Out of the night comes a menacing winged figure! Blind district attorney Tony Quinn takes his battle for justice from the courtrooms to the streets, battling evil as The Black Bat!
A scourge of the underworld plays the role of hooded avenger to foil a murder master’s plans! The Black Bat goes into action to protect war-torn China from the exploitation of a nefarious criminal who battens on disaster! Tony Quinn plays the role of hooded avenger to foil a murder master’s plans! War-torn China is victimized by a grim fiend of crime who battens on disaster!
Even though other characters with a darkness theme came before him, The Black Bat struck a different chord with readers than his predecessors. Although he had a team like The Shadow, Tony Quinn’s mission was much more personal, a desire for revenge turned to a fight for justice. Where The Spider had darker adventures and higher body counts, The Black Bat stories showed a hero who brought evil to bear and made sure criminals paid their dues, but also showed restraint and control. This likely allowed readers to connect with him in a way they could not with other fictional pulp heroes.
The Black Bat debuted at a time when The Great Depression was ending and before World War Two truly began. Pulp readers were still stinging from poverty, unemployment, essentially the complete upheaval of their lives. They were also living in a world where crime was more prevalent and publicized than before. It is no surprise, then, that many latched onto a hero who not only went after crime with a deadly passion, but who most notably had been knocked down, defeated in his own way. The fact that Tony Quinn overcame his blindness to be one of the longest running features in Pulp Magazines owes quite a lot to this touch of humanity added to the character.
Thrill to The Black Bat’s Dragon Trail, originally published in Black Book Detective #43 January 1941 and read with two fisted excitement by award winning voice actor Milton Bagby.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: The Dragon Strikes
Chapter 2: The Dragon Strikes Again
Chapter 3: Monster in the Night
Chapter 4: Dragon Master’s Ultimatum
Chapter 5: Butch Becomes a Panhandler
Chapter 6: Dr. Ling’s Daughter
Chapter 7: Butch Meets the Duke
Chapter 8: Death Plane
Chapter 9: Chinese Laundry
Chapter 10: Mystery Explosion
Chapter 11: A Blind Man’s Nurse
Chapter 12: A Raid on Mr. Whiskers
Chapter 13: Silk Runs Into Trouble
Chapter 14: Black Bat to the Rescue
Chapter 15: Last Warning
Chapter 16: Surprise Visit
Chapter 17: A Call on a Lady
Chapter 18: Death of a Rat
Chapter 19: Death Flight
Chapter 20: Checkmated Again
