The Death and Damnation of Midnight: pt. 1 (Smash Comics #36)

Smash Comics # 36 (October 1942)

Midnight feature (The Death of Midnight)

art & story by Jack Cole

"Two guys walk into a comic publishing house and one says to the other, 'Say, I bet you can't write a weird superhero story with our lead character that's borderline blasphemous.' And the second guy says, 'Hold my beer.'"  

While I can't confirm the Midnight feature in Smash Comics was born this way, that's certainly how I envision it.

To catch any new readers up, here's the situation.  Last issue Midnight was reintroduced as the Quality Publishing's new lead character in Smash Comics.  Now that you've made a guy the new lead, what's your next story?  His death, of course!!  

 

We open with an evocative splash page.  (On the left an inset of Gabby breaks the fourth wall to inform us that the Midnight feature has now been expanded to nine pages in response to reader feedback.)

Near the top of the splash, just above the grinning visage of the Prince of Darkness, the potentially-triggered reader is forewarned to not "really believe" the tale that this about to unfold.

I can only guess this was to head off any potential outrage from parents or Werthamites-in-waiting. 

The story proper begins with Midnight in hot pursuit of a heretofore unmentioned criminal, Cyclops Ceylon. After the Homerically-themed miscreant violently head-ons a tree with his getaway car.  The seemingly uninjured prey clambers up the side of a nearby escarpment.  Naturally, the indefatigable Midnight bounds right up after him like a mountain goat.

Cole next deploys yet another comfy old trope--a titanic fist fight at the edge of a precipice.

fight fight atop an oil derrick, Smash Comics #26

car crash followed by mountain pursuit & death, Smash Comics #21

Unfortunately, this time both Midnight & his quarry tumble over the edge of the cliff to their demise.  

So the biggest thing that strikes me here is that as the death of Midnight makes "worldwide" news and a "nation" mourns, it's odd that no one apparently looks underneath the mask to find out who this late hero of justice was in real life.  No intrepid journalist shares this info.  No one bothers to put Dave Clark's real name on the headstone when he is buried; and apparently no one at UXAM has noticed that their erstwhile colleague is not showing up anymore for work.

Midnight's soul apparently has the courtesy to remain with his body until after burial, and then ascends to that great celestial help desk in the sky, staffed by a slender old man with a long white beard.  Though offered an express pass to the front of the heaven line, Midnight explains that he'll prefer to take what's behind Door # 2

Ummm...okay.  Granted that I'm not the hero of Big City, but I would think that signing up for an eternity of hand-to-hand combat with the Prince of Darkness armed with nothing more than a domino mask (and maybe a vacuum gun?) would sound a bit reckless.  

On a side note, I can't help but wonder how many Christian mommas and daddies across America might've started having second thoughts about the "innocent fun" of comics after reading this story.  I mean, this seems diametrically opposed to a rather straightforward sentiment from the Bible:

...when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” (Jude 9)

Midnight next takes a heavenly slide down to Hades (Yes.  You read that right...a slide) where Satan proudly shows off a variety of Dantesque torments meted out to history's villains.  Midnight comments that "misery sure is up your alley!" but the Devil responds that he's not actually responsible for coming up with this poetic tortures.  Midnight then inquires about the identity of the true the sadistic mastermind.

At this point, Cole reverts to a battle-of-the-sexes trope that would almost certainly result in a torrent of opprobrium were it used today.  For the entity more evil...more conniving...more manipulative...more sadistically skilled than the Prince of Darkness himself was...his wife.

Not only does Satan reveal that his wife is the real power behind the throne of evil, Mrs. Beelzebub not sooner shows up than she cuckolds the hubby by coming on to Midnight.  (The whole thing is reminiscent of Joseph and Potiphar's wife!)