The Avenger is a fictional character whose original adventures appeared between September 1939 and September 1942 in the pulp magazine The Avenger, published by Street & Smith, which ran 24 issues. Five additional short stories were published in Clues Detective magazine (1942–1943), and a sixth novelette in The Shadow magazine in 1943. Decades later, newly written pastiches were commissioned and published by Warner Brothers' Paperback Library from 1973 to 1974. The Avenger was a pulp hero who combined elements of Doc Savage and The Shadow. The authorship of the pulp series was credited by Street & Smith to Kenneth Robeson, the same byline that appeared on the Doc Savage stories. Most of the original Avenger stories were actually written by Paul Ernst. The "Kenneth Robeson" name was a house pseudonym used by a number of different Street & Smith writers. History In the late 1930s following in the wake of a slew of magazine cancellations (The Skipper, Bill Barnes and The Whisperer "had failed to capture the audience loyalty" of Doc Savage and the Shadow), Street & Smith's circulation manager Henry William Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic set out to create a new hero combining elements of both. They obtained advice from Lester Dent and Walter B. Gibson in the creation of the Avenger, and hired writer Paul Ernst. Both Dent and Gibson met with Ernst to give him advice on his stories, Dent focused on characterization and Gibson on plotting. The character of the Avenger, described by pulp expert Don Hutchison as "clearly an effort to form a hybrid of the company's more successful creations", echoed his forebears in other ways also. Whereas Doc Savage was known as "The Man of Bronze", the Avenger was described as "The Man of Steel". The Avenger's "marksman's eyes" echoed the "burning eyes" of the Shadow, who continued to be referred to as "The Masked Avenger". When creating The Avenger, Paul Ernst drew on elements from characters he had previously created; Seekay (a private detective with a disfigured face who wears a plastic mask); The Wraith (a crimefighter who used both a knife and a gun); Dick Bullitt (with his gray features); Old Stone Face (the G-Man with the emotionless visage); the Gray Marauder and Karlu the Mystic. In 1939, readers of Street & Smith's Doc Savage pulp magazine "thrilled to a special announcement" that a new periodical — The Avenger —