Number 759


"Yahooo Satan, onward!"


Recently we featured the Lone Ranger, now a Lone Ranger wannabe.

Brave Black Rider is secretly spectacle-wearing, weak, cowardly Dr. Masters, despised as a man, accepted as a doctor by the same folks who admire and appreciate his alter ego. Ah, the world of comic books, where saving lives is something a weakling would do, while a lightning draw and good aim are the signs of a real man.

Maybe they'd like Doc Masters more if they knew that as a youngster he was the Cactus Kid, a stone killer avenging the loss of his parents by bad guys. He gunned down the ones who needed killing, and was given a full pardon by a judge and sent on to medical school to do some "curin'" after all that killin'.

"Yahooo, Satan! Onward!" is Black Rider's version of "Hi yo, Silver! Away!" Satan has been trained by Doc to act like a "broken down cayuse." So he has a secret identity, also. Black Rider is Zorro and the Lone Ranger all in one. This is his origin from Black Rider #10, 1950.

The Atlas Tales website says the cover and splash panel are by Joe Maneely, and the rest of the art chores are by Maneely and Syd Shores.











In the story I saw the word "palaver," which isn't the first time I've seen it in a Western comic. I've never heard it used in normal speech by any human being, unless it was in a movie I've forgotten, so I looked it up in the dictionary. It's "idle chatter, talk intended to beguile or charm." It also means to "flatter or cajole." Huh. I've been palaverin' all my life, I just didn't know it.