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. The regular cast was rounded out by our hero’s archenemy Doktor Krueger, by Battle, G-8’s British manservant and by our hero’s girlfriend R-1: an American spy/ nurse whose real name, like G-8’s was never revealed.
76. SKY-GUNS FOR THE MURDER MASTER (January 1940) – Introducing an all-new foe for G-8 – Count Maulwurf! The Count is fondly regarded by World War One geeks like me because he was clearly based on the real life Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, “the Rommel of World War One”.
Lettow- Vorbeck was sort of a “Jungle Fox” to Rommel’s Desert Fox. He was the most effective German General in Africa during the First World War and was still on the loose when the surrender was signed on November 11th, 1918.
In this story his fictional counterpart Count Maulwurf is summoned back to Europe by the Kaiser to see if his African successes can be duplicated against G-8 and the Battle Aces. Maulwurf is outfitted with a super-scientific tunnel-digging machine that can be used for laying massive mines and for tunneling beneath – and ultimately behind – the Allied forces. The machine automatically sealed the tunnels with concrete as it moved along. Continue reading
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