Super-Powered Sach by Dave Goode

Not a real comic, but Judo Comics is at lulu.com

Growing up I was a huge fan of Monogram's East Side Kids and Bowery Boys series. Actually growing up I didn't know anyone who wasn't a fan of those two series. And I always thought the East Side Kids would have made for a great comic book series during the Golden Age. Stories in a series would pretty much be like the ones in the movies.The kids would help to smash Axis spy rings. Or they would help to bring crooked gamblers and gangsters to justice. They would even have " Scooby Gang " adventures in haunted houses. But over the years I've given thought to the idea that the Bowery Boys may have been an even better subject for a comic book series.




The Bowery Boys were more or less an older version of the Eastsiders with the same actors playing basically the same characters. The difference was the Bowery Boys series injected more comedy into the films. And in many cases the stories were more far-out , with the gang facing a number of mad scientists. Something strangely enough that the East Side Kids never did. Especially when you consider that two of the movies from the series , SPOOKS RUN WILD (1941) and GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE ( 1943 ) featured Bela Lugosi. Also in a couple of the Bowery Boys films Huntz Hall's character Sach a.k.a Horace Debussey Jones gains super-powers.

The first of these Super-powered Sach movies was MR. HEX ( 1946 ) where a hypnotized Sach gains super-strength and limited invulnerability becoming a champion boxer.


























In HOLD THAT LINE (1952 ) he drinks a chemical concoction that increases his physical attributes so that he first becomes a track & field star and then later a football hero.

In NO HOLDS BARRED ( 1952 ) various parts of his body become steel hard and he becomes a professional wrestling star. In PRIVATE EYES ( 1953 ) he gains the ability to read minds and he and the rest of the gang open a detective agency. And in JUNGLE GENTS ( 1954 ) a flick that features a young Clint Walker as a Tarzan-type Sach gains the power to smell diamonds. Smell diamonds? That's a power even the Silver Age Superman never had.

My favorite of the Sach gains super-powers flicks may have been MASTER MINDS (1949). Though as a pro wrestling fan I'm quite fond of NO HOLDS BARRED as well. In this one Sach gets a toothache which somehow gives him the power to see into the future. His buddy " Slip " Mahoney (Leo Gorcey ) comes up with the idea to put him in a carnival sideshow to make some cash. A mad scientist played to perfection by Alan Napier reading about Sach's psychic abilities in the news decides to transfer Sach's brain into the body of Atlas , a humanoid creature of great strength that resembles a prehistoric man. The two have their minds switched for a brief time and comic antics follow. Imagine ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN if Lou Costello's mind had been transferred into the Frankenstein monster's body. Coincidentally enough Atlas in MASTER MINDS is portrayed by Glenn Strange , the same actor who played the Frankenstein monster in ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN.

For my money the best performance in MASTER MINDS comes from Alan
Napier as Dr.Druzik. Best known as Alfred , the faithful Wayne butler on the 60s Batman television series, Napier is one of my favorite actors. I love just about everything I've ever seen him in. Especially as the commie agent in BIG JIM MCLAIN ( 1952 ) and as the acidic art critic in HOUSE OF HORRORS ( 1946 ) . And he's great in this one. It's hard to watch him here and not imagining him in the roles that made Boris Karloff a horror film icon.