Abdul The Obvious Arab

Vern Henkel worked on a diverse number of titles from 1930's on up and was responsible for creating several original action/adventure characters like Chic Carter, Wings Wendell, and Gallant Knight. One of these characters made his premiere in Quality's Smash Comics #1 with the noticeably obvious brand of "Abdul the Arab" because he was an Arab named Abdul. That would be like any random guy from the U.S. being referred to as "Bob the American". The comic was eventually taken under the wing of Powell Roberts that tried to break him out of the stereotype of being a "guy from foreign country". Abdul was the son of chieftain Ali Bey that operated in Arabia during the early days of WWII. He and his tutor and comrade Hassan would go on a variety of adventures usually helping out the British Intelligence operating in the Middle East, as well as heroic exploits like solving crimes, crossing swords with kidnappers, wrecking raiders, foiling fowl cults, and of course rescuing damsels in distress, usually princesses. Abdul was considered a minority hero, even though he shouldn't count as one since he is in his own country where he is considered royalty. Messing with masked madmen make him enough of a normal comic book hero, but from the perspective of American writers, someone on the other side of the globe would have superpowers just because they weren't white. Abdul did of course brawl with Yellow Peril villains as well which tried to make Americans think that just because foreigners that were currently our adversaries made them every nation's enemy. Mister the Arab was a stouthearted daredevil who plunged himself into whatever mission he could get into, but this is another example of clueless white people failing to understand how other countries operate and their interactions with the rest of the world.