Balladeer’s Blog resumes its look at the neglected Pulp Hero G-8. This is a story-by- story look at the adventures of this World War One American fighter pilot who – along with his two wingmen the Battle Aces – took on various super-natural and super- scientific menaces thrown at the Allied Powers by the Central Powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Muslim Turks.
G-8 was created by Robert J Hogan in 1933 when World War One was still being called simply the World War or the Great War. Over the next eleven years Hogan wrote 110 stories featuring the adventures of G-8, the street-smart pug Nippy Weston and the brawny giant Bull Martin, his two Battle Aces.
88. DEATH TO THE HAWKS OF WAR (January 1941) – The very first appearance of Herr Teufel (“Mr Devil”), the latest member of G-8’s Rogue’s Gallery of foes. Herr Teufel is tall, thin, pale and boney-faced. Like so many of our hero’s adversaries he’s a mad scientist and in his particular case his headquarters is a hidden lair in the Bavarian Alps.
Herr Teufel’s plan to help the Central Powers win the war involves his latest invention – a drug that, when injected in German pilots, transforms them into maniacal, blood-thirsty sky warriors. These “Hawks of War” have supernatually-fast reflexes, enhanced vision, unerring aim, machine-like stamina and lack any need for sleep.
If Teufel’s super-pilots are successful the Kaiser plans to have the drug mass-produced and used to transform all the Central Powers ground troops into super-soldiers. Needless to say G-8 and his Battle Aces are called into action to take on and bring down Herr Teufel’s human weapons. Our hero suffers a bullet wound to the head at one point in this exciting adventure. Continue reading
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