“Muss ‘Em Up” Donovan was a detective, fired from the force on charges of police brutality (his victims, evidently, were white). Donovan is called back to action by a city administration overly harassed by crime who feel it is time for an approach that circumvents the legalistic niceties of due process. Such administrations were in vogue in all comic books of the thirties and forties. The heroes they culled out of the darkness operated, masked or not, outside the reach of the law. Their job: to catch criminals operating outside the reach of the law. In theory, one would think a difficult identity problem — but as it turned out in practice, not really. Heroes and readers jointly conspired to believe that the police were honest but inept; well-meaning, but dumb — except for good cops like Donovan, who were vicious. Arraignment was for sissies; a he-man wanted gore. Operating within the reach of the law a hero could get busted for that. So heroes, with the oblique consent of the power structure (“If you get into trouble, we can’t vouch for you”), wandered outside the reach of the law, pummeled everyone in sight, killed a slew of people — and brought honor back to Central City, back to Metropolis, back to Gotham. “Muss ‘Em Up” Donovan was one such vigilante, a hawk-nosed, trench-coated primitive, bitter over his expulsion from office, but avid to answer the bell when duty once again called. Pages of violence: “Muss ‘Em Up” beating the truth out of a sniveling progression of stoolies; “Muss ‘Em Up” kicking in doors; “Muss ‘Em Up” shooting and getting shot at — a one-man guerrilla war on crime. A grateful citizenry responded with vigor. “Muss ‘Em Up” was reinstated — allowed to “Muss ‘Em Up” in uniform once again. In those pre-civil-rights days, we thought of that as a happy ending.
Description “Muss ‘Em Up” Donovan was a detective, fired from the force on charges of police brutality (his victims, evidently, were white). Donovan is called back to action by a city administration overly harassed by crime who feel it is time for an approach that circumvents the legalistic niceties of due process. Such administrations were in vogue in all comic books of the thirties and forties. The heroes they culled out of the darkness operated, masked or not, outside the reach of the law. Their job: to catch criminals operating outside the reach of the law. In theory, one would think a difficult identity problem — but as it turned out in practice, not really. Heroes and readers jointly conspired to believe that the police were honest but inept; well-meaning, but dumb — except for good cops like Donovan, who were vicious. Arraignment was for sissies; a he-man wanted gore. Operating within the reach of the law a hero could get busted for that. So heroes, with the oblique consent of the power structure (“If you get into trouble, we can’t vouch for you”), wandered outside the reach of the law, pummeled everyone in sight, killed a slew of people — and brought honor back to Central City, back to Metropolis, back to Gotham. “Muss ‘Em Up” Donovan was one such vigilante, a hawk-nosed, trench-coated primitive, bitter over his expulsion from office, but avid to answer the bell when duty once again called. Pages of violence: “Muss ‘Em Up” beating the truth out of a sniveling progression of stoolies; “Muss ‘Em Up” kicking in doors; “Muss ‘Em Up” shooting and getting shot at — a one-man guerrilla war on crime. A grateful citizenry responded with vigor. “Muss ‘Em Up” was reinstated — allowed to “Muss ‘Em Up” in uniform once again. In those pre-civil-rights days, we thought of that as a happy ending.
