Scarlet Nemesis Meets Black Orchid

Harvey had a line of comics that did exactly what it said on the tin titled All-New Short Story Comics in 1943 as it featured single solo adventures of various characters like Kayo Kane, Night Hawk, Tiger Shane, and Ma Jenkins. The second issue of this series featured the premiere of not one, but two superheroes with the same first name, one of which was the Scarlet Phantom by Joe Kubert. The other was a crossover of sorts where the Scarlet Nemesis meets up with the equally mysterious Black Orchid, no relation to the other Black Orchid superheroine who showed up in Tops Comics the next year. In this story by George Tuska, private detectives Rocky Ford and Judy Allen discover that the Baxter Building next door has exploded, although this wasn't the one from the Fantastic Four comics two decades later. They think the incident was caused by the retired millionaire Jim Crow. What neither of the partners know is that other is secretly a masked crimefighter as Rocky is Scarlet Nemesis and Judy is Black Orchid. At this point in their superhero careers, they had run across each other before on previous encounters. Mr. Nemesis is saved by Ms. Orchid as a pair of thugs rig a statue in the middle of downtown to explode. Our heroine gets knocked out and Scarlet Nemesis decides to take her unconscious body with him to Crow's hideout while not peeking under her mask, possibly a kind of etiquette between superheroes. Nemesis discovers that Crow set this entire terrorist campaign to help save the local pigeon population, so we're well aware that the rich loon has gone totally mental in bird loving efforts. Orchid wakes up to help Nemesis finish Crow's crew of cronies with the two heroes finishing up shaking hands like Batman and Robin hoping to meet again sometime, even though the next day they are back at work wishing they could tell their other about their secret identities. The premise for this comic would have made for an interesting rom-com you could see playing on Disney Channel. Missed sitcom efforts aside, it's staggering to see the depth of professionalism competing superheroes had for each other back in the Golden Age.

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