hogan at his best, presenting the entire sequence in clear, breathless prose.



Another great sequence comes later when one of the Battle Aces, Bull Martin, flies a solo mission to

try to blow up Neuthrum's town hall, only to be caught in the magnetic force.

As the novel approaches its climax, we learn that Krueger already had a plan in the works to lure thousands of Allied troops into a trap. Now the super-magnets are used to support this effort. Mounted in the wings of Fokkers, they deflect any bullets fired at the planes. Invincible fighter planes give the Germans complete air superiority.

G-8 has to improvise plans to take out these Fokkers and save the American army. But another twist comes when he finds he's been fed false information by Krueger, causing his initial plan to fail miserably. Now he literally has just minutes to improvise yet another plan before countless Allied soldiers are slaughtered.

This is great stuff. G-8's escape and Bull's doomed mission are the highlights, but the entire story moves with lightning speed and is enormously fun from start to finish. Another satisfying element to the story is G-8's cover story when he's posing as an old woman--"she" explains that all four of her sons have died in combat and now she just wants to serve the Fatherland in any way she can. G-8 literally makes several German soldiers fall all over themselves to get "her" a job at the town hall.

I also really do appreciate that the bad guys are smart--as demonstrated both by their plan to spring Krueger from the slammer and Krueger's later successful effort to feed G-8 bad information.

This is one of my favorite G-8 stories, containing all the elements that make G-8 one of the great pulp heroes.

Screaming Death Heads in the Sky!

Those darn Germans are at it again. This time, they turn to a Hindu mystic named Ghoula to find a way to capture the master spy G-8 and crush the Allied military at the same time.

Ghoula is offered the job by G-8's arch-enemy Doctor Kreuger. The Kaiser's top mad scientist isn't up
to the task himself--he's currently recovering from being riddled with machine gun bullets during his last encounter with G-8. But Ghoula takes the job--as long as he gets a regular pay check and the services of the top 1000 German pilots, then he can promise Germany will soon win the Great War.

This is the set up for "Wings of Invisible Doom," which was the featured novel in the September 1936 issue of G-8 and His Battle Aces. It's a typically entertaining entry in the series, with writer Robert J. Hogan giving us some exciting action scenes and a bizarre but internally logical plot. 

This one is a little different from other G-8 tales, though. To explain why, I'm going to have to include a bit more of a spoiler than I usually would, but that can't be helped.

Ghoula puts his scheme into action and soon giant, screaming death heads (attached to what is apparently an ectoplasmic cloud) are zipping through the sky at incredible speeds, attacking and destroying Allied planes.

It's not unusual in a G-8 story for a seemingly supernatural threat to have a "rational" explanation in the end. Werewolves, zombies, invisible planes, giant bats and other bizarre dangers are all eventually explained away as scientific creations by Doctor Kreuger or another of Germany's seemingly endless supply of mad scientists.

It's the same thing this time. The flying death heads are advanced planes with smoke jets to hide their shape, rigged to make a weird moaning sound as they flew and armored to make them largely immune to machine gun bullets. 

But where did Ghoula come up with a plane design decades in advance of anything else that exists? He looked into the future, of course. So there is an element of mysticism to this story. The Germans are using a science fiction devise, but they learn how to build it through what is apparently magic.

Also, Ghoula has caused several weeks of drenching rain to pour down on the Allied lines and muddy up the roads. There's no explanation given for that--so he apparently has access to some weather magic as well. 

This isn't a criticism of the story. The world of G-8 does need to grounded in pseudo-science rather than pure fantasy, but its such a strange world that a hint of magic fits in without a problem. Besides, maybe Ghoula's mysticism is like the Shadow's power of invisibility--a "science" that Westerners just haven't figured out yet. 

Anyway, G-8 and his partner Nippy get shot down by one of the death head planes and are forced to parachute out while behind enemy lines (using just one parachute for the two of them). But they eventually manage to steal a Fokker and get back to their own lines, despite being shot down again by Allied anti-aircraft fire. Some days it just doesn't pay to be a master spy.

G-8's other partner Bull has been captured, so the spy sneaks back to the German lines to find Bull and destroy the airfield that harbors the death heads planes. Hogan stretches contrivance a little too far when G-8 (disguised as a German officer) casually joins a tour of the airfield and has the entire plot explained to him, spotting both Bull's cell and a convenient stockpile of bombs along the way. Pulp writers as skilled as Hogan can usually pull off their unashamed use of coincidence and make it a part of the rhythm of the story. But here, Hogan stumbles just a little. 

But the final action set-piece, involving freeing Bull, knocking out some guards, knife-fighting with Ghoula and rigging the bombs to blow, is fun indeed. So we'll forgive Hogan for using one coincidence too many to bring the story to an exciting end.

Cover Cavalcade

I've always pictured some Army clerk behind the lines reading G-8's battle reports and stamping "Recommended for Psychiatric Evaluation" on each one.

Fighting the Germans while Fighting the Flu

As I understand it, writer Robert J. Hogan (who wrote all 110 issues of G-8 and His Battle Aces) would get a look at a cover painting by Frederick Blakeslee, then write a story that fit that illustration.

Well, here's what he got for the October 1936 issue:

It's a pretty gosh-darn cool image, which is typical of Blakeslee's imaginative illustrations. That's G-8's Spad in the foreground, with his two Battle Aces helping to haul that mega-bomb somewhere. Obviously, the Germans are upset with them because of this.

If this particular image came before the story, then the end product is all the more interesting. Because the whole "towing a mega-bomb" thing doesn't happen until the last few pages. And for most of the story, the existence of the bomb isn't even hinted at. I think it's possible that Hogan had a story idea he wanted to use, then modified it to fit that mega-bomb image in at the conclusion. Heck, maybe he'd had the story idea kicking around in his brain for awhile, waiting for an image he could use as an excuse to write it.

Or maybe he simply took the idea of the mega-bomb as his reverse starting-point and constructed the story backwards from there. In any case, he came up with a strong and exciting plot.

Skies of Yellow Death begins with Allied ace pilots suddenly dropping dead. All at the same time. And after they had all received notes warning them they would die at the precise moment they did.

G-8 looks into it, soon learning of a Chinese scientist named Chu Lung who has gone to work for the Germans. Chu Lung is being brought to Germany in a U-Boat. When the Master Spy and his men try to destroy the U-boat, G-8 is shot down. His ensuing unplanned dip in the North Sea leaves him with a nasty case of pneumonia.

So G-8 spends the bulk of the story stumbling around, weak as a kitten, while trying to figure out how Chu Lung is poisoning Allied pilots and where he's located. G-8 receives his own death threat, so he's got to avoid an assassination attempt while pursuing the case. At one point, G-8 is captured and trapped in a coffin, not knowing if he's going to be buried alive. Not long after that,  the Master Spy finds himself in a traditional death trap (spiked walls closing in on him) inside the mansion Chu Lung is using as a headquarters.

It's not until the last few pages that G-8 learns about a giant poison-gas bomb that will devastate the Alllied armies. Stealing the bomb and dropping it on German troops suddenly becomes a top priority.

The story is fast-paced fun, as most G-8 tales are. What makes this one work is the effective way Hogan weaves several plot threads together to generate suspense, then adds the fact that G-8 is sick as a dog to make it even more suspenseful.

It may have taken Robert J. Hogan the entire novel to finally fit the image from the cover painting into the story, but it was well worth the wait.

 

The latest addition to my YouTube channel

Some day--SOME DAY--I'll get through 4 minutes of narration without stumbling over a sentence.

Cover Cavalcade

This sort of thing happened to G-8 all the time.

Cover Cavalcade

If I remember correctly, writer Robert Hogan was shown the cover illustration first, then had to come up with a story that fit it. This wasn't unique in the pulp business, but considering how bizarre the G-8 covers were, Hogan deserves credit for coming up with consistently exciting (and more-or-less internally logical) stories to go with them.

Skeletons, death rays and biplanes

G-8 and his Battle Aces ran for 110 issues during the 1930s and early 1940s. All 110 issues--in which master spy and ace fighter pilot G-8 foils increasingly bizarre German schemes to defeat the Allies during the Great War--were written by Robert J. Hogan.

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There were a lot of pulps in the '20s and '30s that featured WWI aerial combat or daredevil barnstormers. Remember that at this time, the overwhelming majority of people had never been on an airplane. So pilots and airborne derring-do still had a thick veneer of romanticism over them. Readers searching for a good adventure story were naturally drawn to the subject.

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Many of the aviation pulps were set during the Great War for convenience more than any other reason--like Westerns and G-Men pulps, it gave the readers a pre-set situation in which they already knew who the good guys and bad guys were.

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So when Hogan was assigned by Popular Publications to do another aviation pulp, he realized he had to come up with a way to make his stories stand out from the crowd. His solution was to make the hero a spy as well as a pilot, then to throw a seemingly endless series of science-fiction threats at him.

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In the first issue, he encountered giant robot bats that spewed poison gas. Later issues involved anything from genetically-engineered giant birds to soldiers mutated into werewolves to invisible planes. Hogan, a talented and prolific wordsmith, always managed to build a fast-moving and exciting yarn around these idiosyncratic plot ideas. Frederick Blakeslee usually painted the terrific covers.

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What made me write about G-8 today? Well, I just read a recent reprint of Skeletons of the Black Cross (first published in February 1936). In this one, G-8 has to deal not only with a newly invented German death ray, but with a small army of apparently re-animated human skeletons.

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Skeletons with death rays. Why doesn't anything that inherently interesting ever happen in real life?

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Typical of most pulp adventures, it is pure escapism--emphasizing story and action over characterizations. And that, of course, is exactly has it should be. Hogan, like Maxwell Grant (The Shadow) and Lester Dent (Doc Savage) had a talent for constructing clever plots and exciting action set pieces. He did exactly what he was supposed to do--provide his readers with a few hours of fun.

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In fact, Hogan outdoes himself in this issue with one particular set piece. G-8 finds out that the Germans need a rare element to power their death ray. Stealing a German bomber equipped with six bombs, he flys out into the North Sea to intercept and blow up the submarine carrying an irreplaceable supply of the element.

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What follows is a truly edge-of-your-seat battle sequence in which G-8 dogfights a half-dozen Fokkers while simultaneously dodging anti-aircraft fire from the sub and trying to make a successful bomb run. It's one of Hogan's finest moments in the series--one of those occasions where you can't put the book down until you're done with the chapter.

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The story is marred a bit at the climax when the Germans pretty much act like idiots, allowing a captive G-8 to sneak away and radio for help. But even this doesn't spoil an exciting and entertaining story. G-8 isn't as famous as the Shadow or Doc Savage, but he holds a deserved place of honor in the pulp hero pantheon.

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Skeletons with death rays.

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Sorry, I just wanted to type that out one more time.