Bulldog Denny was the Batman created by Frankenstein.
An early example of what might be called the “special-purpose superhero,” the Bulldog bowed (and wowed) in Prize Comics 11 (June 1941),
The first comic book superheroes, like Superman, were generalized in powers and mission. Then came a wave of champions generalized in mission but limited in powers — shtick superheroes associated with speed (the Flash) or fire (the Human Torch) or flight (Hawkman) or archery (Green Arrow). They were followed by superheroes whose mission was limited to a specific task, among them Bulldog Denny.
Similar special-purpose superheroes appeared in the movie serials, where Captain Marvel was created only to defend a magical scorpion artifact and the Black Commando was an identity used to infiltrate and thwart a specific Nazi spy ring. Like the Canadian Doc Stearn, a/k/a Mr. Monster, Bulldog would devote himself to monster hunting, his target the most famous of them all.
Writer/artist Dick Briefer’s New Adventures of Frankenstein was the prize of Prize Comics — not the lead feature but the standout, and the one best remembered. It also marked the first ongoing horror story in comic books.
“Prize Comics, which made its debut in March 1940, was one of the more successful magazines primarily featuring superheroes of the forties,” observed Donald F. Glut in his essay Frankenstein Meets the Comics. “National, Timely and Fawcett led the field in the superhero business. Prize Comics’ star characters included the Black Owl, who did his best to imitate the Batman; Doctor Frost, who controlled coldness as an opposite of the Human Torch; the Great Voodini, who seemed to have been a fan of Mandrake the Magician; and Power Nelson, a futuristic imitation of Superman who traveled to the 20th century. None of the Prize heroes could compete with the original characters who inspired them. It would take an ugly antihero like the Frankenstein monster to give the magazine its special distinction.”
In Prize Comics 7 (Dec. 1940), Briefer updated Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein concept, made especially popular by the Universal horror movies of the 1930s, and transplanted it from Europe to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s graveyard experiment rampaged through Manhattan, threw children to the lions in the zoo and climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty where he hurled tourists to their doom.
The guilt-ridden scientist pursued the monster from issue to issue, but couldn’t kill him. The monster, in turn, wouldn’t slay his creator, preferring to make his life a living hell.
When the monster announced and carried out an attack on a downtown business district, he caused a traffic accident that killed a couple and paralyzed the legs of their young son, Denny Dunsan.
Raising the boy as his ward over the decade from 1931 to 1941, Dr. Frankenstein devoted himself to Denny’s welfare. The scientist’s treatments cured the boy and perhaps did something more, because Denny developed into an incredible athlete.
Dressed in a black outfit, Denny took up the fight against his foster father’s creation, who also happened to be his parents’ murderer.
“Hey bud! I saw you lay out that Gargantua!” cries a reporter after Denny’s first adventure. “What a man! Let me get your picture and signed story for my newspaper!”
“Not tonight, pal!” snaps the hero, racing away. But he’s dropped a small pin featuring a picture of his pet dog Spike, and the reporter finds it.
“A bulldog! That’s it! That’s what I’ll call that wonderguy!”
Inspired by the headlines, Denny added a bulldog insignia to the chest of his costume and continued his mission, becoming the only person the Frankenstein monster actually feared.
“While not equaling the monster in size and raw strength, his new adversary would have enough courage and sheer goodness to combat even so terrible a fiend,” Glut noted.
Prize Comics 24 (Oct. 1942) offered another milestone when all the magazine’s superheroes banded together.
Summoned to DC for a defense project, the Bulldog recruited substitute Frankenstein fighters, bringing in the Black Owl, Dr. Frost, the Green Lama and Yank and Doodle (think twin Robins crossed with Captain America).
This ad hoc combination of numerous superhero features anticipated the crossovers that would help make Marvel Comics so popular in the 1960s.
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