Most secret identities wouldn’t last long in the real world, of course, but Daniel Dyce’s might.
Dyce, a/k/a Quality Comics’ mystery man 711, had one of those rare perfect dual identities.
“He roamed the underworld by night, in search of villains to bring in as a good superhero should,” recalled comics historian Don Markstein. “But in the daytime, he hung around the jail where he was a convicted inmate. Of course, the fact that he was a resident of a jail cell with the lucky number 711 at Westmoor Prison, from which he derived his superhero name, was just a ghastly mistake.”
A former district attorney, 711 had been wrongly convicted because of a good deed gone wrong. In prison, Dyce was able to come and go as he pleased via a secret tunnel.
Dyce’s secret identity turned out to be extremely — ahem — convenient. Still, it was a bit cheeky of him to name himself after his cell number. Something like “Monte Cristo” might have been a safer alternative.
“He even handed out fancy cards, supposedly showing the crooks what fate awaited them, but in reality, they represented the fate that had already befallen the masked hero,” Markstein noted.
His lucky number finally failed him, though. “He is eventually killed in action, his role being assumed by Destiny,” Jess Nivens noted.
Created by George Brenner, the mysterious 711 was one of no less than nine heroes who graced the pages of Police Comics 3 (Oct. 1941). The others included a masked reporter (the Sword), another masked prosecutor (the Mouthpiece), a masked chemist (the Human Bomb), aviator-adventurer Eagle Evans, and Steele Kerrigan, who was another wrongfully imprisoned hero.
Ironically, in Police Comics, the law didn’t work too well.
The playboy-turned-crimefighter Firebrand and his peek-a-boo shirt got the issue’s cover spot. But the two breakout stars of Police Comics would be found on the back pages — Arthur Peddy’s Phantom Lady and Jack Cole’s Plastic Man.
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