Senorita Rio - Volume One (a Golden Age Classic)

Ah, the joys of the Golden Age of comic books.  Back in the early days of comic books, there were a plethora of choices for the young fans of comics - from westerns to superheroes to science fiction to war stories to adventure stories to crime/detective stories - just about every genre one can imagine was depicted in comic form.   While I am familiar with most of the superhero titles from back in the '30s and 40s, I am still learning just how little I know about the various other genres that were being published at that time.  Thankfully, PS Artbooks has been offering fans like me a chance to delve into those various other books from back in the day.  Not so long ago, I purchased and read the two volumes of Phantom Lady that PS Artbooks published, collecting the various stories of the original Phantom Lady published by Quality Comics and Fox Feature Publications (as well as later by All-Top Comics and Ajax-Farrell Publications).  I was already familiar with the character from DC Comics (who acquired her when they purchased the Quality characters), so it was interesting to see those pre-DC stories.  So, I've kept an eye on the PS Artbooks offered through Previews, and when I saw a solicit for a new collection of stories starring "Senorita Rio," well, I knew I had to give it a try.

Senorita Rio is the code-name for actress turned secret agent, Rita Farrar (not to be confused with the actress turned weird superhero, Rita Farr, who became Elasti-Girl in the Doom Patrol over at DC Comics).  Senorita Rio first appeared in an eight-page story in Fight Comics #19 (cover dated June 1942), published by Fiction House.  From what I can find online, the character appeared in quite a number of issues of Fight Comics, starting with issue 19 through issue 68, then making her final appearances in issues 70 and 71.  The page-count for the stories varied, starting at eight pages, then increasing to ten pages, then reducing back to nine pages (and that is just within the first sixteen stories represented in PS Artbooks first volume of Senorita Rio).  According to the introduction to this collection, Senorita Rio is one of the first female and Latin characters in American comics, and she is the first female character to appear on the cover of Fight Comics.  (NOTE - Wonder Woman made her debut over at DC Comics in October 1941 in All-Star Comics #8, so it was a little less than a year later that Senorita Rio made her debut in Fight Comics #19 in June 1942).  Thus, this character plays an important role in comic book history!

Our sultry secret agent was created by none other than Nick Cardy (who comic fans will recognize as the artist of the the original Aquaman series in the early '60s and all 43 issues of Teen Titans series back in the late '60s).  Cardy provided the art for the first eleven stories, from June 1942 through December 1943.  He both pencilled and inked the first nine stories, while Art Saaf provided the inks on the last two tales drawn by Cardy.  The stories were signed as "N. Viscardi," which was his real last name (later shortened to simply Cardy for his professional work).  When Cardy left, the art was taken over by Arnold HIcks, and then Alex Blum, and the Lily Renee.  The writing of the stories are credited to "Morgan Hawkins" (although the first tale indicates it is "by Joe Hawkins"), but this does not necessarily appear to be a real person.  I find conflicting information when I research the name - some websites credit Nick Cardy as the author of the Senorita Rio stories under the Hawkins pen name, while other sites credit Max Elkan as the real name for Morgan Hawkins.  I suppose this is a mystery lost in time...

The stories are very fast-paced (which they would need to be, since they are only eight to ten pages in length!) and pretty much follow the same format - Senorita Rio received a mission to stop a German / Nazi operation, she heads out to a South American location, she gets captured or kidnapped, and she escapes and defeats whatever operations the Germans / Nazis are up to and saves the day.  While the stories are pretty simple and straight-forward, they are enjoyable in the fact that the men in these tales greatly underestimate Rio's ingenuity and skills.  She's a sharpshooter and excellent hand-to-hand fighter, and her feminine wiles beguile many a lusting man.  She is also quite handy with a knife, for in the August 1944 issue (#33), Rio manages to take down a wild jaguar who is ready to attack a fellow agent!

 

A number of male supporting characters do end up getting killed or severely injured in the stories, but Senorita Rio manages to escape them unscathed and triumphant, reinforcing the idea that good always overcomes evil, although not always without a cost.  And since these stories were published during a time that the United States was at war, it is likely they were written to encourage the youngsters reading them that good would eventually overcome the evil of the Nazi menace.  Rio's stories extended well beyond the end of World War II, so I am curious to see what kind of adventures the sultry spy went on after the war ended.

Readers who hope to see the first story tell the origin of this mysterious spy will be disappointed - there is no lengthy origin story, such as those depicted in today's comics; rather, Senorita Rio's origins are told gradually throughout those initial stories, with small tidbits dropped here and there that readers will have to put together.  The second panel on page 3 of that first story provides probably the largest part of her tale, with a small newspaper article telling how motion picture actress Rita Farrar leapt to her death while traveling by ship to Rio de Janeiro for the opening of her latest film.  The snippet says the actress was depressed following the death of her fiance at Pearl Harbor.  Otherwise, readers never actually see how Rita Farrar becomes Senorita Rio - instead, readers are simply thrown into the action of Rio's latest adventure (it is clearly not her first), wherein she assumes the identity of a countess in order to steal some forged papers that could destroy relations between the U.S. and Brazil. 

One thing I love about this collection is that it includes four pages of house ads that Fiction House published to advertise their new character.  "Sing a song of sudden death..." headlines one ad - - "Senorita Rio ... svelte, daring ex-Hollywood starlet turned U.S. Secret Agent..." describes another - - "Senorita Rio ... daring, glamorous U.S. spy queen, fights the tarantula web of axis treachery" advertises another - - "Senorita Rio: The World's Most Devastating Secret Agent! Nightmre of Axis Operators ... Toast of Latin America's Gay Caballeros!!" exclaims the fourth!  The only thing missing from this collection are the covers to each of the issues in which Senorita Rio appears.  Even though she may not have appeared on the actual cover, it would have been nice to see the covers for these issues.

As a final note - Senorita Rio (Rita Farrar) first appeared in June 1942.  Elasti-Girl (Rita Farr) of the Doom Patrol over at DC Comics did not appear until June 1963 in My Greatest Adventure #80, some twenty years later.  It must be more than a simple coincidence that the characters have similar names (Rita Farrar / Rita Farr); both characters have the same career (actress / actress); and both characters were in a foreign country when their lives changed (South America / Africa).  This makes one wonder if perhaps Arnold Drake, who created Elasti-Girl, was a fan of Senorita Rio and his creation was an homage to the earlier character...

RATING:  9 white gods of Inca legend out of 10 for some wonderfully action-packed stories featuring a strong, sexy female lead!