DCRO 5- New Comics (1935) #2 [AD Story]

Story title: "The Manning Baby Kidnapping" (Again, there aren't any signs of this being the official title in the story itself, so I guess I should stop mentioning this)

DCRO entry

Cover Date: January 1936

By: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

We have a new magazine! This time is New Comics, one of the first magazines to publish original material (as you can probably tell from the name). I guess it's kind of like More/New Fun Comics, but with less "Fun." It's kind of weird to me that this one's the newer one because the title really does sound like it's a worse version of new fun lol.

Anyway, with this new magazine, we also get a new character/series: The Federal Men. Although I guess it should be called The Federal Man because it centers around Steve Carson, an FBI agent. This is a pretty obscure character, much more obscure than Doctor Occult, and the reason it's in the order in the first place is kind of dumb (we'll get there), so I feel kind of like an idiot reading his entire Golden Age run. That's the completionist's life I guess. At least it's (again) by Siegel and Shuster. And it's one more step in the evolution process of the medium.

This story is as long as everything we've read so far (4 whopping pages!!) so let's get to it at once.

The first few panels do a good job of presenting the character and the story at the same time: We see Steve impressing a bunch of cops with his terrific aim, and apparently, it's not the first time this "rookie" does so. 

But it turns out this is also relevant to the plot because the "rookie" picks up a bullet from the gun he's borrowed from Walsh.

We later see him on a call and we pretty much get an infodump: A baby named Manning has been kidnapped (If you couldn't tell from the title), and his bodyguard killed. The bullet Steve picked up from the floor matches the one that killed the bodyguard. But also, Steve has received a letter from Walsh's "Estragend wife", who in turn has received another letter from one Kate Lane, who has served time in the past for kidnapping and was pretending to be from the bureau in the letter. 

From all of that, I guess it's pretty obvious who the culprit is, so Steve Carson wastes no time explaining the situation and setting a trap for Walsh: He heads to Kate Lane's old address with him, hoping... something useful would happen?

It's funny to note that Steve is seizing the opportunity to tease Walsh a little here.
 

Anyway, after a transition panel that looks like it would fit with the transition jingle from the 1960s Batman show, they get to the place. Just as Steve is entering the building, Walsh drives away. Steve was expecting that to happen, so he immediately exits the building and gets into a different car to chase after him. 

This part doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I'm guessing Walsh knew they would find something on him there, but not being there while it happens wouldn't help a lot. Also, running from the place is extremely suspicious. The worse part is that when Steve gets in the car he says: "He'll lead us right to Kate Lane and the Manning baby". Why? Why would he do that?

Anyway, pursuit ensues, and when Walsh catches onto the situation, he begins firing! Because I'm sure firing at a police car in an open street won't incriminate you!

Walsh's car crashes and the guy is nowhere to be seen. While Steve is searching for him he feels a gun against his back, and he hears Walsh's voice, who of course is completely unscathed after his car exploded or something.

Next, Walsh graduates as "Comically Evil" by shooting a random traffic policeman that waved at him for speeding. What an asshole.

They get to where the kid is being held hostage and it turns out he's sick, but of course, they don't want to take him to a hospital and lose the ransom. Okay... They have bigger problems than that, the police are after them and know their identities. One of them is a cop, so it's not like he can just be a fugitive that easily. If the kid dies, they won't get a ransom anyway. And worst of all: Steve tries to reason with them by telling them a kidnapping charge is better than a murder one, so they should let the kid go. But don't they have a murder charge already? From the bodyguard I mean. I guess he didn't die from the shot. 

Anyway, Kate still has some common sense, so she tries to discuss it with Walsh, which ends in a fight.

Carson jumps at the opportunity, and onto Walsh, who apparently has a death wish because he asks his partner to shoot while they are in the middle of the struggle.

Instead, Kate starts aiming at her partner, and Walsh is not happy about this. He shoots Kate and Steve shows his true talent: defeating criminals when they are too busy fighting each other. Another struggle ensues:

Aah, but what do we say to the god of death?

That's right! Steve saves the day and calls the police. They arrive to take Walsh and Steve keeps the baby? 

That kid must be traumatized at this point... Or maybe he won't remember any of it. I guess we'll find out in the next edition of... Federal Men! (Not really)

Yep, that's how this story ends, and honestly, I was a bit disappointed with the title: I was hoping for this to be about a baby kidnapping people rather than a baby being kidnaped.

Now, the ratings:

Quality/Enjoyment: 3/5 I was going to give this a 2/5 but I'm feeling generous. The plot and the characters are nothing interesting. Steve Carson is your average tough guy, and this is your average cop story. Like I said before, the beginning of the story is good at introducing the character and the plot at the same time, but the pacing does feel a little rushed (The phone call info dump reads weird and it's especially hard to follow, I had to read it a couple times to completely understand what they were saying). It's still pretty cool that they managed to tell this story in only four pages, but I really wish they had more space in general. I guess this all amounts to 2/5, but for being the first story of its kind in the order, I'll raise it to 3/5.

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 2/5 Steve Carson is about as obscure as it gets if we're talking about modern DC media. However, he is canon within the DC universe. Now, why is that? He had a cameo on one of the stories of a recent Detective Comics issue. That's it. That's all you need to get put in the order. I'm not complaining though, the completionist in me wouldn't have it any other way. So, with how little relevance he has today, that's probably a 1/5. But, this is the first gangster/cop story in the order (out of way too many I'm sure), so that's probably worth an extra point, so 2/5.

That's the end of this entry. Next time, another Federal Men story. Thanks for reading and have a nice rest of your day!