SECRET AGENT X-9 PART 2

DECEMBER 17TH, 1934 - MARCH 9TH, 1935
MARCH 11th, 1935 - APRIL 20th, 1935
By Dashiell Hammett & Alex Raymond

Secret Agent X-9's next storyline is easily the most 1930s-ish piece of fiction you'll ever find, if for no other reason that than it features a spunky newsboy named -- wait for it -- "Harmonica Slick" abetting our hero. The arc focuses on a girl named Jill, the center of a bitter custody battle between her working-class mother and her wealthy aunt. The aunt had previously disowned her son for marrying a simple factory worker, but now that he's dead, she wants the fruit of his loins to raise in a life of privilege. But naturally, Jill's mom would like to keep her daughter.

Enter X-9 (still going by the name of Dexter, though he made clear in the very first story arc that it was merely one of may aliases he's used). For reasons never explained, he arrives to sit in the gallery at the hearing -- and it's fortunate that he does, for Jill is soon kidnapped by mobsters working for the notorious "Rocks Greer". Greer wants to hold the girl for ransom, and X-9 sets off on the crook's trail with Harmonica Slick by his side. Eventually, after several harrowing chases and narrow escapes, X-9 catches up with the criminals and rescues Jill -- but Greer escapes.

I can't say there's much to write home about here. The story is fine, and I'm sure it was probably of more interest to the people of 1934, since from what I've gathered over the years, they ate this sort of thing up (orphans and kids playing the harmonica, I mean). But, as with the prior two storylines, it's pretty unspectacular. Indeed, thus far the only saving grace to the strip has been Alex Raymond's artwork. I mentioned last time that I'd discuss it this week, so let's do so now.

Around this time on FLASH GORDON, Raymond had been drawing the strip for a year and his work had taken drastic steps forward in that brief span. While the work on X-9 is certainly good, I'm not sure I can compare it with Raymond's contemporaneous FLASH. I'm curious whether X-9 received less interest from Raymond since he hadn't created it and was working from someone else's plots (as opposed to FLASH, which I believe Raymond plotted for others to script). Or maybe it's the cramped daily strip format versus the lush, spacious Sundays. Whatever the case, while I do like Raymond's work here, I don't think it holds a candle to his efforts on FLASH. I'm curious to see if that will change as we move forward.

One more note before we move along to the next arc: I still can't figure out exactly what kind of a "secret agent" X-9 is supposed to be. In fact, up to this point, he literally seems not to be a secret agent at all! For one thing, aside from filing one single report with a guy named "Chief" back in the first storyline, he never answers to anyone -- nor does he receive assignments. He just gets sucked into stuff. For another, he's famous. At the hearing, everyone recognizes him as the guy who solved the cases in the previous two stories. Hard to be a secret agent when everybody recognizes you! And lastly, while he is consistently referred to in narration as "Secret Agent X-9" or just "X-9, the characters all call him things like "detective", "dick", etc. He really seems more like a private eye than a secret agent. Now he does carry a badge and occasionally flash it for instant compliance from the local cops, but just the same -- I can't help feeling that the syndicate came up with the title of the strip, but Dashiell Hammett decided to ignore its implication and simply tell detective stories instead.

The reason I bring this up now is because starting with the next arc, it suddenly changes. From the very beginning, X-9 is described in narration as a "G-Man". He arrives in a small town under "orders from Washington" to smash a counterfeiting ring. And good guys and bad guys alike refer to him as a "federal agent" and a "federal dick". So I dunno if there was some conscious effort on the part of Hammett to clarify exactly what X-9 is -- or if his editors told him to make it more obvious that the guy is a government agent -- but whatever the case, it's appreciated.

Anyway -- in this arc, our hero starts snooping around the afore-mentioned counterfeiting ring. He's joined in his efforts by Sydney George Harper Carp, a portly comic relief character who debuted in the very first story arc. I didn't mention him at the time because he had no real bearing on my review, but at this point it looks like he's set to become a recurring character, so I should note his return. While Carp watches over the beautiful wife of a turncoat counterfeiter, X-9 finds the ring's boss, "Black Hat", and impersonates him in order to crush the operation. The storyline concludes very abruptly, as a group of men "Black Hat" was expecting from back east show up and get immediately gunned down by X-9 and the police -- then X-9 takes a shot at "Black Hat's" excape plane, blowing it up from the ground.

Note the dates listed above: this storyline only runs a month-and-a-half. In doing some research for these posts, I've learned that Hammett was having trouble getting paid for his work by King Features, while Raymond was extremely dissatisfied with Hammett's writing, complaining that he just couldn't write for a comic strip. So it seems that Hammett must have departed the strip midway through this arc, leaving it to Raymond (or a ghost writer) to wrap things up.

Whatever the case, I have to admit that I'm pleased to see Hammett gone. I tend to agree with Raymond's assessment: he may have been a brilliant novelist, but writing a daily comic strip was outside his realm of expertise and it showed, as I hopefully made evident with some of my criticisms last week.

So beginning next time, Raymond takes over writing the strip, and -- in my opinion -- it improves drastically.