Zero Ghost Detective

Ghostly detectives became a standard trope in the comics of the Golden Age. After the creators of Superman created Dr. Occult in 1935, everybody jumped on the band wagon. Some were short lived. One of the more successful ones was Zero Ghost Detective.

Feature Comics #32 (May 1940) introduced two new characters. The first was the jungle lord Samar (you could read that Same-ar, for he was nothing new) and the other was a ghostbreaker named “Zero Ghost Detective”. With issues #32 to #72 (October 1943), Zero ran for forty episodes with the by-line “Noel Fowler”. The strip was actually written by Toni Blum and drawn by four main artists, Dan Zolnerowich, Charles Sultan, Al Bryant and Witner Williams.

Zero is a bit like the Phantom Stranger (who was created in 1952), but also like a hard-boiled PI type character. The majority of his cases feature ghosts though there is also an ogre, an elemental, a ghoul, a werewolf and a mummy. In his forty issue run he was never featured on a cover. He did appear in a top coin along with other minor characters. The covers were usually given to Doll Man.

In the first episode, “The Three-Fingered Ogre”, Zero is visited by Death himself. The phantom wants to take the soul of an old man but he refuses to go. Zero visits the elderly man and finds that there is a son and an inheritance. Zero travels with a soldier ghost to Arabia where Bedoiuns have captured the son, a soldier in the Foreign Legion.

Zero uses his ability to conjure demons to scare off the Arabs and brings the son back magically to his father. The son finds a chest filled with gold. The old man goes willingly with Death to his rest. All that in five pages!

The second episode, “Mystery of the Bloody Sword”, begins with an old sword mysteriously flowing with blood. Zero is called in. He unscrews the hilt to find an old Arab letter. It says that if the sword bleeds it means someone who is close to the possessor is about to die. The rich man who owns the sword rush to his mansion in the South where his niece and nephew live. The nephew is found dead and the niece under attack. The attackers are ghosts of the old slave plantation that want revenge. The ghosts attack again and again. Only once Zero burns down the mansion do they go to their rest.

A new minister is sent to the asylum because of ghostly knocking in his head. His daughter Jean gets Zero to look into the case. While visiting the asylum, the spirit trapped in the minister’s head jumps to a large idiot named Buno. Kidnapping Jean he returns to the church to guard his treasure. The spectre calls up other ghosts in the town and Zero must vanquish them with a mirror marked with a cross. He defeats the giant Buno when a ringing bell throws the idiot from the tower. His body smashes a secret spot in the stairs where the treasure is hidden. The money is given to the church, from whom it was originally stolen. In this story Jean refers to Zero as “Mr. Zero”, making it his last name.

Zero is walking home when a dog follows him, pestering him to go to a cemetery. There he sees skeletons in robes about to bury a living woman. Zero tries desperately to stop them, punching them even when it makes his fists bleed. One of the spectres uses a magic fiddle to freeze him. The dog tries to bite them but can’t, so he goes to a nearby chicken coop and barks at the rooster until he crows. The ghostly figures sink back into the ground, thinking it is sunrise.

The woman wakes and explains to Zero that the ghosts are old family enemies trying to get revenge from the grave. The dog is her pet, gone for months, thought dead. The dog disappears and Zero confirms, he was dead but returned to save her. A young woman, Jane Darwell, comes to Zero because she feels haunted. Zero uses his “Super Q-Ray” machine that shows if spirits are present. Jane is being haunted by a man in a top hat. This reminds her of a family legend about her grandfather. He had killed a man in a duel.

Zero returns with Jane to a party she is throwing. A spirit comes and takes her by the elbow (Zero following close behind) to the library. There Jane goes into the past and we see what happened long ago. A Steven Fiske tries to force Jane’s grandmother, Nell, to marry him but Darwell shows up and saves her. They fall in love and marry. Later Fiske returns to kill Darwell and they duel. During the duel Nell is killed by Fiske. His ghost has come to the future to take Jane back into the past to replace her grandmother. Zero finds the original knife that killed Nell and uses it to send Fiske’s spirit onto his reward.

I can’t recount all 40 stories here but here’s a list. All these comics are available at DCM. Where titles are not available I have used the first three or four words of the story. Thanks to GCD for all the research. Reading all of these should keep ghostbreaker comic fans happy for awhile.

“Ghost of the Coolnook Church” (Feature Comics #34, July 1940)

“Danse Macabre” (Feature Comics #35, August 1940)

“The Ghost’s Vengeance” (Feature Comics #36, September 1940)

“Mutiny on the Ghost Galley” (Feature Comics #37, October 1940)

“Mission to the Spirit World” (Feature Comics #38, November 1940)

“The Haunted Night Club” (Feature Comics #39, December 1940)

“The Spell of the Albatross” (Feature Comics #40, January 1941)

“Sacrifice to Moloch” (Feature Comics #41, February 1941)

“Zero’s Future Incarnation” (Feature Comics #42, March 1941)

“Murderess Escapes From Prison” (Feature Comics #43, April 1941)

“Don’t Fear the Reaper” (Feature Comics #44, May 1941)

“The Ghostly Wreckers of Danger Isle” (Feature Comics #45, June 1941)

“It Started in McDorley’s Tavern” (Feature Comics #46, July 1941)

“The Car-Wrecking Ghost” (Feature Comics #47, August 1941)

“Duel of the Ghosts” (Feature Comics #48, September 1941)

“Diary of the Dead” (Feature Comics #49, October 1941)

“The Gibson Street Ghoul” (Feature Comics #50, November 1941)

“The Ghost of Noah Jordan” (Feature Comics #51, December 1941)

Madness, thrills, and terror race… (Feature Comics #52, January 1942)

Another belligerent ghost… (Feature Comics #53, February 1942)

Freak circumstance combines…(Feature Comics #54, March 1942)

Spirits and evil spectres…(Feature Comics #55, April 1942)

“Spectre at Sea” (Feature Comics #56, May 1942)

“The Ghost of Al Margotti” (Feature Comics #57, June 1942)

A long lingering moan… (Feature Comics #58, July 1942)

“The Caretaker’s Ghost” (Feature Comics #59, August 1942)

Shrieks and moans…(Feature Comics #60, September 1942)

“To Return From the Dead” (Feature Comics #61, October 1942)

Ghosts of the past…(Feature Comics #62, November 1942)

“The Mute Ghost” (Feature Comics #63, December 1942)

“The Death Emerald” (Feature Comics #64, January 1943)

“The Man Nobody Loved” (Feature Comics #65, February 1943)

“Case of the Missing Twins” (Feature Comics #66, March 1943)

“Spirit of the Elemental” (Feature Comics #67, April 1943)

“Case of buggy No. 13” (Feature Comics #68, June 1943)

“The Friars of Finance” (Feature Comics #69, July 1943)

“The Ghost That Haunted Macbeth” (Feature Comics #70, August 1943)

“The Werewolf” (Feature Comics #71, September 1943)

“The Hand of Rutatutakhmen” (Feature Comics #72, October 1943)

Zero may not be the most famous occult detective of the comics but he gave a solid four year run. He was replaced by the silly scientist, Prof. Noodle by Sid Lazarus. After him would be other occult crime solvers including Terence Thirteen and Doctor Strange.