The American Comics Group vs Ace Magazines Pre-Code Horror War

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Ace Periodicals, American Comics Group, pre-code horror

In a pivotal second for Pre-Code Horror, American Comics Group and Ace Magazines waged a warfare involving a personality and two “Unknown” titles.

Our latest publish in regards to the 1950 Ace Magazines launch Challenge of the Unknown #6 jogged my memory of the bizarre nature of that one-issue title.  Looking at it within the context of horror comics historical past, it’s Ace’s “proper” debut into Pre-Code Horror, after dabbling within the horror style in Super-Mystery Comics and Four Favorites a number of years earlier.  Soon after Challenge of the Unknown, Ace launched 4 profitable horror titles with The Beyond, Baffling Mysteries, The Hand of Fate, and Web of Mystery — all of which lasted till the top of the Pre-Code Horror period in 1954/1955.

But Challenge of the Unknown itself solely lasted a single situation (Ace’s Love Experiences romance title accounts for the primary 5 problems with the collection numbering), and the opening web page of the debut of The Beyond two months later has a small however seen word “Challenge of the Unknown” on the decrease proper nook of the story paintings.  It’s clear that Ace had meant to proceed Challenge of the Unknown, however selected to reboot its Pre-Code Horror launch with The Beyond as an alternative.

As it seems, this transfer was the results of an unfair competitors swimsuit in opposition to Ace Magazines filed by B&I Publishing — one of many company entities that we now check with because the American Comics Group, or ACG.  ACG claimed that Challenge of the Unknown was designed to mimic their long-running Adventures into the Unknown title.  As a part of this lawsuit, ACG was granted a short lived injunction “enjoining the defendant from using the name ‘Unknown’ as part of the title of its magazine in such form or manner as to create danger of confusion with the plaintiff’s magazine and also enjoining the simulation of the format and general appearance of the plaintiff’s magazine.”

From a historic perspective, Adventures into the Unknown is a vastly underrated comedian ebook title. Regarded as the primary ongoing American comedian ebook horror collection, the title lasted 174 points from Fall 1948 to August 1967 — a number of months earlier than different publishers started to ease into horror-focused titles, and a couple of yr and a half earlier than EC Comics’ horror titles started in earnest.

Unknown Pre-Code Horror Preludes

Challenge of the Unknown #6 hit newsstands on the finish of May 1950, and ACG filed this lawsuit and had their request for an injunction granted by the top of June.  Fascinatingly, the textual content of Judge Greenberg’s determination to grant the injunction makes it clear that this was not the primary time that ACG and Ace had tangled over this situation, saying, “It is, of course, clear that neither party is entitled to the exclusive use of so common a word as ‘Unknown,’ as a reference to the weird and mysterious. The defendant claims to have created a mystic character called ‘Unknown,’ who became familiar to readers of the comic magazines and, indeed, when the plaintiff first adopted the title of its magazine required the plaintiff to change the size of the type of part of its title.”

This would look like a reference to the truth that ACG modified the title emblem of Adventures into the Unknown with situation #4 to make “Adventures into” a extra outstanding a part of the emblem, to keep away from confusion with the common Ace characteristic The Unknown.  The Ace character, The Unknown, debuted in Four Favorites #21 (hitting newsstands in November 1945) immediately after the final Four Favorites look of the masked superhero character The Unknown Soldier within the earlier situation, giving rise to hypothesis over the many years that the 2 characters are literally one and the identical.  The character initially appeared like little greater than a replica of The Shadow in each look and speech in his debut, as he launched and narrated tales of crime and thriller, however he shortly got here to evolve in each look and nature right into a spectral, supernatural determine who noticed how human whims can dramatically change an individual’s destiny.  The Unknown appeared repeatedly from late 1945 via mid-1949 through Four Favorites and Super-Mystery Comics, final showing utilizing that title when the latter title ended.

The ACG lawsuit in opposition to Ace would considerably alter the course of Ace’s Pre-Code Horror line.  In addition to abandoning the Challenge of the Unknown title altogether, they adopted a unique cowl design model, presumably to sidestep Judge Greenberg’s assertion that “The appearance of its cover is so similar to and suggestive of the plaintiff’s magazine as to leave no doubt that there was a design to imitate.”

The Unknown Hand of Fate

When the Unknown character returned, he had been renamed Fate for his introduction within the debut of The Hand of Fate collection, cover-dated December 1951.  The character continued to look in that title via the top of the collection with situation #25 in 1954.  The complete Ace horror line of The Beyond, Baffling Mysteries, The Hand of Fate, and Web of Mystery had all ended by the top of 1955, because the Comics Code got here into apply.  By then, varied Ace comedian ebook collection had been cited throughout this ethical panic period by the U.S. Senate and the NY State Legislature, and in Fredric Wertham‘s Seduction of the Innocent and Geoffrey Wagner‘s Parade of Pleasure.  Ace exited the comedian ebook enterprise in 1956, however by that point had shifted from pulps to paperbacks with the 1952 institution of Ace Books, now an imprint of Penguin Random House.

It’s additionally fascinating to ponder the butterfly impact of the premature demise of the Challenge of the Unknown title.  If Ace had been capable of proceed utilizing that title, and it continued till the demise of their horror line in late 1955, would DC Comics have used the title Challengers of the Unknown for the Jack Kirby and Dave Wood-created paranormal adventurers once they debuted roughly 14 months later in Showcase #6?  Difficult to say for certain, however Ace’s Challenge of the Unknown #6 stays an essential and underappreciated footnote in Pre-Code Horror historical past.

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