G-8

Origin

 

G-8 is the greatest fighter pilot and Spy of World War I with, so they claim, personally shooting down hundreds of enemy aircraft, which would make them the greatest Ace of all time, at the same time he was also a skilled escape artist, hand to hand combatant, code breaker and master of disguise, however because of security reasons this was kept out of the history books.

G-8 is aided in his battle by his “Battle Aces” Nippy Weston in fighter # 13 and Bull Martin in fighter # 7. Also with G-8 are his English butler Battle and his girlfriend a woman, due to her also being in the same unnamed secret agency as G-8, is never named, or even given a letter and number, she also serves as the nurse to the Battle Aces.

Along with fighting regular German air aces G-8 also took on a long line of mad scientist, the lead one being Herr Doktor Krueger, and a series of increasing bizarre adversaries such as the Steel Mask, unfrozen Neanderthal Grun the Green Brute (the freezing process for some reason turning him green), as well as such horrors as squadrons of pilots made up of tiger-headed men, zombies, vampires, and those riding giants mutant birds and bats, winged flying tigers and other fantastic menaces.

After the war he took a long needed rest, but was back in action during an unrecorded in the history books attack on L.A. in 1945 which led to him teaming up with The Spider and Secret Agent X to battle crime and/or evil.

 

Creators

 

 

G-8 started as a series of 110 Pulp stories that appeared from October 1933 to June 1944 written by Robert J. Hogan, not as well written as Doc Savage or The Shadow his was one of the first of the long running Hero Pulps to go down.

And while not a popular as the others, he has still turned up after the end of the Pulp series. Philip Jose Farmer suspected that he may in fact have really been Kent Allard, the future Shadow as well as Richard Wentworth the Spider, his mind having cracked under the strain of his experiences in the war (most of which were not vampires riding giant bats but what he thought he saw while battling normal German fighters) leading to him developing a split personality and acting as the two vigilantes. Which would explain why in the 30s and 40 it was said “there is no rest for the Shadow.”

This however has been rejected by more modern Wold Newtonists who have decided that G-8’s real name was Jim Albright, the man who became known as Captain Midnight.

G-8 has not appeared often in comics, with, until Moonstone brought him back in 2010, him only appeared in two one-shots, one from Gold Key in 1966 and another from an independent in 1991.

Moonstone however seems to be ready to give G-8 a new lease on life.

With along with appearing in the Battle of L.A. he being scheduled to appear in an ongoing series The Unholy 3, in which G-8 teams up with The Spider and Secret Agent X.