Before there was Batman, before there was Superman, there was… Hope Hazard! Your Major Spoilers Retro Review of Detective Comics #3 awaits!

DETECTIVE COMICS #3

Writer:  Uncredited
Penciler: Alex Lovy
Inker: Alex Lovy
Colorist: Uncredited
Letterer: Uncredited
Editor: Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson
Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Price:10 Cents
Current Near-Mint Pricing:
Release Date: April 10, 1937

Previously in Detective Comics: The pre-superhero comics of the Golden Age featured any number of cowboys, cops, detectives, and government agents. The first superhero and the first supervillain (that would be The Lightning, the big bad of The Fighting Devil Dogs, who directly inspired George Lucas’ Darth Vader forty years later) wouldn’t show up until the spring of ’38, but the nascent comics industry had already solidified the formula for adventure strips as early as 1935. Granted, it’s the same formula used in the pulps, newspaper strips, and movie serials, but if, as they say, it ain’t broke.

As for Miss Hazard, agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, her first appearance starts with a great entrance.

Though she’s not the first female lead in the pages of what would become DC Comics (Sandra of the Secret Service was halfway through her 39-issue run in the pages of New Fun Comics/More Fun Comics), Hope has something Sandra MacLane would never get: A really great, superhero worthy name! She also has the moxie, to use the vernacular of 1937, to stand up to a man who doesn’t trust her federal credentials, taking control of the situation to find out why the FBI dispatched her. Upon hearing that air mail flights keep disappearing, Hope fearlessly decides to ride along on the next.

Her pilot, one Bill Littlejohn, manages to bring the disabled plane down safely, but Hope quickly discovers that the radio has been disabled along with the engine, suggesting sabotage. The art here is quite detailed for the era, the work of Alex Lovy, probably best remembered as an animator (he directed a number of Woody Woodpecker shorts and created Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse at the tail end of the classic Warner Brothers era). Lovy’s character design work shows a keen eye, while Hope herself resembles Greta Garbo.

Faced with a band of armed criminals, Hope Hazard doesn’t flinch, immediately looking for a way to turn the situation to her advantage. As the air pirate crew walks her and Bill to what seems like certain death, they round a corner that momentarily obscures her from her captors…

And Hope grabs her concealed sidearm and starts a’shootin’!

Hope and Bill sneak into the hidden caverns below, where they find the Z-Ray, the device that the bad guys have been using to remotely disable the mail planes, as well as the leader of the strange band, a giant of a man known only as Xavier!

I think it’s really interesting that Bill is the one who wants to go get help, while Agent Hazard shuts him down, insisting that they stay and disable the Z-Ray personally. My expectations of gender roles in fiction in this era would be exactly the opposite. The setup for another chapter is all for naught, though, as Hope doesn’t return for issue four. All in all, though, Hope Hazard’s debut in Detective Comics #3 makes for a good read, with unexpectedly strong art and a more coherent story than most of the rest of the issue’s features, earning 3 out of 5 stars overall. Hope does make a second appearance, almost exactly one year later, though it doesn’t continue this story, removing her FBI agent status, saddling her with a useless father character, and turning her into the shrinking violet that I expected her to be here.

In short, it’s a bummer, and in the words of Lieutenant Worf, “We do NOT speak of it.”

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