Detective Comics #20
Detective Comics #20 marks the single most important transitional moment in the series' pre-Batman history: it introduced the Crimson Avenger, the first masked, costumed hero ever published in Detective Comics and widely recognized as DC's first costumed crimefighter, arriving in the same year Superman debuted in Action Comics #1. The issue also debuted Wing How, the Crimson Avenger's Chinese-immigrant valet and partner, who holds the distinction of being the first superhero sidekick in American comics — preceding Robin by nearly two years. Together, Lee Travis and Wing bridged the gap between the hard-boiled pulp detectives who had filled the anthology's pages since issue #1 and the cape-and-mask superhero era that Batman would cement just seven issues later. The Crimson Avenger's visual and conceptual DNA — the domino mask, the gas gun, the nocturnal vigilantism — drew directly from radio heroes like The Green Hornet and pulp figures like The Shadow, making this issue a tangible record of comics absorbing and transforming the popular culture around it.
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The Crimson Avenger feature was written, pencilled, and inked entirely by Jim Chambers, a creator whose prior illustration work had appeared in pulp issues of The Shadow — a lineage that shows clearly in the character's trenchcoat-and-fedora design. The issue was published under the editorial oversight of Vincent A. Sullivan, the same editor who had shaped Detective Comics since its 1937 debut, and went on sale September 7, 1938 with an October 1938 cover date. Unusually for Golden Age introductions, the character launched without any formal origin story; that backstory would not be supplied until Roy Thomas wrote one for Secret Origins #5 in 1986, tying Travis's first night as the Crimson Avenger to Orson Welles' famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast — a clever retroactive link made possible by the identical October 1938 cover date.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of the Crimson Avenger (Lee Walter Travis), created by Jim Chambers — DC's first masked, costumed hero, debuting in the story titled 'Block Buster.'
- First appearance of Wing How (Wing), Lee Travis's Chinese-immigrant chauffeur and partner, also created by Jim Chambers — widely cited as the first superhero sidekick in comics, predating Robin by nearly two years.
- Cover-dated October 1938; on-sale date September 7, 1938 per U.S. Copyright Office records; editor Vincent A. Sullivan; cover art by Leo O'Mealia.
- The issue is a 68-page anthology containing ten stories featuring continuing characters: Speed Saunders (script by Gardner Fox, art by Fred Guardineer), Larry Steele (Will Ely), Buck Marshall (Homer Fleming), the Spy strip starring Bart Regan and Sally Norris (script by Jerry Siegel, art by Joe Shuster), a Fu Manchu adaptation from Sax Rohmer's newspaper strip, Bruce Nelson (Tom Hickey), Cosmo the Phantom of Disguise, and Slam Bradley with Shorty Morgan.
- The Crimson Avenger's debut design — red trenchcoat, wide-brimmed fedora, domino mask, and a gas gun that emitted a crimson sleeping vapor — deliberately echoed The Green Hornet and The Shadow, placing the character in the pulp-hero tradition rather than the spandex superhero mold that would follow.
- Jim Chambers is listed as the sole credited writer, penciller, and inker of the Crimson Avenger feature; the cover and coloring credits for that story are otherwise uncredited in contemporary records.
- The Crimson Avenger's debut story 'Block Buster' was reprinted in DC's hardcover anthology Detective Comics: 80 Years of Batman: The Deluxe Edition (2019), cementing its place in the publisher's official historical canon.
- The character went on to star in his own feature through Detective Comics #89, later became a founding member of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in Leading Comics #1 (1941), and received a 4-issue 50th-anniversary miniseries in 1988 written by Roy and Dann Thomas.
Cast · 13 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Lee Travis, editor of the Globe Leader, dons a weird costume in order to track down a murderer.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).
