We're reviewing my candidates for franchises of Gotham City's "Mystery Analysts" and we've just arrived in Metropolis.
Melba Manton
Now, according to the last census, a good 17 percent of Metropolis works as a reporter or in journalism, so the place is lousy with nosy reporters. But the one the Mystery Analysts deserve is that sassy, snappy dresser, Melba Manton.
To be clear, I am not talking about the diluted version who mugged for the cameras at WGBS
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| LIVE from Crime Alley. |
No, I'm talking the O.G. crazy-bold Melba Manton, whose escapades made Lois Lane look like Lucy Ricardo and whose wardrobe made Quentin Crisp look like a prison matron.
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| Really, how could you miss someone wearing THAT outfit? |
Inspector Henderson
He's the classic police Authority Figure in Superman history. He's not flashy, but unlike Metropolis's other well-known cop, Dan Turpin, he's low-key, slow on the trigger, and even-tempered. He's the Cool Cop the Mystery Analysts of Metropolis deserve.
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| Shut up, Jimmy. Unlike Superman, Henderson has no time for suck-ups or any of your "Mr. Action" nonsense. |
Maggie Sawyer might have been up for this role, but she moves around WAY too much. Besides, she was always more of an action-cop than a detective.
Franklin Lester
It's not easy to forgive a character for being created by Cary Bates, but in Lester's case I will make an acceptation. The original version of Franklin Lester was a private investigator trying to root out Metropolis's Masher Mob and resorted to becoming a costumed vigilante named "Tartantula", based on a cancelled TV series his son used to watch.
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| Not hard to see why the show was cancelled. That costume doesn't really scream "TARANTULA!" In fairness, Spider-Man's costume is astonishingly non-spider-like and I wonder whether this character was a riff on that fact. |
Now, we like costumed vigilantes BUT we do NOT like ones who kill people, and he killed a lot of people.
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| Special exceptions can be made, of course. |
A redux of the character could simply be a private investigator, with some cute nod to the character's history, such as having him be the writer of (or writers' expert consultant) a "The Tarantula" show or comic book.
Continuing to STRETCH to find usable pre-existing characters....
Chief Smith
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| No first name needed, with such a unique surname. |
He was the pre-Crisis police chief in Metropolis. He's a blank slate but could fill the "police authority" slot in Mystery Analysts of Metropolis. I mean, it's not like you ever actually saw JIM GORDON solve a crime, is it?
Really desperate at this point. I disqualify the 10,000 named reporters in Metropolis, because they would be redundant with Melba Manton. So...
Jose Delgado
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| Only in Metropolis do gang members carry rayguns. |
Look I know "Gangbuster" isn't really anyone's idea of a DETECTIVE, per se. But, you know, he must have been able to at least track down gangmembers and leaders so that's something. No one's done anything with this character for many years, so he could be reintroduced as either a retired vigilante or just a crusader against low-level semi-organized crime.
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| See, José has already proven his worth as a detective by finding the next member (and saving him from a runaway piano)! |
Slam Bradley
Slam! One of comics' original hard-boiled private investigators. He was created by Siegel & Shuster (the creators of Superman), so he's a natural for the Metropolis Mystery Analysts franchise.
Well, technically he was conceived by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the mad comic book publishing pioneer:
"We want a detective hero called 'Slam Bradley'. He is to be an amateur, called in by the police to help unravel difficult cases. He should combine both brains and brawn, be able to think quickly and reason cleverly and able as well to slam bang his way out of a bar room brawl or mob attack. Take every opportunity to show him in a torn shirt with swelling biceps and powerful torso[.]"
But Siegel & Shuster actually drew and wrote the character. He's perfect!
The Mystery Analysts of Metropolis actually seems like an interesting group of people. Certainly more lively than their Gothamite counterparts.
8 comments:
Tarantula's outfit is just Batman's costume, with the ears cut off and a v-neck shirt worn over it.
They didn't even come close. Blue mask/gloves/boots with red-and-purple tights? The golden age DC Tarantula wore YELLOW tights and a PURPLE mask with matching gloves & shorts and no boots and he didn't wear a spider symbol and he only carried ONE "gun," not...wait, am I thinking of the right guy?
(checks DC fandom for details)
The two most memorable (if not *only*) Slam Bradley stories I've ever read were "The "Too Many Cooks" Caper" in Detective Comics #500 (1981) -- which sort of established its own set of Mystery Analysts via guest stars Jason Bard, Richard Carter aka Mysto the Magician-Detective, the Human Target (Christopher Chance), Captain Mark Compass, Roy Raymond, and Ohiyesa "Pow-Wow" Smith (quite a crash course on DC detectives to twelve-year-old me), all of whom, like Slam, had been taught and/or worked with the recently deceased Archie Evergreen -- and the storyline in Detective Comics #572 (1987), in which Batman and Robin worked with Slam and the Elongated Man on a case that resulted in them meeting Sherlock Holmes (in reference to which, Slam, who'd spent the story "feeling his age," as it were, noted, "Compared to him, I'm a spring chicken." ;-)
Side note: Evidently, Slam's real first name is "Sam," which is also the first name of his sidekick "Shorty" Morgan, whose death was depicted in #572. They am Sam.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Samuel_Morgan_(New_Earth)
Back in the eighties, "Batman and the Mystery Analysts" was supposedly Mike Barr's initial idea before he came up with "Batman and the Outsiders."
So the Outsiders almost literally took the place of the Mystery Analysts. How metaphorical can you get? I can only guess what Scipio's reaction to this piece of news might be.
(Barr might have been kidding about it in the editorial column where he "revealed" that, of course.)
BTW, per DC Fandom, apparently, Slam Bradley's golden age stories were set first in Cleveland (if I'm not mistaken, also the city in which Superman was first active), then in New York City, not Metropolis, but then, of course, Metropolis is no less interchangeable with New York City than is Gotham City. :-)
(I'm going to keep doing this until somebody notices.)
"Only in Metropolis do gang members carry rayguns."
That might be because only in Metropolis would anyone expect a raygun to actually WORK. Try playing "stick 'em up" with an raygun in a more typical city and see how fear you inspire. ;-)
Not unlike that one time that Adam Strange's wife Alanna threatened Earth criminals with a "raygun." Sure, They Laughed At First...
Slam Bradley is perfect. I was wondering about repurposing Bibbo, but Slam fills the role of street-smart crime solver with lots of connections much better.
Always good to my guy José Delgado in comics.
By the way, how come you missed Emil Hamilton? He's Superman's Mr. Fixit, his own personal scientific consultant. He was a pretty important cast member from the eighties until the 2000s, when he was pretty much replaced by Steel and started going crazy (again). Last time I saw him, he had appeared during Convergence and was well and sane again.
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