"was soon to be published", and would feature stories "written by none other than Kenneth Robeson, 'the familiar creator of Doc Savage.' Robeson was actually a Street & Smith house name used by Ernst and a number of other authors, including Lester Dent, the actual writer of Doc Savage. The first issue of The Avenger was cover-dated September 1939, and featured a cover story/'lead novel' entitled "Justice Inc." Interior art was produced by Paul Orban, well known to pulp fans for his "similar work on Doc Savage and The Shadow." Pulp demise Describing the stories as "well-plotted" with good characterization and "an unusual amount of attention paid to detail," Hutchison notes that as a derivative character, the Avenger was destined not to be as popular as his original rivals, which Hutchison gives as Doc Savage, The Spider, G-8, The Shadow, Operator #5 and the Phantom, while still arguing that the character "can perhaps be considered the last of the great pulp heroes". His stories ran initially in his own magazine for 24 issues, first monthly and then (beginning with #13) bi-monthly in four volumes. The entire series ran exactly three years, ceasing publication in September 1942. The character was kept alive in Clues Detective with five additional short stories written by Emile Tepperman, plus an additional tale by Emile Tepperman which was published as a backup feature in a 1944 issue of The Shadow. In Don Hutchison's estimation, the Avenger was following in big footsteps, and hamstrung by appearing too late in the day. Following the "instant justice" of The Shadow, the global stage of Doc Savage and other pulp heroes, the Avenger was, by 1939, "simply an unnecessary commodity." "Second best[,] he had tried harder... but the timing was all wrong". Ultimately, Hutchison concludes, "The world did not require another good ten-cent hero". Revivals Nevertheless, the character was revived in the 1970s by Warner Paperback Library, given a brief revival by DC Comics (in comic book form), and was the subject of new short stories in 2008 from Moonstone Books. (See below) Character biography Origins The Avengers real name is Richard Henry Benson, a globe-trotting adventurer who "had made his millions by professional adventuring": discovering rubber in South America, leading "native armies in Java", making "aerial maps in the Congo", mining "amethysts in Australia and emeralds in Brazil" and finding gold in Alaska and diamonds in the Transvaal. Following