A dynamic new pulp hero exploded onto the scene in the Fall of 1936: Police Commissioner James "Wildcat" Gordon, who regularly violated the law with impunity in his personal quest for justice, while maintaining a secret life as the reputed supercrook known as The Whisperer.

Like "Doc Savage" and "The Avenger", "The Whisperer" was the brainchild of Henry William Ralston, the longtime circulation manager of the Street & Smith "fiction factory". Ralston had revitalized the pulp magazine in 1931 with the introduction of "The Shadow Magazine", the periodical that provided the template for decades of single hero magazines.

The Shadow's phenomenal publishing success had resulted in a plethora of imitators, and "The Whisperer" was Street & Smith's calculated response to the lurid action in Popular Publication's "The Spider". Like Richard Wentworth, Gordon walked a deadly tightrope between the law and the underworld, facing disgrace and immediate imprisonment should his double life ever be revealed.

In stark contrast to the meek alter egos of earlier adventure heroes like Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel and such subsequent superheroes as Superman and Spider-man, "Wildcat" Gordon is the more dynamic identity, while the gray-suited Whisperer is bland in comparison to the flamboyant police commissioner.

Recognizing The Shadow's broadcasting success, Ralston and editor John Nanovic developed "The Whisperer" with an ear towards a potential radio series. The Whisperer's strange undertone could be as distinctive as The Shadow's mocking laughter and Doc Savage's trilling. (An earlier crimebuster called the Whisperer had debuted in "Ten Detective Aces" in 1934, while another Whisperer, voiced by Carlton Young, would be featured in a short-lived 1951 NBC radio show.) Nanovic and Ralston selected former journalist Lawrence L. Donovan to write the new series. The veteran wordsmith had been a fixture in popular magazines for more than a decade, churning out fiction for "Argosy", "Nick Carter", "Movie Action", "Zeppelin Stories", "Western Story Magazine", and "The Saturday Evening Post". Donovan had already demonstrated his talent for producing action prose on deadline by ghosting nine Doc Savage novels in 1935 as "Kenneth Robeson" and the first five Skipper thrillers as "Wallace Brooker".

Writing under the house name "Clifford Goodrich", Donovan placed Commissioner Gordon in a hardboiled locale of 1930s corruption, graft, and political manipulation. Donovan's first Whisperer novel, "The Dead Who Talked", established the characters and situations that continued throughout the series. Newly-appointed Police Commissioner "Wildcat" Gordon had been installed in his job over the objections of Mayor Van Royston, who preferred Deputy Commissioner Henry Bolton for the job. Both constantly worked to undermine Gordon's authority. Wildcat's trusted allies included retired cop Richard "Quick Trigger" Traeger, his petite daughter Tiny, and Detective Sergeant Tom Thorsen. Dental plates invented by "Quick Trigger" distorted Gordon's face into The Whisperer's weird visage, while restricting his speech to a chilling undertone.

Gordon waged his personal war on crime through fourteen issues of "The Whisperer" between 1936 and 1937. Following the cancellation of the magazine, Wildcat's adventures were immediately relocated to the back pages of "The Shadow", where they appeared in alternate issues through November 1939 and a final tale in May of 1940.

Lawrence Donovan wrote only two Whisperer short stories before departing for Standard Publications, where he churned out lead novels showcasing "The Phantom Detective", "The Black Bat", "Dan Fowler", and "The Masked Detective". Following his departure, future Newsday managing editor Alan Hathway took over the series, continuing when The Whisperer's own magazine was resurrected for a final ten-issue run in 1940.

Despite its limited span, The Whisperer left an indelible mark on popular culture. Donovan's Whisperer thrillers were a major influence on Bill Finger, who openly acknowledged his debt to the hero pulps. Batman's co-creator bequeathed James Gordon's name to Gotham City's police commissioner, appropriated "Wildcat" for the costumed alter ego of pugilist Ted Grant in "Sensation Comics" (after first considering it for Batman's 'boy wonder'), and utilized several Whisperer plots as springboards for early Batman stories.

The character of James "Wildcat" Gordon remains the prototype for a long series of fictional law-enforcement officers who donned disguises to battle evildoers, including Fox's Blue Beetle (whose alter ego of rookie cop Dan Garrett shared the same name as the boy detective regularly featured in "The Shadow Magazine"), MLJ's Black Hood (a.k.a. patrolman Kip Burland), Dick Ayers' Ghost Rider (U.S. Marshal Rex Fury), Simon & Kirby's Guardian (policeman Jim Harper), DC Comic's Vigilante (in reality District Attorney Adrian Chase), and The Watchmen's original Nite Owl.

Background notes written by Anthony Tollin - Copyright © 2009