Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment

Release Date: May 2011

Price: $49.99

Creator(s): Written by Fran Striker. Art by Bert Whitman Associates. Cover by Josef Rubenstein.

Format: 280 pgs.; Full-Color; Hardcover

ISBN: 978-1-6069-0183-0

Age Rating: Teen+

ICv2 Rating: 3 Stars out of 5

 

While popular as a radio show, the Green Hornet was not an instant hit as a comic book.  This compilation of the 1940 short run by Helnit Publishing shows why the popularity did not carry over.  The artwork is competent for the most part, done by Bert Whitman studios, a B-list comics producer of the period that produced many B-list projects.  The writing, however, was often painful, attempting to convert half-hour radio show concepts into eight pages of comics.  That format was common in 1940, but these stories just didn’t fit the format.

 

Some of the Green Hornet radio stories were about unusual minor crimes, like smuggling lace handkerchiefs into the country without paying customs fees.  Making that kind of story interesting requires more development than eight pages can provide.  The comic took this to an extreme by including stories about reselling stolen dogs, a crooked vanity publisher and other petty crimes.  These, when blended with tales of gangland violence, Chinatown tong wars, or crimes risking hundreds of lives, make an oddly jarring mix, at eight pages each.  Simple gangster tales worked well, other stories were simply too rushed.

 

This book will be of interest to die-hard Green Hornet fans, and anyone interested in how comics have developed over the past 70 years, but otherwise may be of limited appeal.  Violence, but little bloodshed, so the book is suitable for older children through adult.