Truly Gone&Forgotten : Honey Blake, aka THE BLONDE BOMBER!

She’s facing the wrong way.

The Blonde Bomber
Created by Barbara Hall
Appears in All-New Comics Nos.6-7 and 9; Green Hornet Comics Nos.7-10, 20-28, 32-34; Speed Comics 43-44 (Jun 1942-January 1947)

Stay tuned…

Lights, camera – and loads of action! That’s the motto of the Blonde Bomber — aka tough-as-nails newsreel reporter Honey Blake! Accompanied by daring-but-doughy cameraman Jimmy F. Slapso (The “F,” he insists, stands for “Flash!”), Honey trades blistering banter with the bad guys as she up-ends Nazi schemes and murder plots from coast-to-coast – with the camera always running!

One of many features to be handed off to multiple creators over the course of her publishing history – including to Bob Powell and Jill Elgin, among a mystery roster of uncredited others – the specifics of Honey’s world and personality change depending on who handles the pen. Her creator, Barbara Hall, describes her in her first adventure in this fashion:

“Honey Blake, ace newsreel camerawoman, combines glamorous and daring – daily risking her life to do her job, she matches wits with international criminals to bring you the news! Honey’s character has many facets – in her laboratory she is an expert chemist!”

An interesting gimmick in the first few adventures involved Slapso and Honey digging into their newsreel back-catalog for material, rattling off a list of titles of their upcoming adventures –The Magu Diamond Mystery, The Hollywood Hellcat and The Flaming Flamingo! –  which were then featured in subsequent issues.

Once those inaugural stories are out of the way, Honey’s chemistry degree – which was never really exhibited in any meaningful fashion – more-or-less vanishes from canon. Naturally, this does nothing to slow her crusade against wartime crime and international fascism! 

An occasional slathering of sauciness was also part of Honey’s repetoire.

Multiple Nazi villains and their sympathizers made up Honey’s rogues gallery, including the villainous, hair-pulling Frau Doktor, the sabotaging tailor “Little Adolf” Pfulglegruber, and deviously redoubtable Nazi prisoner-of-war Field Marshall Taurus. 

Fifth Columnists, like Brazilian nightclub owner Ramon Sinistero, were also a frequent source of trouble, and Honey would occasionally find herself protecting American war assets when U.S. soldiers couldn’t – for example, stopping a series of rodent poisonings on the muskrat farm where bombers’ jacket linings was harvested! Later, she also brought to justice a gang of Nazi saboteurs who were injecting commisariat-bound canned salmon with botulism. Listen folks, every little bit helps!

Following the war, Honey and Slapso had to go far afield to find exciting newsreel material. One such excursion lands them in the Yucatan and the company of mellow Mayan sorcerer Umbriago, who becomes a valuable third member of the team. Umbriago reveals to his new friends a magical pool, which allows those who drink from it to visit any era of the past! This lands the trio in the middle of the Mayan empire during the invasion of Cortez, and later in the midst of the American War of Independence – with Slapso’s camera running the whole time.

Umbriago hauling ass.

Newsreels lost their popularity following the war, although that probably had less to do with abbreviating this interesting new twist on the Blonde Bomber’s formula than the general decline in comics’ popularity around the same time...