For this Judged by its Cover, I have Adventure Comics, which I’ve never heard of before. A quick Google search tells me that it was published from 1938 to 1983 and revived from 2009-2011. It was also the fifth-longest-running DC series, but was ended with the coming of The New 52.
Based on the cover: It seems to be about Vigilante, but I don’t know who that is. He’s dressed like a cowboy, but he’s on a motorcycle with a woman. She’s saying they are safe, but they obviously aren’t because of the hunting rifle pointing at them from the sewers. So maybe he’s a modern day cowboy/superhero. This issue also has The Adventurer’s Club, which could be about anything.
What really happens: It starts off with The Adventurer’s Club, with Nelson Strong, who is the chairman of the club, breaking the fourth wall and talking to the readers. Based not only on the cover, but the way Nelson is dressed, I thought the story would be about hunting in the jungles or exploring lost cities. It’s actually about two mobsters who accidently kill a girl. One of the men is driven crazy, while the other goes to jail. I thought it was a pretty good story and kind of spooky as well.
Finally, we get the Vigilante in the second story. It starts off with a woman, Amy Bryant, who is an ex-junkie, being threatened by her ex-boyfriend. He wants her to keep buying drugs from him. Amy manages to escape and runs into Vigilante, who helps people in need. He almost seems like The Shadow from the 1930s or any other vintage superhero. Amy and Vigilante run from the bad guys and end up in the mountains somehow. It’s kind of confusing and the basic message is that drugs are bad. I like the idea of the Vigilante (modern day cowboy superhero saving people), but the story was pretty bad.
And lastly, there’s a comic featuring Captain Fear, who I had never heard of before. I wasn’t really expecting it, since it’s not even mentioned on the cover and it starts off right in the middle of the action. It’s set in 1850s Indo-China and Captain Fear is some kind of native pirate who saves a French woman from a cult. It was sort of confusing, nothing was really explained, I wasn’t sure what was going on, and it was slightly offensive to me.
Overall, I wasn’t very impressed with this comic. I thought the first story was the strongest, and it wasn’t even supposed to be the main story of this comic.
