Spy Fighter Written by (Mostly) Robert Bernstein

Clark Mason, Spy Fighter is a feature at Atlas written, all but two stories, by Robert Bernstein, including the origin in issue 1, "The Snake of Saigon," as seen here (art by George Tuska). The "Eaaaa" was my signal to look for other Bernstein mannerisms among the stories. Remember that he was writing Black Rider for Atlas at the time; there he actually got a number of credit lines thanks to artist Jay Scott Pike.

I can ID a few of the backup stories, ones written by main feature writers Bernstein or Hank Chapman. The one art ID I'll put forth is a story by the "Dinosaur Island" Batman artist, Paul Cooper.

Jumping on the war magazine bandwagon for a while, Clark Mason is in uniform as an Army lieutenant and then a captain, in combat in Korea in #9 through #13.

Clark Mason writers in Spy Fighters

Mar/51–Jul/52	1-9	(all Clark Mason stories)	Robert Bernstein
Sep/52	10	P-38	Bernstein
		The Vision	Hank Chapman
		Suicide Flight	Bernstein
Nov/	11	(all Clark Mason stories)	Bernstein
Jan/53	12	The Silent Death	Bernstein
		The Strange Enemy	Chapman
		Captured!	Bernstein
Mar/–Jul/53	13-15	(all Clark Mason stories)	Bernstein

Backup stories in Spy Fighters

Sep/51	4	Deadliest of the Species	pencils: Paul Cooper
Nov/	5	Arsenal for R-Day	wr: Bernstein
Mar/52	7	The Tower of Terror	wr: Bernstein
Sep/	10	Secret Weapon	wr: Bernstein
Nov/	11	The Destroyer	wr: Bernstein
Jan/53	12	The Human Target	wr: Chapman

The Dinosaur Island Artist on Sub-Mariner

The "Dinosaur Island" artist (1946-48 at DC), Paul Cooper, works on Sub-Mariner at Timely before moving over to Batman. He has more than one inker here (possibly one of them is himself—who knows?). The figure poses are the better way to find Cooper's pencils when close-ups of faces show more of the inker's style.

There are a few other stories from this period that I've spent days considering and finally decided to leave off the list, and it's the inking that's made it hard to tell.

For what it's worth, in every story below, the final panel closes as you see in "Horror Island"—with "End", rather than "The End" as in the other features in these issues.

Paul Cooper pencils on Sub-Mariner
in Marvel Mystery Comics

Sep/45	66	Sub-Mariner vs. the Murderous "Zako"
Nov/	67	The Lost Soldier

in Human Torch

Fall/45	20	The Carnival Murders
Win/46	21	Murder in Blackout

in All Winners

Sum/45

16

The Fabulous Racket

in All Select

Sum/46

10

Horror Island

The Golden Age Batman Artist You Never Heard Of

When asked if he drew a number of the Batman stories listed below, Bob Kane said "Yes." He didn't explain why the creator of Batman, using this temporary new style, would be doing a few work-for-hire crime stories for DC a year later in Gang Busters and such. The pencils for those crime back-ups have been variously attributed to Jim Mooney or Charles Paris; evidently they evoked Batman in a way the indexers couldn't put their fingers on.

To be fair, I had some stories on this list (like "Nine Lives Has the Catwoman" in Batman 35) that I removed after a few more looks when I did see Bob Kane's work after all, or the work of various hands. (Maybe some of those Batman stories belong back here; maybe some here don't belong. The crime stories I'm sure of.) Although the inks for 35-36 have been attributed to Ray Burnley, with Jack Burnley's corroboration, I'd suggest there are different inkers on different stories; I won't try to ID them.

Above are tiers from two of the stories I saw in reprint in the Seventies ("Dinosaur Island" and "The Case of the Crooked Gambler"). For years I'd IDed this artist for myself as just the "Dinosaur Island artist." Then finally—last month—I saw a signed story by him at Atlas: "The House That Wasn't There" in Journey into Unknown Worlds 7 (Oct/51). The signature is Paul Cooper. He has other early-Fifties signed stories at Atlas as well as at companies like Youthful. He's not trying to ape Bob Kane at this point.

Paul Cooper at DC:
Batman

Jun-Jul/46	35	Dinosaur Island
		Dick Grayson, Author
Aug-Sep/	36	The Penguin's Nest
		Stand-In for Danger
		Sir Batman at King Arthur's Court

Batman in Detective

Nov/46	117	Steeplejack's Showdown (plus cover)
May/47	123	The Dawn Patrol Crimes
Oct/	128	Crimes in Reverse

Batman in World's Finest

May-Jun/47	28	Crime under Glass
Nov-Dec/	31	The Man with the X-Ray Eyes
Jan-Feb/48	32	The Man Who Could Not Die
Jul-Aug/	35	Crime by the Book

Perfect Crime Mystery etc. in Mr. District Attorney

Jan-Feb/48	1	Studio Cop
Jul-Aug/	4	Border Cop
Sep-Oct/	5	The Murder with a Million Witnesses

Perfect Crime Mystery etc. in Gang Busters

Aug-Sep/48	5	The Case of the Crooked Gambler
Oct-Nov/49	12	The Case of the Perfect Alibi

Perfect Crime Mystery in Star Spangled Comics

Mar/49

90

Remote Control Murder