Action Comics #42

Action Comics #42 (1941)
by Mort Weisinger & Mort Meskin

If superhero comics owes a lot to westerns, it doesn’t get any more explicit than with Vigilante.

The story is sometimes called “The Origin Of Vigilante”, even though the title is nowhere to be seen in the story and he’s already a hero in the first scene.
Well I’d say he’s a vigilante, but that would be redundant.

The criminal he arrested, Killer Kelly, gets the electric chair but survives thanks to a doctor his gang has threatened.

Once he’s back, he doesn’t exactly keep a low profile.

We learn that Vigilante is actually Greg Sanders, a famous radio star.
Thankfully he didn’t use his nickname as his superhero name, because I don’t think “Prairie Troubadour” would work.

You’d think that Vigilante’s disguise of covering his mouth would be ridiculous… and you’d be right.

You can’t give him the Clark Kent excuse of “nobody sees it because he’s pretending to be mild-mannered” when he does his own stunts anyway!!!

Am I missing something? Why WOULDN’T you think he’s Vigilante?

At this point we get Vigilante’s origin, which begins with… ehm… his grandfather killing Native Americans. That aged well.

And that’s, well, that’s basically it. Not exactly a thrilling origin story, but it’s interesting to see he’s already a legacy character in his first appearance.

I’m always suprisised by how rarely costume balls show up in my Golden Age retrospectives, considering they’re a stereotypical setting.
You would think Vigilante would be popular as a costume, right? Easiest superhero cosplay ever!

Sure enough Killer Kelly shows up at the ball.

Despite his name, Killer Kelly is surprisingly polite for this kind of villain: he takes as a hostage Vigilante’s love interest… but JUST to get to the car, and then leaves her behind.

Also like EVERY Golden Age criminal, he ties up the hero instead of JUST SHOOTING AT HIM.

This is all over the place.
From a thematic standpoint, Killer Kelly should be trying to kill Vigilante with electricity since he’s looking for revenge for being given the electric chair.
But more importantly, if you decide to kill him with gas, don’t randomly leave a bucket of water laying around!!!

Kids, if you ever find yourself being suffocated by gas, just light it on fire.

Comics Archeology does not endorse setting gas on fire.
Unless you have escaped the electric chair, in which case please go ahead.

Vigilante then knocks out Killer Kelly’s accomplice… and either Vigilante has super-ventriloquism or Kelly is hard of hearing, because he doesn’t understand Vigilante is imitating the accomplice’s voice.

Ah yes, of course, the old rope trick.

And so we end with Vigilante throwing the criminals out of the window and into the nearest power pole…

…and I keep my doubts about his disguise.

Historical significance: 2/10
Despite Vigilante’s surprising career… more on that in a bit… he’s not exactly a household name.

Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Even drugs that make you survive the electric chair aren’t that crazy.

Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
A perfectly serviceable and extremely basic story. Everything still works as a base, but you’d have to build SOMETHING over this.

How close is this to the modern character? What modern character?
Much like Shining Knight, who shares a lot of his publishing career, Vigilante definitely sticks out from most other superheroes.

Already by Action Comics #45 Vigilante receives his teenage sidekick: “Stuff, the Chinatown Kid”.
Shockingly for the time he’s NOT a racist caricature.

Already by December 1941, he’s one of the founding members of the Seven Soldiers Of Victory.

But unlike most of his teammates, Vigilante had a respectable career on his own.
He’s on every issue of Action Comics from #42 to #198 in 1954!
Which not only makes him one of the Golden Age heroes lasting the most, but he holds the shocking record.
With 157 successive stories, he’s THE longest backup feature of Action Comics beating Zatara, Tommy Tomorrow, the Legion and even Supergirl!!!
I’m sure that being created by Mort Weisinger had no impact on this record.

He returns in 1972 on the pages of the Justice League, with the rest of the Seven Soldiers.
Unlike them, he spent a good chunk of time in the Old West between appearances.

After his return he had features on both Adventure Comics and World’s Finest. The latter culminated in 1978, with Vigilante riding off into the sunset with the son of Stuff (the Chinatown Kid).

After that, the original Vigilante basically retired from his superhero career, doing mostly cameos or brief appearances.
A different Vigilante debuted in 1982, but I don’t think there’s any relation between the two.

As for the original Vigilante, he’s still around whenever lesser-known Golden Age heroes need to make a cameo.

The parallels with Shining Knight are evident, as he’s ALSO very useful for being visually distinct in crowd scenes. But he has a better track record when it comes to adaptations!

Which begin really early, with a 15 part movie serial in 1941 where he’s played by Ralph Byrd.

He shares most of his appearances in the Justice League Unlimited with Shining Knight, as the two were written as close friends. He rarely has a speaking role, but the episodes “Patriot Act” and “Hunter’s Moon” (in the latter without Shining Knight, for once).
He’s mostly voiced by Nathan Fillion.

He’s also in the “Batman: The Brave And The Bold”, voiced by John DiMaggio.

He also exists in the Stargirl TV series, although just as a picture showing the Seven Soldiers Of Victory.

What else was in Action Comics #42?

Superman, unsurprisingly, in a story by Siegel & Nowak.

It’s a Lex Luthor story, although we don’t learn it immediately (he’s disguised as a cult leader first, which is why he’s dressed like that).
Interesting that even this early he was able to come up with inventions that gave Superman trouble.

He’s even able to mind control Superman, which leads to this terrifying panel.

Vigilante is the second story. Try to guess the genre of the third story.

Then there’s Three Aces, an adventure story about a South American revolution.

Then there’s Mr. America, who might not be a household name but debuted in Action Comics #1.

It’s the first story where his supporting character Bob Daley becomes the superhero Fat Man, also known as “that’s not Red Tornado” and “We never talk about him”.