Secret Agent "X" – The Complete Series, Volume 4

Introduction by Will Murray

THIS fourth volume of the chronological adventures of Secret Agent “X” is a true cornucopia of pulpy action-horror.

Secret Agent “X” originator Paul Chadwick opens the grim proceedings with one of his most relentlessly intense efforts, “Devils of Darkness” from the March 1935 issue. The formula editor Rose Wyn devised for “X’s” exploits insisted on a suffocating dose of terror and horror infusing the requisite action-adventure plot. So it is not enough that the unknown “X” squares off against a band of the most diabolical bank robbers ever conceived. They happen to be whip-wielding torturers as well!

The superscientific premise of “Devils of Darkness” is not original with Chadwick. It’s lifted from Doc Savage creator Lester Dent’s 1932 Detective-Dragnet novelette, “The Sinister Ray,” which featured Dent’s first scientific detective, Lynn Lash. Detective-Dragnet was published by Magazine Publishers, Periodical House’s parent affiliate. So the story was in the family so to speak. However, the basic concept may go back to the Dean of Science Fiction, Murray Leinster, and his 1929 Argosy stories, “The Darkness on Fifth Avenue” and “The City of the Blind.”

Whether editor Wyn fed author Chadwick this plot germ, or Chadwick — a Detective-Dragnet contributor himself — simply borrowed it, is unknown. But it doesn’t matter, “Devils of Darkness” takes Dent’s idea to a far more horrific level than the creator of Doc Savage ever dreamed. It’s not beyond speculation that Dent himself might have offered Chadwick the idea. Lester was famous for helping other writers plot stories. He was forever trying to teach his secretaries to write. One of them was Dorothy Lester, Dent’s secretary in 1933-34. She subsequently married Chadwick. Of course, Dent knew Chadwick from the American Fiction Guild, to which both belonged.

“Talons of Terror” (April 1935) is the work of Emile C. Tepperman, who penned the occasional “X” adventure, while writing short stories in the back of the magazine under his own name and those of Anthony Clemens and Jordan Cole. This is a particularly good one, which evokes the classic vampire theme, and boasts a great villain in the devilish Doctor Blood.

Tepperman ghosted many pulp heroes in the years to come — among them Operator #5, Dan Fowler, the Spider, The Avenger and the Phantom Detective before moving over to radio in the 1940s, where he wrote for such major shows as Suspense, Inner Sanctum and Gang Busters. Here, he closes out his contributions to the ongoing adventures of the faceless “X” after only four fascinating change-of-pace novels.

After Secret Agent “X” once again mysteriously skipped an issue, a new author makes his debut with a clever concoction. (Did one of the star contributors blow a deadline?)

With “The Corpse Cavalcade” (June 1935), G. T. Fleming-Roberts assumes the mask of Brant House, and “X” has a new major scribe. Fleming-Roberts would also move on from this series to originate the Ghost, the Black Hood and Captain Zero. But Secret Agent “X” is where he learned to write series novels.

With its echoes of early Shadow novels like “The Silent Seven” and “Circle of Death,” “The Corpse Cavalcade” manages to continue the standards set by Paul Chadwick while injecting a strange new flavor to the series. Where Chadwick laid on a heavy oppressive atmosphere transplanted from his Wade Hammond series, Fleming-Roberts injected other elements — a stronger emphasis on clues and deduction, more imaginative plot twists, and a deeper view of characterization. A greater emphasis on some of the Agent’s operatives will also hallmark this new exciting phase of “X’s” career.

Fleming-Roberts’ “The Golden Ghoul” (July 1935) shifts the action to a classic Shadow staple locale — Chinatown. Here another creepy supervillain joins the long parade of arch-fiends the Man of a Thousand Faces went up against. And yet another weird “death”—the Amber Death — takes untold innocent lives. No pulp series ever pitted its indefatigable hero against so many bizarre and gruesome murder methods as did Secret Agent “X.” By pulp standards, the Amber Death is probably the most imaginative and realistic of them all.

After this pivotal sequence of stories, Emile Tepperman fades out of the series, while Paul Chadwick remained content with penning the odd novel. From here on out, Secret Agent “X” will be G. T. Fleming-Roberts’ domain.

Turn the page and watch it all unfold as the three primary ghostwriters behind the house name of Brant House strut their individual stuff as Secret Agent “X” careens from one figurative house of horror to another, with all the square-jawed determination and chameleon cunning that made him one of the most indefatigable pulp heroes of the 1930s.