SECRET AGENT X-9 PART 3

APRIL 21ST, 1935 - July 27TH, 1935
JULY 29th, 1935 - SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1935
SEPTEMBER 23RD, 1935 - NOVEMBER 16TH, 1935
By Alex Raymond w/Leslie Charteris

X-9 parts ways with his sidekick, Sidney George Harper Carp, as this arc begins. Carp is headed "down south" to look into some investments, while X-9 returns to Washington for a new assignment. And thanks to the departure of Dashiell Hammett, it feels like a new beginning for the strip. Immediately, Alex Raymond rectifies some of Hammett's prior mistakes. For one thing, we finally actually see X-9's boss, "the Chief", showing at long last that our hero really does report to someone in the government. The Chief takes statements from some Texas Rangers who are on the trail of a group of bank robbers called the Iron Claw Gang, and a young man they kidnapped, Philip Shaw -- the son of a banker who was killed in a robbery.

In Texas, X-9 learns that the robbers are after some untapped oil mines which Shaw and his father owned. But Shaw doesn't know where they are -- however, he tells the robbers that there's a map hidden in the bank. Carp returns around this point; through sheer coincidence he happens to be in the vicinity of the robbery. X-9 also has an assistant for this case, a beautiful Federal agent named Ruth Meredith. It's kind of funny; every storyline so far has featured an attractive girl -- but unlike, say, the Spider-Man strip, where Peter Parker would be floored by every chick he met and frequently wind up making out with them, X-9 remains entirely chaste at all times. It's like the strip wanted to introduce a new love interest in each arc, but couldn't actually do anything with them due to the moral standards of the time. It's weird.

That said, young Phillip Shaw does fall for Ruth when she and Carp show up to save him from the gang, and the two become a duo for the remainder of the storyline, jumping in and out of trouble at every turn as they try to reunite with X-9. (Which, by the way, is kind of refreshing to see in something from this era. Ruth comes across as a pretty confident and capable operative, not needing to be rescued by anyone -- and in fact doing some rescuing herself -- as she tries to protect Phillip.)

There's a shootout at the bank, and the gang gets away with the map, eventually locating the mine. The rest of the arc is all about X-9 hopping around the state in a Texas Ranger biplane, chasing the Iron Claws (seriously, he treats the plane like a taxi, landing it in fields, shooting at bad guys, then climbing back in to be flown to his next quick stopover). Eventually, Phillip makes it to safety and X-9 blows up the mine from the air, killing the Iron Claws and saving the day. (Which of course brings up the question of why he didn't do this a long time ago, like maybe when they first got to the mine, since he knew where it was the entire time.)

Something I've noticed as I've read these X-9 strips is how differently a serialized strip of the thirties handles pacing when compared with those of the eighties or today. Now granted, I'm working with a small sample size -- I'm really just thinking of X-9 vs. the STAR WARS and SPIDER-MAN strips vs. some of the modern day ones I see online now and then -- current iterations of classics like DICK TRACY and MARY WORTH (plus the recently-cancelled SPIDER-MAN). In the thirties, at least in terms of X-9, it appears to have been assumed that readers were following along every day. There's often a very brief bit of narrative text in each strip's first panel, but it's less a recap and more of a scene-setter. The strips are also quite dense, usually four panels per day with a good amount of text and action, often split between two branches of the ongoing plot in different locations.

Compare this with (what I know of) more recent strips (and by "more recent" I apparently mean strips from the past forty years or so) -- they usually move at a slower pace, with three-panel dailies, and often the first of those panels is a recap of the previous day's cliffhanger. They tend to have less text per panel, and in general the story is progressed much more slowly, making entire arcs feel like they've occurred over a space of weeks or more, when they often actually only take place in a few days.

I'm not sure when the philosophy changed, but I think I like this thirties style more than the recent (again, past four decades or more) trend. I feel like a daily reader was probably more satisfied with a single day's vintage X-9 strip than someone reading Spider-Man might have been in, say, 1980 or so after reading just one day in the web-slinger's saga.

Now, moving along: the next two arcs run less than two months each, and find Sydney George Carper Harp back in action. (It appears by this point that he's become a regular recurring character in X-9's adventures; I'll be interested to see if he's still around in the 1970s Archie Goodwin/Al Williamson run when I get there in a few weeks.) This time, Carp delivers a message to X-9 from an ex-gangster who needs help. But the man is bumped off just as he tells X-9 about a plot to steal some rare gems from the Middle East, on exhibit in the United States. X-9 teams up with a federal agent named Bill Nolan to thwart the gang, but the dead man's widow, Sheila, gets in their way more than once. Eventually, after the bad guys' plane crashes (lots of flying action in the stories, huh?), X-9 and Nolan, aided by Carp, bring the villains to justice. In the end, Sheila and Bill get married for some reason.

The subsequent arc sees the arrival of a new writer, Leslie Charteris (creator of THE SAINT), to provide scripts for Raymond. According to the foreword to IDW's collection of these strips, Charteris didn't last long, working on X-9 for less than a year before his departure. Alex Raymond, too, was off the strip in pretty short order following Charteris's arrival. In order to devote his full attention to FLASH GORDON, Raymond would depart at the end of this story arc, in late 1935.

So -- in Raymond's final arc, X-9 is given the double assignment of protecting the star witness in an upcoming underworld trial, and uncovering and arresting a man called "The Fixer", who helps out the underworld in various capacities -- and who has an interest in killing said witness. Again working closely with Carp, X-9 goes undercover as a rival gangster in order to get near the Fixer, but winds up captured. He escapes, of course, rescues his witness's wife who is kidnapped, then runs around, sort of doing nothing, until the trial is about to start. At this point, X-9 lures the Fixer out of hiding and arrests him.

You may be able to tell that by this point I'm getting a little bored with X-9's adventures. I can't exactly say that I dislike them, but -- perhaps owing to the style of the time in which they were conceived and published -- they aren't exactly riveting entertainment, either. So this is where I'll exit my coverage of the 1930s X-9 adventures. There is still another year's worth of stories in IDW's book, but with Alex Raymond packing it in as of the end of the Fixer arc, this seems a good point for me to do the same.

But don't forget, we aren't done with X-9 by a long shot! Next week we leap forward more than thirty years to 1967, for the start of a thirteen-year run by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson! Being familiar with the work of both men, I'm greatly looking forward to this little excursion. I hope you are too.