Maboul, Professor. Professor Maboul was created by the great Georges Méliès and appeared in La Conquête du pôle (Conquest of the Pole) in 1912. Maboul is a French inventor who has created a chicken-headed “aerobus,” or dirigible, with which he proposes to explore the North Pole. He assembles a team of six professors from England, the U.S., Germany, Spain, China and Japan, and they set forth. Unfortunately, they encounter the “géant des neiges” (giant of the snows), an enormous giant who tries to eat the explorers. They escape and return in triumph to Paris.

Mabuse, Dr. Dr. Mabuse was created by Norbert Jacques and debuted in Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1921), a novel serialized in the Berliner Illustrierte; since that time he has appeared in a number of other books and movies. The German Mabuse is a criminal mastermind intent on world domination; worse still, he is a psychiatrist who uses his psychiatric knowledge and abilities at hypnotism (he can also summon visions to control weaker personalities) and disguise for his own nefarious ends. Among his other operations are counterfeiting rings, gambling halls, brothels, murder rings, and kidnaping operations. He is pursued by Police Inspector von Wenk. Mabuse gains his fortune by manipulating the stock market, ruining the weak Count Told and exploiting Countess Told, a "debauched thrill-seeking aristocrat." Mabuse also exploits his own girlfriend, the ballerina Cara Carozza, who is nonetheless slavishly loyal to Mabuse. Although Mabuse begins as something of an anti-hero, defying a decadent and corrupt German society, by the second part of the twenty reel serial he has become a thorough-going villain, and he kills Cara to guarantee her silence (she'd been grilled by Countess Told earlier but had refused to turn coat), kidnaps and tortures Countess Told, and kills Count Told. By the end of the film Mabuse has gone insane, haunted by the ghosts of his victims, and is imprisoned in an asylum.

Dr. Mabuse - A Modern German Myth
A good essay on Mabuse.

Film Notes: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler
Excellent and thorough coverage of the film. From the New York State Writers Institute.

The Strange Case of Doctor Mabuse: From Fritz Lang to Jess Franco in Ten Easy Steps
A good article on Mabuse from the Midnight Marquee.

MacBride, Steve. Captain Steve MacBride was created by Frederick Nebel and appeared in Black Mask starting in September 1928 and running through 1936. Steve MacBride is a police Captain in Richmond City, which has a number of similarities to Cincinnati, not least its physical location in Ohio. His friend and de facto sidekick John X. Kennedy is a reporter for the Free Press. MacBride is a hard cop, a good man who walks around graft and filth and crime but is untouched by it. He is over forty, tall and rugged, with a taste for cigars and a refusal to let the law's idiocies stop the criminals from walking away. MacBride is a clever investigator, shrewd and knowledgeable, whose men are not nearly so clever as he is but who follow his orders and see, when they do, the criminals go to jail. The world of MacBride and Kennedy is a hard one, full of real-life crime and brutalities, and MacBride is a real, old-style cop, though smarter, one thinks, than cops were in reality. Kennedy is a drunk, worn down by the world and other internal demons, but he's a good amateur detective who through his intuition and brains often helps the police. To quote from Sampson, "MacBride is hard, positive, uncompromising, rigid; Kennedy is none of these. MacBride is the pragmatic cop, slugging along, link by link, to the end of the chain; Kennedy is the romantic intuitiveness, understanding the whole situation and stepping at once from the beginning to the end."

Macdonald, Lynn. Lynn Macdonald was created by Kay Strahan and appeared in seven novels, beginning with The Desert Moon (1928). She is a red-haired "crime analyst."

Macklin, Professor Armand. Professor Armand Macklin was written (uninterestingly) by Ralph W. Wilkins, and debuted in "The Campus Murder Mystery," in the January 1930 issue of Scientific Detective Monthly. Macklin was a scientific detective in the waning days of that genre's existence. Macklin is a professor of "Police Practice and Crime Investigation" at Roger Williams College, and "holds the first chair of its kind ever established in America." Macklin is, of course, scientifically knowledgeable, knows his way around a laboratory, and defeats all his enemies, even though they begin throwing scientifictional weapons at him--sonic projectors, untraceable new poisons, giant tubes of liquid oxygen, and the like. Macklin's adventures are narrated by Sabre, his secretary.

Maclain, Duncan. Duncan Maclain Macleod of the Clan Macleod was created by Baynard H. Kendrick and appeared in thirteen novels, beginning with The Last Express in 1937. Maclain was a US Army Intelligence officer in World War One who was blinded at Messines in 1917. After recovering and being discharged from active service, the tall dark and handsome Maclain moved to New York and opened a private investigation agency in the penthouse at 72^nd Street and Riverside Drive. He’s very good at it; he’s smart, well-educated (he continuously reads in Braille) and makes use of his remaining senses without becoming a superhuman, Max Carrados-style character. He can shoot, for example, guided by sound, but only after extensive training. He is assisted by his best friend and partner Spud Savage. (No, really, that was his name. "Spud Savage.")

Macpherson, Angus. Angus McPherson was created by Morgan Robertson and appeared in a number of stories published in various magazines and collected in Land Ho! (1905). McPherson, whose nickname is "Scotty," is a sailor who gets involved in various weird and fantastic events at sea, including a passenger with strangely powerful mesmeric skills, ghosts, and a Captain who changes personality on hearing the sound of an ancient Edda.

To quote from the book:

His name was Angus Macpherson--pronounced MacPhairson--but he was so intensely Scotch (sic) that in every ship he had sailed in men called him Scotty. He had a face like a harvest-moon, with a sorrowful expression of the eyes, a frame like a gladiator's, a brogue modified from its original consistency to an understandable dialect, and the soul of a Scotchman--which means that he was possessed by two dominant and conflicting passions, love of God and love of Mammon. Add to these attributes a masterful knowledge of seamanship and an acquaintance with navigation, and you have a rough sketch of him....

The thin-lipped girl who was known only as--the Madame--settled back comfortably and lit a cigarette.   She was aware of the hot eyes that sought hers--suggesting, pleading, offering, playing--over the sheath-like cloth of gold gown that flaunted the soft curves of her boyish figure, marveling as the club's garish illumination bathered her burnished blode head with glinting highlights.  But her own gray-blue eyes, glittering with the steely meances of a Damascus blade, parried the glances impersonally....

They were innocently unaware that this solitary girl was the mystery moll feared and respected by both police and underworld because she could case a job so tight that nothing could break it, because she could spot dip, dick or peterman whatever handicap he liked and beat him at his own game; and because she was a straight shooter in a town where even the calendar was suspected of being fixed.

Magnum. Magnum, whose first name was never revealed, was created by Max Rittenberg (for more information, see the Dr. Wycherley entry) and debuted in "The Message of the Tide," in the March 1915 issue of Blue Book. Magnum, 45 years old, is the "scientific consultant to Scotland Yard." Magnum is a scientific detective in the vein of Dr. Thorndyke, but written much more realistically. The Magnum stories are in fact very well written, with a number of good touches and with neither the criminals, the police, nor Magnum himself being shown as superhuman. The Magnum stories are so far superior to the Dr. Wycherley stories that one is forced to wonder if Rittenberg wrote both series by himself, or if he had help with the Magnum stories.

Magnum is an aging redhead, still strong and agile for his age but getting on in years. He is au courant with the latest scientific research and technology, and puts his equipment (nothing but the best, of course) to use in solving crimes. He puffs on a curved briar pipe while deep in thought. His contact with Scotland Yard is Inspector Callaghan. One of the nice touches in the Magnum stories is that Magnum, for all his skill, is prey to the small failings most humans share--petty vanities, small cruelties, etc--and that neither he nor Callaghan are particularly or especially cool under fire. He is very smart, but very human, and the series is the better for it.

Magruder, Inspector. Inspector Magruder was created by Jerome & Harold Prince and appeared in various short stories, beginning at least in 1944 in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Magruder is a NYC police Inspector, an intelligent and even sophisticated man who is widely read in psychological theory and applies it to his profession. (The Magruder stories, by the way, are surprisingly well-written and well worth the effort of searching out.)

Maguire, Shamus. Shamus Maguire was created by Stanley Day and appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly in the late 1930s. He was the house dick for the fashionable Hotel Paragon and dealt with bad guests and worse criminals. He was a large 260 pounds and had a taste for "Little Police" cigars.

Maigret, Jules. The rather famous Maigret was created by Georges Simenon and appeared in...oh, good lord, I'm not going to count all of that...let's just say he's appeared in a lot of books and movies, beginning in 1931 with M. Gallet Decédé. Jules Maigret is a French policeman who began as a beat cop before rising through the ranks, ending his days as a Commissaire (commissioner). He does not use formal methods of logic or deduction to solve crimes. Rather, he uses intuition, placing himself at the scenes of crimes and trying to learn as much as he can about the central characters and suspects in the crimes he investigates. This method allows him to gather, consciously and subconsciously, a lot of information about the guilty party, and it is this method which allows him to capture the criminal(s). (Admittedly, his assistants, Inspectors Lucas, Janvier, Lapointe and Torrence, do most of the legwork and research) Maigret is married, a pipe-smoker, and has a great deal of compassion and patience.

Simenon's Inspector Maigret
A nicely thorough site on the Inspector; it even has e-texts on articles on Maigret.

The Major. Aubrey St. John Major, best known as simple The Major, was created by L. Patrick Greene and debuted in Adventure in November 1919; his stories ran in Adventure and Short Stories through 1954.

The Major is an African hand, familiar with the Continent and to those who live and work there. He’s one of the Heroic Amorals, what Sampson calls a Bent Hero; he breaks the law, but follows a higher moral code. He is, among other things, a diamond smuggler, but he does this as a way to flout the laws unjustly protecting the “diamond-mining monopoly.” (I.e, the de Beers Syndicate) He is well regarded because of this by diamond miners, and indeed the police themselves view him with admiration, although they would gladly bring him in (if they could catch him with the gems in hand). The Major is a good sport, and everyone likes him.

He’s also a man of more than a little determination. Although he could use the diamonds he smuggles or the money he steals to get rich, he prefers instead to help others with his money, regardless of how poor that leaves him. He often risks his life for others, most often his servant and friend, Jim, a Hottentot. Jim is faithful to the Major, and there’s genuine friendship between them, although the master/servant dynamic lurks in the background of everything they do. Jim is visually the opposite of the Major; Jim is ugly, squat, heavily muscled, scarred, with an underdeveloped intellect and highly developed senses and wilderness training. He is, for many stories, afraid of firearms, although he eventually overcomes this. He’s outgoing and honest, although he’ll quite willingly lie for the Major. And although he often functions as the sidekick, he also—again—works as the Major’s servant, packing all of his equipment (comfortable bed inside of mosquito netting), pressing his clothes, feeding the Major (wonderful food on excellent china), and so on. (The Major varies from wealth to bankruptcy, but must always have had the money to pay Jim).

Generally speaking, the Major puts himself in harm’s way to help others, risking arrest and conviction (the former does happen, the latter never) on many grounds to right wrongs and to help the unjustly oppressed. He doesn’t kill (people, at least, although animals are not nearly so safe), but he swindles and blackmails with aplomb. On occasion, when circumstances demand it, he will lead troops, European or African, to free imprisoned men and women (European or African). He is sympathetic to the natives, and on at least one occasion gave himself up to the authorities to publicize Portuguese crimes against the natives. A number of his enemies were crazed white men, missionaries or would-be rulers. Others were twisted men and women (African and European—Greene did not play favorites in villains in the Major stories) looking to rile the natives against the whites (for their own benefit, of course). Again, he won’t kill, but is deft at arranging matters so that the villains are taken care of, by circumstances, the police, the environment, or their own agents.

The Major is a tall, muscular, handsome young man, clean-shaven, with greying black hair. He is always well-dressed, usually in crisply pressed white clothing. He usually wears a monocle, speaks in various English affectations (“old chap,” “beastly,” etc), and generally wears a moronic expression. His strength is extra-ordinary, as is his woodcraft, but he is not a great hand-to-hand fighter, often coming out the worse for it in a fight.

Makhno, Nestor. Nestor Makhno was created by Ivane Perestiani and appeared in Tsiteli eshmakunebi (Little Red Devils, 1923). There was a real Nestor Makhno; he was a Ukranian anarchist who fought against just about everybody, including the Red Army. In Little Red Devils he is recast as an evil anarchist, leader of a sinister gang of thugs, who after various barbarities is overcome by three children, including one racist stereotype. Unlike the real Makhno, who waged war on the steppes of the Ukraine, the filmic Makhno fights his campaigns in the "wild mountains, rivers, forests and steppes" of the North Caucasus.

Mandrake the Magician. Created by Lee Falk and drawn almost from the start by Phil Davis, Mandrake debuted on 11 June 1934 and is still running today. Mandrake was, for a good long while, one of the great comic strips ever, and also one of the first featuring a magician. Mandrake set the archetype for comic strip and comic book magicians for many years, DC's Dr. Fate being a notable (and perhaps the lone) exception. Mandrake wore a coat and tails, top hat, and opera cape. Initially he was an actual magician, using his spells against his arch-enemy, the Cobra, but not long after his debut he was changed to a stage magician who was very skilled at hypnotism, so that he didn't perform any actual magic, he only made people think he did. His background was never delved in to in any great detail; it was eventually made known that he'd done an apprenticeship in Tibet and had an evil twin, Derek, and a younger sister, Lenore.

Mandrake took on evils of all sorts. Among his notable enemies: the Cobra, a former Tibetan lama (Mandrake's teacher back at the lamasery, in fact) and scientist named Luciphor who had been maimed and disfigured in a laboratory accident, which drove him both mad and evil; Saki, the "Clay Camel," a master of disguise who used his talents for crime; Paulo, the insane dictator of the country of Dementor; the Great Grando, an illusion-casting magician; and various other mad scientists, tyrants, magicians, and gangsters, both on Earth (Mandrake traveled widely) and other planets and other dimensions. During the war he was active in the Pacific, defeating any number of spies (like the Octopus, Japan's best) and saboteurs.

Mandrake was aided by Lothar, an enormous African who had once ruled the Federated Tribes and his own country but whose life had been saved by Mandrake, thereby putting Lothar in Mandrake's debt. He repaid this by serving Mandrake and eventually saving Mandrake's life; their relationship eventually evolved into one of equality, with them being partners. He was very tall and very strong. Though Mandrake had a number of lady friends over the years, his longest-running sweetie was Narda, the former princess of Cockaigne, who originally appeared as someone intent on killing Mandrake and ended up becoming his long-time gal.

Oddly enough, Mandrake was based on a real-life magician, Leon Mandrake, and was drawn to match him. Go here and do a site search for the name "Mandrake" if you don't believe me. Joe Littrell responded to this statement with the following:

Thought you might be interested in this bit from James Randi's book, Conjuring (St. Martin's Press, 1992):

"It appears that cartoonist Lee Falk had come up with the name Mandrake independently, basing it upon the claimed miraculous powers of the poisonous plant of the same name. Phil Davis, the eventual artist of the cartoon strip, even changed the look of his character somewhat to match Leon [Mandrake, whose real name is not known]'s appearance after the two met. It was an excellent symbiosis, each entity enhancing the other.

"Mandrake and his first wife and assistant (professionally named Narda, after the comic strip character) parted in 1946."

The Man in Grey
Five stories/chapters from The Man in Grey. From the Gaslight site.

The Man in Purple. Created by Johnston McCulley, the man behind the Thunderbolt, among others, the Man in Purple appeared in a brief handful of stories in 1921 and 1922 in Detective Story Magazine. The Man in Purple, like a number of other heroic thieves on this site (especially the Thunderbolt, with whom the Man in Purple has a lot in common), does not steal for kicks or for personal profit, but to avenge wrongs done; in his own words, he is a "collector of back pay for the swindled." (Nice turn of phrase, that.) The Man in Purple is Richard Staegal, a handsome young man of mixed past (he worked on a whaler for a time but is a wealthy member of society) whose fiancée, Betty Halyer, is quite taken with the Man in Purple. The Man in Purple had no interesting enemies (or stories, for that matter), although his motif was interesting; he would customarily send cards to his targets, before he stole from them, saying something like "The man who steals should expect to be the next victim of a thief in his turn. You have stolen money from the public treasury on your last paving contract. I intend to collect part of that sum. You cannot escape." Sometimes he'd even phone them.

He was assisted by Broph, a loser crook who was saved by the Man in Purple and who is devoted to the MiP. The MiP is pursued by Detective Troman, who is quite accommodating to the MiP's goals, although still tried to capture him anyhow. The MiP dresses all in purple, in a costume made of a special cloth that will dissolve instantly when doused in acid. Staegal of course carries a vial of acid with him wherever he goes, just so that he can quickly dispose of his costume.

The Man in the Red Mask. Mask, a hero in the style of the Black Hood and the Black Bat, was a short-lived hero who appeared in four stories in three different magazines. He was Perry Morgan, a hotel owner who put on a red mask and carried out a war on the underworld.

The Man in the Silver Mask. The Man in the Silver Mask was created by Erle Stanley Gardner and appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly for a few issues in 1933. He was a society playboy who fought crime behind his silver mask with the aid of his deaf Chinese servant/valet Ah Wong.

Manley, Jack. Jack Manley appeared in the 1911 film The Pirates of 1920. Manley is a British Army lieutenant who is on a cruise liner when it is attacked by a crew of pirates who are using a motorized and armed dirigible to plunder surface vessels. The pirates kill some of the ship's crew and force the rest to show the pirates where the ship's bullion is kept. Manley and the other men on the ship rush the rope ladders to the zeppelin as it departs, but only Manley can hold on to it, so only he survives when the pirates bomb the ship and destroy it. Manley is captured, and the pirate captain takes a liking to a picture of Jack's sweetheart that Jack has been carrying. The pirates go off to kidnap Jack's sweetheart Mary. Jack goes overboard, Mary drops a bomb in the ship, forcing it to land, and then throws another bomb, killing most of the crew (but not the captain), and Jack arrives and kills the captain. (You might argue that Mary actually did more than Jack. You'd be right.)

Man with a Thousand Faces. Phil Flash, The Man with a Thousand Faces, appeared in Bullseye in the 1930s. He was a performer for Bailey's Mammoth Circus. He had Avenger-like powers which he used in his act and against criminals.

Man with the Molten Face. Ferris Gerard, the "Man with the Molten Face," was created by H.W. Guernsey and appeared in Detective Action Stories in 1937. Gerard was the mayor of "the city" and a crusader against crime. Unfortunately, he attracted the animus of the mob, and one day, while out driving, he is run off the road and down a cliff. He is left with broken ribs, shoulder and clavicle, and with the entire lower part of his face torn away, leaving "a gaping wet red yawn fringed with tatters of flesh and splintered bone." When he leaves the hospital he's forced to wear a mask, as he is now without nose or jaw. His fiancee, Connie March, leaves him, and he leaves office and ponders suicide.

Then he hears about a Viennese plastic surgeon who specializes in tissue and bone surgery. The surgeon trimmed and shaped what was left of his face until an artificial jaw and nose could be affixed to his face. The jaw and nose were made of an "artificial resin" which was as "shock proof as steel." Over that was layed an "envelope of false skin." After that Gerard consulted with Hideo Nagayana, a Japanese "ceramic genius" who put porcelain teeth into the artificial jaw. The end result was a face that looked normal, except for a "deathly white pallor" and the immobility of the new parts.

Then, by accident, he discovers a trick. He is soaking in "blistering hot water" when he discovers that, when heated, the artificial bones in his face become like plastic and can be molded into different shapes. He uses his new abilities to first go after the mob men who almost killed him and then after criminals in general.

March, Colonel. March was created by Carter Dickson and debuted in Department of Queer Complaints (1940); he reappeared in "Colonel March of Scotland Yard" (1954) and in The Men Who Explained Miracles (1963). March, an aging, amiable, unflappable, large man, is a military officer who on retirement from service is put in charge of the Department of Queer Complaints (aka "the Crazy House"), in room D-3 of Scotland Yard. (They gave him that assignment because he was incapable of being surprised, a valuable asset for the crimes that the Crazy House has to deal with) The "Queer Complaints" that March, knowledgeable in a wide range of fields, and his assistant Inspector Roberts (they served together in the military) handle and solve vary from the merely odd (a blue pig terrorizing Stepney) to the dangerously bizarre (a new Invisible Man, or so it seems) to the impossible (a man with a cut throat found in a room where there are no sharp-edged weapons to be found). Though both March and Roberts are capable of defending themselves they usually catch the criminals off-guard so that violence isn't necessary.

Detectives
A guide to Dickson's detectives, including March.

Marchmont, Peter. Peter Marchmont was created by Roland West and appeared in The Unknown Purple, which was a play in 1922 and a movie in 1923. Marchmont is a scientist and inventor who is framed by his wife Jewel; she puts him in jail so that she and her lover James Dawson so that she can divorce him and be with James. Once Marchmont is released from jail he uses a ray to frame and rob the pair. The ray emits the "unknown purple" of the title; this produces a purplish-indigo glare that renders its user invisible. Marchmont meanwhile disguises himself as Victor Cromport to further fool the police, and operates from his hidden laboratory beneath Gotham.

Marko the Miracle Man. The most memorable enemy of Dixon Hawke, Marko was created by Edwy Searles Brooks, the creator of Hawke, and debuted in "Marko the Miracle Man" in Dixon Hawke Library #116, on 10 December 1923. Marko was reappearing, as deadly as ever, 14 years later. Marko (sometimes "Marco") is in all likelihood just Ralph Waldo, the Wonder Man rewritten, but that shouldn't stop us from enjoying him. (Similarly, Norman Conquest is just Marko rewritten.) Marko was a "rather amazing type of criminal," a scientist/inventor/adventurer who had turned to crime with great enthusiasm. He'd invented a belt that allowed him to generate "anti-gravity" and levitate, and had also created "x-ray spectacles." Between those, his zeal and bloodthirst, and his experience running a gang, he was almost a match for Hawke, nearly assassinating him on a number of occasions, as well as almost killing him closer in several times over, whether with knife, harpoon, garrote, or his bare hands (Marko was exceptionally strong). In his solo stories Marko carries out a long string of crimes, none of which are particularly forgivable, and in general has a long and successful career as a bad guy, without any of the softening that ruined Waldo.

Marlowe, Philip. Philip Marlowe was created by the immortal Raymond Chandler and debuted in The Big Sleep (1939), appearing in several other novels and media. Marlowe is, with Sam Spade, one of the two most significant hard-boiled archetypes in detective fiction; when you discuss two-fisted, wisecracking^tm p.i.s, you start with Marlowe. He's college educated and smart, but not an intellectual. He's tough but not brutal, a good investigator but not a refined egghead, and romantic without being soppy. He runs his own detective agency, having been thrown out of the LAPD because of his refusal to follow orders.

Marple, Jane. Miss Jane Marple, one of Agatha Christie’s two greatest creations, debuted in “The Solving Six” in the 2 June 1928 issue of Detective Story Magazine. (For more on the Six, see their entry below) Marple is, of course, an elderly spinster, modest and more than a little retiring. She is not, however, mild or particularly meek. She’s simply well-mannered. Her mind is quite clear and incisive, though, and she is, in the finest traditions of the amateur detectives, able to see what others cannot or do not and make quick, lengthy, and accurate deductions based on what she sees or knows. Her mind is clear and very well-disciplined. She lives in the small English village of St. Mary Mead, from which she has observed human nature for years and drawn the proper conclusions about it. She is tall and thin, with long white hair and soft blue eyes; she usually wears black dresses. Her hobby is knitting.

Marple
A good essay on the character. Good if you're interested in her, I mean. (I'm not, I can't stand the character, but she does have her fans)

Marsh, Emma. Emma Marsh was created by Elizabeth Dean and appeared in three novels, beginning with Murder is a Collector's Item (1939). Emma was a pretty, young, single woman who by day works as an assistant in an antique shop in Boston. By night she enjoys the nightlife that Boston has to offer, especially in the company of her friend Hank Fairbanks. Unfortunately, people she knows via the shop keep getting murdered, and she's forced to solve the case.

Marsh, Kate. Kate Marsh was created by Gret Lane and appeared in eight novels, beginning with The Curlew Coombe Mystery (1930). Kate, an English woman of the upper class, is an amateur sleuth.

Marsh, Ted. Ted Marsh was created by Samuel Lewenkrohn and appeared in the six-book "Boys Adventure" series, which appeared in 1919 and began with Buffalo Bill's Boyhood. Ted was a pioneer scout on the American frontier, hobnobbing with a teenaged Buffalo Bill and fighting against them durn Injuns as well as Johnny Reb.

Marvin, Pauline. Pauline Marvin first appeared in The Perils of Pauline (1914) and was created by George B. Seitz. The Perils of Pauline was, of course, the first really big serial, and Pauline Marvin the first huge action actress. In the serial her inheritance is imperiled by the evil Koerner, and Pauline has to fight her way through Indians, pirates, gypsies, thugs, and all sorts of bad guys until she can win her money.

Martin, Dan. Introduced in Roland Johnson’s “Earmarked for Doom,” in the September 4, 1926 issue of Flynn’s Weekly, Dan Martin is an investigator employed by the English Southland Aircraft Company. Martin is good enough at his job that he has the freedom to work whichever cases he wants. Martin is clever and experienced at investigations. He is  a small, precise man with a penchant for whittling and a knack for keeping trophies from his cases.

Mascar the Mystic. Mascar the Mystic appeared in The Penny Wonder beginning with its first issue, on 7 February 1912. Unfortunately I don't know much about him; he had a female assistant and was apparently a cross between Moris Klaw and Ozmar the Mystic.

The Masked Detective. The Detective was created by Norman Daniels and appeared in The Masked Detective, beginning with its Fall 1940 issue. Rex Parker, a reporter for the New York Comet, fought the strange and unusual as well as the ordinary kind of evil and crime. He is a master of disguise, a very good ventriloquist, and a trained boxer as well as an expert at savate. (He's also billed as the "world's greatest crime sleuth," but I think we can set that aside as hyperbole) His beautiful girlfriend, Winnie Bligh, another reporter for the Comet, often got in trouble and required Parker to rescue her. The Detective's opponents were not particularly memorable, although there was one "white-hooded master menace" and also a deluded art vandal.

Mason, Jim. Jim Mason was created by Elmer Gregor and appeared in the five book "Jim Mason Series," which ran from 1923 to 1930 and began with Jim Mason, Backwoodsman. Mason lived in what would later become New York State "sometime during the 18^th century." Mason was a good American (even at that time, when American loyalty still lay primarily to the British crown), so when the call went out for scouts to help the King's soldiers against the vile Frenchies and their evil Indian allies (as opposed to the virtuous Christian Indian allies of His Majesty, of course), Mason and his friends took their rifles went off to help. Through the five novels Mason grows more and more skilled, kills increasing numbers of Indians and Frenchies, and rises in the ranks, becoming a Captain of the "Rangers."

Mason, Perry. Perry Mason was created by Erle Stanley Gardner and appeared in…well, a lot of books, movies, tv shows and radio shows, beginning with The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933). Everyone knows who Mason is, so I’m not gonna waste much space on him. He’s an ace attorney, cunning and bright, assisted by his loyal secretary Della Street and by Paul Drake, the private investigator who does most of Mason’s legwork. All of that said, go to this site, which should answer any questions you have on Mason:

The Perry Mason Pages
The first and last place you need to go for information on Mason.

Mason, Rocky. Rocky Mason was created by Jimmy Swinnerton and debuted in Rocky Mason, Government Marshal on 24 August 1941; the strip ended in 1945. Mason was a lanky blond Marshal in Arizona, although it was a contemporary Western, similar to the Hashknife Hartley stories. He faces the usual villains--land stealers, gangsters gone to the West, etc--in a very ordinary set of stories.

Master of the Day of Judgment. The Master was created-–well, this Master was created–-by Leo Perutz and appeared in Master of the Day of Judgment (1921). I generally stay away from single-book/appearance characters, but this one I couldn’t pass up, in part because Perutz wrote it and in part because...well...it’s pretty damn creepy, is what the book is. The Master of the Day of Judgment is G-d, essentially, and Master of the Day of Judgment is about a drug that makes people see Him. (In Master G-d’s definitely a Him.) Unfortunately, those who take the drug (which was created in Florence in the 16^th century) also see the Day of Judgment and all the demons of Hell. And the demons of Hell see those who take the drug, which leads the drug-taker to feel that s/he is being attacked by the demons of Hell, and then to commit suicide. The novel, set in Vienna in 1909, is structured like a murder mystery, with the identity of the murderer–the person murdered, who was not murdered but committed suicide–only being revealed near the end. Master has an ominous feel to it and a mounting sense of menace, and while the style wasn’t for me I was easily able to ignore it. Go and find a copy of Master; you’ll be glad you did.

Masters, Jigger. Created by Anthony Rud and appearing in Detective Fiction Weekly and in three novels and collections from 1934 to 1936, Jigger Masters was a private eye, tough, craggy, and stalwart. His adventures had a macabre side, though they were hoaxes set up to look like the occult, such as the "case of the smoking, severed finger in the handle of the cup of death." In the words of one critic, he

combined...the physical attributes of Nick Carter and the investigative sense of Jules de Grandin. He was aided in his Long Island adventures by Tom Gildersleeve and Mitsui, a Japanese houseboy. A secretary, George Bane, was killed in one case. Marshall Vandervoort aspired to be Jigger's helper, but because he had a pretty wife, Dorothy, at home, the detective gave him only the tamest of assignments. Jigger himself, while reluctant to settle down, did make the acquaintance of young women such as Laura Ingalls Wilder in "The Stuffed Men."

Max, Gaston. Gaston Max was created by Sax Rohmer, the author of the many Fu Manchu stories, and debuted in The Yellow Claw (1915), appearing in three more novels and six radio plays. Max is "the greatest criminal investigator in Europe," a dapper Frenchman with almost uncanny abilities of disguise and mimicry. Indeed, his mastery of disguise is so good that those who know him well are fooled by him when he is pronounced dead and pretends to be Charles Malet, a simple cabman. He is a member of the Paris Police, but in the novels he is called on to help Detective-Inspector Dunbar of Scotland Yard. Max is somewhat interesting, but more interesting, to me, are his opponents. He first jousts with Mr. King, a Fu Manchu-clone (this is Rohmer, after all, he's entitled to copy himself) who deals in drugs and is the head of a group called the Sublime Order. Max then tangles with the Golden Scorpion, who is an agent of Fu Manchu, who is never named in the story itself but is clearly The Insidious Doctor. Then Max tangles with a mad scientist whose inventions create seemingly supernatural beings, such as vampires, and who has a death ray.

Sax Rohmer's Gaston Max
A decent page, with illustrations, on Max.

The Yellow Claw
E-text of The Yellow Claw.

Maxie. Maxie was created by Elsie Bell Gardner and appeared in the seven book "Maxie" series, which began in 1932 with Maxie, an Adorable Girl; or, Her Adventures in the British West Indies. Maxie is a Nancy Drew-style girl sleuth who solves mysteries and has adventures around the world, in the British West Indies, in diamond mines in Venezuela, looking for her parents in Australia, helping the Royalists in Spain during the Civil War, and finding lost Incan temples in Mexico.

Mayo, Albert. Albert Mayo, "Private Enquiry Agent," was created by Ralph Durand and appeared in The Sketch from 1923-1926. Mayo is a top agent for the British Secret Service. Very much a standard British adventure hero, bluff, hearty, but smarter and more sophisticated than, say, Bulldog Drummond, Mayo gets involved in the usual sorts of hijinks: international crime syndicates, blackmailers attempting to extort money from the Royal Family, Red saboteurs, and mad scientist anarchists armed with death rays.

Mayo, Asey. Asey Mayo was created by Phoebe Atwood Taylor and appeared in two dozen novels, beginning with The Cape Cod Mystery (1931). Mayo is a tobacco-chewing former sailor who made his first trip to sea on one of the last clipper ships. He retired to the cozy town of Wellfleet, on Cape Cod. (And as someone who has spent many years on the Cape, I know it well) In Wellfleet he works as a handyman and chauffeur for the local millionaire, but also finds the time and opportunities to solve murders. He is tall, lean, and plain in appearance, and described in the novels as “wily, ornery, and homespun.” He is not trained in detection and does not rely on little grey cells or intuition; he simply applies his common sense to mysteries, and that usually proves sufficient.

McBride, Rex. Rex McBride, a thoroughly unlikable (and deliberately so) character, was created by Cleve F. Adams and appeared in five novels, beginning with Sabotage (1940). McBride’s stories were lifts, more or less, from Hammett, but McBride himself was far more unlikable and nasty than anything Hammett came up with. Rex is tall, slender, dark, and handsome, but also dumb, “crude, uneducated, cynical, hypocritical, and sentimental,” full of hate, not only for women (they’re only good for three things, and two of them are cooking and cleaning) and minorities (“An American Gestapo is goddamn well what we need”). In the words of one critic, “The only reason he comes out on top is that he’s a little tougher and a little luckier than the cops.”

McDade, Violet.  Created by Cleve Franklin Adams, a pulp writer notorious for some of the most morally vile, fascistic, sexist, and racist characters, Violet McDade appeared in Clues starting in 1935. Violet is a memorable character on several levels. She was tough--very, very tough, the equal and perhaps the better of many of her male counterparts. She worked in Hollywood and environs, smashing through whatever difficulties stood between her and solving a case and catching a criminal. She was a former circus fat lady whose weight was between three and four hundred pounds, depending on the story. She was rough and tough, albeit with the de rigeur sentimental heart. But she was nobody's fool and was very money conscious. As a p.i. she was extremely capable; her weight never slowed her down in pursuit of the Bad Guys, and she was "quicker than a rattlesnake with those two sleeve guns of hers," guns she never hesitated to use, often lethally.

Her partner was Nevada Alvarado, a Mexican of Aztec descent who wasn't quite as smart as Violet but was just as tough. Nevada was slim, dark haired, and attractive, but had the attitude towards Hollywood of a Marlowe. Nevada was often driven crazy by Violet, whose approach and attitude could be grating, to say the least, but she knew she was making more money than she could anywhere else, and so she stayed.

McGavock, Luther.Luther McGavock was created by Merle Constiner and appeared in Black Mask in the early 1940s. McGavock was distinctly Southern, as were the stories he appeared in. He was located in Memphis, but his cases took him across the South, into various nasty cities and even nastier backwoods hamlets. Constiner’s South was inbred, mean, and without an ounce of pity or trustworthiness, and McGavock, despite his own sense of humor and of honor, was only a little better than the thugs he put away. He had morals, but was not likable, enjoying taunting his opponents and bringing out the worst in people. He was small, wiry and tough.

McGee, Spud. Spud McGee was created by Charlotte Dockstader and appeared in Detective Story Magazine from 1928 to 1932. Spud is a stocky little cabdriver who couldn't seem to avoid trouble in Gotham. He couldn't help it; he had a soft spot and kept trying to help people out. But, of course, such things lead him into trouble, with gangsters and the like, and he often needs the help of his wife Sue or his best pal "Chunky" Schmidt to extricate himself from it.

McGoff, Fluffy. Fluffy McGoff, one of the more fondly remembered characters from Detective Fiction Weekly in the late 1930s, was created by Milo Ray Phelps. He was an absentminded thief, young, bumbling, curly-haired, cute, and not particularly quick. In one typical adventure he walked into a movie theater to steal the box office receipts and ended up watching the Mickey Mouse cartoon instead.

McGuire, Jack. Jack McGuire was created by "J.J. des Ormeaux," the pen-name for Forrest Rosaire, and appeared in three stories in Black Mask in 1930 and 1932. McGuire is an investigator for the U.S. government, and although he's tough, cynical, wisecracking^tm he has more of a sense of humor than many p.i.s. Likewise, the stories and McGuire's narrative have a certain amount of wit to go with the violence.

McKay, Roderick. Roderick McKay, along with his coevals Knowlton and Ryan, was created by Arthur O. Friel and appeared in Adventure from 1921 to 1925. McKay, Ryan, and Knowlton are all mercenaries (‘scuse me: “soldiers of fortune”), left over guns from World War One without any other visible means of support. So they hire themselves out  to the highest bidder. Fortunately for them, the highest bidder doesn’t usually turn out to be the kind of employer many mercenaries in the real world deal with: businesses conducting unethical or illegal businesses or despotic regimes needing outsiders to train or boost their own armed forces.

Anyhow. They get hired to go up the Orinoco River in search of a lost millionaire; he’s rumored to have gone native and be living with the cannibalistic native Red Bones. They run into an evil German named Schwandorf who is competing for the reward; they pick up a companion, Jose Martinez, a hawk-faced Peruvian knife fighter of evil reputation who helps them in a fight; they rescue Rand after Rand rescues them from the cannibals; they escape, and in a final attack obliterate the Red Bones and Schwandorf.

Then they go in search of gold in the Langanati Mountains beyond the Tigre River—they being McKay, Knowlton, Ryan, Jose, and Rand, the millionaire. They have the usual adventures in the mountains and on the river: bloodthirsty natives, hungry jaguars, a forgotten colony of white “Spanish Indians,” and a mine owner who uses drugs to cow her workers. After the traditional bloodbath, the group returns, sans Jose, who stays to become the king of the “white Indians.”

Then they go in search of Rand, who has lost his memory and become a king of a Jivaro headhunters. The group gets embroiled in a war fought between Rand’s natives and Jose’s natives. After more bloodshed Rand and Jose team up, and McKay, Knowlton and Ryan leave the natives behind.

Then they go back, in search of a lost white race at the headwaters of the Orinoco in Venezuela. They find them, of course, but there is…yes, you guessed it, more bloodshed. (Blood flows like frictionless water in this series). And that’s, more or less, where the series ends.

McKay is Roderick McKay, a former Captain with the American Army. He’s tall, thin, with black hair and grey eyes, who has a commanding presence and manner of speech. Knowlton is Meredith “Merry” Knowlton, a tough-headed (literally) blond and former lieutenant. Ryan is Tim Ryan, a former sergeant, stocky, impulsive red-headed Irishman; he’s not as bright as the others but is good in a fight. They’re all good in a fight, actually, good with their fists and guns, as well as being willful and stubborn.

McKee, Inspector Christopher. Inspector Christopher McKee was created by Helen Reilly and appeared in over thirty novels, beginning with The Diamond Feather (1930). McKee is an inspector with the New York City Police Department, working in its Homicide Squad. He is a very dedicated policeman who has little social life because of his devotion to his work. Fortunately for the citizens of Gotham, his devotion and hard work, which manifest themselves in long hours and almost painful concentration, pay off in a long string of convictions, usually of the murderers and blackmailers he most despises. McKee has a "fatal gift of being too often in the right," but works hard for all of that and is rarely the recipient of an outright gift from the author. McKee is a tall, dour man with a "gaunt head, sardonic mouth, and penetrating eyes."

McKenzie, Captain Craig. Captain Craig McKenzie, along with the stalwart adventurers Brock Spencer, Burt Collins, and Tibbs Canard, was created by Ted Sherdeman and appeared in "Latitude Zero," one of the greatest of the science fiction radio serials; it appeared in 1941. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about "Latitude Zero," and only one tape, the opening episode "Submarine Omega," survives from it. One critic summarizes this episode in this way:

It opened with three down-on-their-luck adventurers--Brock Spencer, Burt Collins, and Tibbs Canard--battling through a storm in the Bering Sea...soon they discover a beached submarine, amazed to find it one smooth shell, with no rivets in sight. Tapping on the shell, they hear an answering tap, an SOS. By code they are directed to open the hatch by an outside combination lock. Inside, they meet Capt. Craig McKenzie and his guard Simba, an enormous black man who cannot be harmed by gunshots. Simba has a fatal-looking chest wound, which heals before their astonished eyes. McKenzie tells them only that he himself built the craft and that his home port is `Latitude Zero.' Later the men see a date engraved on the hull--'launched July 11, 1805.' This would mean that McKenzie is at least 150 to 200 years old.

McNeill, Dr. Jeffrey. Dr. Jeffrey McNeill and his wife were created by Theodora Du Bois and appeared in a number of novels, including Death Dines Out (1939). Dr. McNeill is a kind of scientific detective, albeit a more realistic one than most that appear in that genre. He's an actual medical doctor, and the details of medicine and how it relates to the crime in question are usually foremost in the plot.

Theodora Du Bois
Another good article by Michael Grost.

Meg the Priestess. Meg the Priestess was created by Nelson S. Bond and appeared in three stories in various magazines from 1939-1942. Meg is a young girl who eventually becomes the leader of a tribe of humans in a post-apocalypse world.

Mejzlik, Dr. Detective Captain Dr. Mejzlik was created by none other than Karel Capek and appeared in a number of the "Pocket Tales," which Capek wrote in 1928 and which appeared in the Prague newspaper Lidove noviny. Dr. Mejzlik is an ordinary man, somewhat hot-tempered, who is a member of the Prague police force and has to deal with a wide variety of crimes and criminals, none of which are particularly brutal but several of which are quite puzzling. Dr. Mejzlik is a down-to-earth and fairly realistic character, as is the milieu he lives and works in and the crimes and criminals he deals with.

Melchan, Lin. Lin Melchan was created by Warren Lucas and debuted in the January 1938 issue of Dime Mystery Magazine. Melchan was, like Seekay, a "defective detective." In Melchan's case, "the lean, limber man, square-jawed, grey-eyed," was "normal in every other respect, powerful and healthy as an athlete," but "Lin Melchan possessed one curious defect. So finely-drawn were his ear-drums, so abnormally sensitive the coils and tubes of his auditory system, that the faintest sounds rang sharp and clear in his head and loud ones caused him acute pain."

Memet, Gavur. Gavur Memet was created by the Turkish writer Ziya Sakir and appeared in a series of novels in the late 1930s and early 1940s, beginning--I think--with Mahmut Sevket Pasa (1939). Memet was a policeman, but working during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit II (1876-1909). Memet worked as a kind of special agent, ranging across Turkey and solving crimes wherever he went.
[Finding information on Memet in English has been frustrating and mostly useless. If anyone out there has more information on him or Ziya Sakir, please send it to me--Yr. Humble Narrator]

Mendax. Mendax was created by the Australian writer Erle Cox and appeared in a series of stories in the Australasian in the early 1920s. Mendax (Latin for "liar") was an eccentric inventor whose experiments never went quite right. He experimented with invisibility, matter transmission, rejuvenation, and extracting gold from sea water. His experiment with matter transmission anticipated The Fly by many years, with Mendax ending up with parts of a dog inside and outside of him.

Mercado, Mariano. Mariano Mercado was created by D’Arcy Lyndon Champion and appeared in Dime Detective from 1944 to 1948. (Okay, 1944 is during the war, not before it, but I wanted to include Mercado here anyhow). Mercado was a Mexican private eye who had an office in Mexico City but kept getting involved in cases in border towns and in the desert south of the border. Mercado, who had the typical Marlowe wit, was a hypochondriac, although it never interfered with his cases. He was a snappy dresser, was wily, and was a very effective p.i.

Mercer, Roy. Roy Mercer was created by Lewis Theiss and appeared in the ten-book "Wireless Patrol" series, which began in 1914 with In Camp at Fort Brady. Roy was a teenaged radio operator who was active for the U.S., both States-side and abroad, helping the Fire Patrol, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and such-like.

Mercer Boys. The Mercer Boys were created by Capwell Wycoff and appeared in the ten issue "Mercer Boys Series" beginning with The Mercer Boys' Cruise in the Lassie in 1929 and running through 1935. Don and Jim Mercer, rich orphans (their father mysteriously disappeared) and their friend Terry Mackson had a number of adventures, both at the prestigious Woodcrest Academy, where they were straight-A students and four-sport standouts, and abroad, where in their sloop Lassie they encountered everything from Spanish & Indian gold to smugglers to a ghost.

Woodcrest Military Academy
A site, still in construction, on the Mercer Boys. Part of the Series Bookcase site.

Meredith, Burton. Burton Meredith was created by Dorothy Howell and George B. Seitz and appeared in the 10-part serial Ransom (1928). Meredith is an inventor who creates a thoroughly lethal nerve gas for the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the racist stereotype and Yellow Peril/Fu Manchu Wu Fang (to be confused neither with the enemy of Val Kildare nor the foe of Craig Kennedy), leader of a death cult, is also interested in the formula, and he kidnaps Bobby, the son of Burton's girlfriend Lois Brewster. After a number of fights and shoot-outs Burton and a squad of heavily-armed government agents storms Wu's headquarters and kill Wu and his men, thus saving the formula for the American military-industrial complex's private use.

Meredith, John. John Meredith was created by Francis Gérard and appeared in at least three novels, The Secret Sceptre (1934), Wotan's Wedge (1939) and The Mind of John Meredith (1952). Meredith worked for Scotland Yard, at what rank I've been unable to discover (John Meredith novels, and Gérard novels in general, are surprisingly hard to find on this side of the Atlantic), with Detective Sergeant Matthew Beef, a large, bluff, ruddy-faced Harley Streeter. Meredith was

physically a magnificent specimen, with those rather hard-bitten good looks which you find only in a certain type of Englishman, he was a singularly attractive fellow. He exuded an atmosphere of quiet confidence.

the elementary principles of yoga. One of the exercises was to empty the mind and then to induce reception of ideas and principles totally foreign to one's own personality.

Merlini. The Great Merlini was created by Clayton Rawson and appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly and then in four novels of his own, beginning with "Death from a Top Hat" (1938). Merlini is your basic magician-detective, a former Barnum & Bailey circus magician who struck out on his own and opened a magic store in Times Square, from which he works and solves crimes. He specializes in "impossible crimes," locked-room mysteries and the ones too tough for the police to solve; he catches the murderer of several magicians, he finds out who left the footprints on the ceiling of the room in which a man was murdered, he finds a circus killer, and he solves the murder of a millionaire who seemed to have been killed by a man already dead and buried. His Watson is freelance writer Ross Harte, who chronicles Merlini's exploits. His police contact and friendly rival is Inspector Homer Gavigan of the NYPD.

Merrion, Desmond. Desmond Merrion, with his partner Henry Arnold, was created by Cecil Street and appeared in at least three dozen novels, beginning with 1930’s The Secret of High Eldersham. Merrion is a former intelligence agent for the British Admiralty who served during WW1 and became interested in detective work because of his experiences during the war. After that war he got married and became a private investigator, but his services are in demand more by Scotland Yard than by the average public. He and Arnold, an Inspector with the Criminal Investigation Department, often team up, and work well together but also bicker. Merrion is somewhat whimsical, even lighthearted, and has a vivid imagination.

Merrivale, Sir Henry. Sir Henry Merrivale was crated by John Dickson Carr and appeared in two dozen novels and short story collections, beginning with The Plague Court Murders (1934). Merrivale, the “Old Man,” is a loud, vulgar, profane baronet (of one of the oldest titles in England) who often shouts and usually embarrasses those around him, who are far too prim, proper, and dignified for such a coarse and blustery character as Merrivale. He is no longer used as a witness is court cases because the last time he did it he addressed the jury as "fatheads." He specializes in locked-room murders and other impossible crimes. Merrivale is Watsoned by his devoted friend Kenwood Blake. Merrivale’s resemblance to Churchill is not coincidental.

detectives
A short recap of Merrivale.

Meshedi. Meshedi (his name should be spelled with a cedilla beneath the s, but I can't find a character in an ASCII set that will let me do that, so my apologies to any of our Turkish friends out there) was created by Ercüment Ekrem Talu and appeared in a series of novels in the 1920s and 1930s, beginning (I think) with Meshedî'nin hikâyeleri (1926). Meshedi was a police detective pounding the mean streets of Constantinople.
[Finding information on Meshedi in English has been frustrating and mostly useless. If anyone out there has more information on him or Ekrem Talu, please send it to me--Yr. Humble Narrator]

Metri, Padre. Padre Metri was created by "Jerónimo del Rey" (the pseudonym of Leonardo Castellani) and appeared in various stories in Argentinian magazines in the 1930s, one of the first of which was "La mosca de oro" (the golden fly) in 1938. Padre Metri lives and works in the Chaco region of Argentina, a lawless and wild section of the country in which (at least in these stories) injustice is the norm. Corruption is widespread and evil an accepted part of life, and while society as a whole is bad it is the authorities who present society with the model of what behavior to emulate. Father Metri is a Catholic priest who solves crimes but acts as a true independent. He embodies many of the ideals of Catholicism, but is more hostile towards the authorities, who he views as the true culprits, than towards most men and women, especially the powerless ones. For this he is seen as a troublemaker by the authorities, but he is very independent and eccentric and does not care. In "La mosca" he goes so far as to refuse to reveal to the police the identity of a murderer who felt remorseful after his crime and converted to Catholicism.

Midnight, Steve. Steven Middleton "Midnight" Knight was created by John K. Butler and appeared in Dime Detective from 1940 to 1942. Midnight drove a cab; he was known as the "hardluck hacker." He'd come down in the world some, having been a playboy once upon a lifetime. He was not a private eye, and had no p.i. license. When he was involved in a case it was to get himself out of a jam with the police or to help collect a fare that a passenger wouldn't or couldn't pay. Midnight was tough and cynical, but sentimental deep down, with a penchant for caring about the people he met during the cases; Midnight showed more compassion than was the wont with p.i.s of this type.

Minute Boys. The Minute Boys were created by Edward Stratemeyer and appeared in the eleven-book "Minute Boys" series, which began in 1898 with The Minute Boys at Lexington. The Minute Boys were patriotic American teens active during the War for Independence, operating from the Green Mountains of Vermont to South Carolina.

Mister Death (I). Mr. Death (I) was created by “G. Wayman Jones” (the pen-name of D.L. Champion) and appeared in Thrilling Detective from 1932 to 1939. Mr. Death was actually James Quincy Gilmore. Gilmore, some years before, had been horrified to discover his father’s body in his study; his father had been set to expose the members of the “Murder Club,” a group of nine rich socialites who murdered for pleasure and for greed. Gilmore, at that time a 24-year-old Yale (boo!) graduate and former gridiron star, was left an orphan and the heir to his father’s fortune. To the eyes of the world he remained James Gilmore, bored socialite playboy of Newkirk City. In secret, however, he trained himself and became Mister Death, the man who deals death to those who deserve it. He dressed all in black, from his mask to his cloak and gloves. His methods were lethal, as the members of the Murder Club soon discovered. After he struck he left a small white card on the body of his victims; on the card were the words “Alias Mister Death.” These were the words that soon put all of Newkirk City into a nervous, fear filled uproar.

After the nine had been killed Mr. Death supposedly died in a plane crash. Gilmore had actually bailed out at the last moment and then began traveling around the world, Trying To Forget. Unfortunately, he discovered that Newkirk City was actually riddled with graft and evil, and so he went back to work.

Gilmore’s nominal love interest—the woman he couldn’t have, because she belongs to a different world—is the slim blonde Sally Fortune. Gilmore is helped by Turpin, his chauffeur, who drove Gilmore’s high-powered car, and the by mayor of Newkirk City, a friend of Gilmore’s father who wanted to see Newkirk City cleaned up.

Mister Death (II). Mister Death (II) was created by Steve Fisher and appeared in Daredevil Aces in 1936. Mr. Death was a crippled German “murder master” with a “face like powdered chalk.” He terrorized the Allied lines and pilots in his black Fokker during WW1 until Jed “Babyface” Garrett, an American flier, arrived to take him on. The series ended with the two still dueling.

Mister Finis. Mister Finis was created by Benton Braden and appeared in Thrilling Detective from 1936 to 1938. Finis was actually John Kent, a rich young socialite and bachelor who lived in a palatial apartment in the most fashionable section of New York City. He was slim and muscular, and fueled by a hatred of crime. Kent had two alternate identities. The first was Jobber Legg, an assassin for the Mob. The other was Mister Finis, the hated foe of crime, eyes burning with deadly loathing from criminals. Kent is assisted by Kimmel, his Dutch servant, who knows of his alternate life. A woman named Sheba Green is also aware of who Mister Finis really is; she, unfortunately, is mysterious, selling her information to the highest underworld bidder rather than warring on crime.

Mongoose. To quote Ed Love:

He was by the same prolific Johnston McCulley and the story I have came from Detective Fiction Weekly, September 17, 1932. In reality, the Mongoose was Sidney Carleigh, although that may not be his real name for his father was William Cratch, a bookkeeper who was framed by crooks and who died in prison. Like the Ghosts, Sid’s thing was not to kill those who wronged him, but to rob them. And humiliate them. If he indirectly caused their deaths or capture, that was solely incidental. What made him unique was he had a partner, his sister Eleanor who would get herself inside next to the crooks and help set the stage for the Mongoose’s daring robberies.

Moon Man. The most popular and longest-running of the characters in Ten Detective Aces, the Moon Man (created by mystery writer Frederick C. Davis and appearing in 1933 and 1934) was Stephen Thatcher, the son of the city police chief, Peter Thatcher. Stephen was a 25-year-old police Sergeant with what seemed to be a normal life, including a fiancee (the gutsy Sue McEwen, an amateur sleuth who often got involved in the Moon Man’s cases) and friends. But at night he put on a domed helmet (with one-way Argus glass) and a long black cloak and did the Robin Hood thing, robbing from the criminals to pay the poor. He was assisted by Ned Dargan, who was the one who actually gave the money to the poor and thus became known as the “Angel.”  As the series progressed the Moon Man fought increasingly bizarre enemies, such as Primus, an international crime lord (he led the Red Six) who wore a red mask with the Roman numeral one on its forehead and used a form of mind control on his enemies and a particularly deadly kind of tetanus on his victims.

Frederick Davis
As usual, insight about the character and the writer.

Moran, Dr. Aloysius. Dr. Aloysius Moran was created by Ernest M. Poate, the creator of Dr. Bentiron, and appeared in Detective Story Magazine in 1926. Moran is the Chief Medical Examiner for New York City and has performed over 40,000 autopsies. Sampson calls him a "lion masquerading as a man," and indeed he is, with a mane of hair, brownish yellow eyes, and a roaring voice. He has a short, thick body, muscular and wide, and is still in excellent shape despite his sixty five years. Moran is pugnacious and given to sudden rages and equally sudden cooling downs. He is like Bentiron in both his irascible exterior and almost sentimental and good-natured interior. Moran is assisted by the genial Dr. Pelton, a younger doctor saved from a murder charge by Moran. The most interesting of the Moran stories involves Moran and Pelton taking on a coven of Satanist witches in "Witch Wood," in upstate New York.

Moran, Tod. Tod Moran was created by Howard Pease and appeared in the 13-book "Tod Moran Series," which ran from 1926 to 1961 (!) and began with The Tattooed Man; a Tale of Strange Adventures Befalling Tod Moran, Mess Boy of the Tramp Steamer "Araby." Moran is an earnest young man who begins as a mess boy on a tramp steamer and after many an adventure around the world works his way up to become Captain of the Araby.

Morgan, Connie. Connie Morgan was created by James B. Hendryx and appeared in the ten-book "Connie Morgan" series, which began in 1916 with Connie Morgan in Alaska. She was a teenaged crime-solver who was active in the Northwest and the Arctic, working with the Mounties, in lumber camps, among gold prospectors, and the like.

Morgan, Dr. Ralph. Dr. Ralph Morgan and his companions in eternity were created by V.I. Kryzhanovskaia (initially under the pseudonym "I. W. Rochester") and appeared in several novels (I've been unable to find out how many), including The Elixir of Long Life, The Magus, The Death of Earth, and The Wrath of God (1909). Dr. Morgan is just over thirty when he discovers that he is dying of an incurable disease. At a loss for what to do, he is contacted by the Hindu Prince Naraina Supramati, who was born in Egypt circa 300 B.C.E. and is an immortal. He's "cruel and profligate," but is also tired of life and desperately wants to die. To do so he needs to exchange drops of blood with a mortal, which will transfer his immortality to the mortal and in turn allow him to take on the mortal's mortality. The transfer must be done willingly, and Supramati has not had luck finding anyone. Until he finds Morgan (via his clairvoyance; Supramati has various undefined occult powers). Morgan is a good person, a knowledgeable doctor, and a man uncorrupted by the vulgar ways of humanity, and that's just what Supramati wants.

So the transfusion is performed, Supramati finally dies, and Morgan takes his title, presenting himself to the world as Supramati's younger brother. Morgan also gets Supramati's wife and riches. (Immortality, beautiful wife, wealth...I'm not seeing the downside to this deal) Better still, Morgan is accepted as a member of the "Brothers of the Round Table of Eternity," a mystic organization who work in secret to advance mankind's lot. The Brothers include Isaac Laquedem, the Wandering Jew; Dakhir, a Dutch time traveler who jumped from the 15th century to the 19th; Nivara, a Hindu priest; and Ebramar, an occult master from the year 2284. The group travel to various mystic areas around the world, having various adventures and trying to unite God and science. (Kryzhanovskaia was heavily influenced the the Theosophists, as you can tell) Their headquarters in the 19th century is in a castle, owned and run by Dakhir and located in Egypt. Eventually the group travel to Ebramar's time and get to wonder at the marvels of an advanced civilization, like rapid air travel.

Morgo the Mighty. Created by "Sean O'Larkin" and running in The Popular Magazine from August 20 to October 7, 1930, the Morgo the Mighty series told the story of one of many Tarzan knock-offs. James Cooper, an English boy of nine, got separated from his parents while they were exploring the Himalayans. Jim fell off a cliff and landed, mostly unhurt, in a cave system, which led to a fantastic subterranean world, full of troglodytes, flying bat-men, dinosaurs, and other monsters. Jim grew to be a hard young man, name of Morgo, who used his knife, bow, and club with ferocious aplomb.

Morgyn the Mighty. Morgyn the Mighty appeared in The Rover and Beano in the 1930s. Morgyn the Mighty was "the strongest man in the world," a Tarzan-style adventurer who fought for good in the remote places above and underneath the Earth.

Motion Picture Chums. The Chums (I haven't found their names yet, sorry) were created by Howard Garis and Weldon Cobb under the Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonym of "Victor Appleton" and appeared in the seven-book "Motion Picture Chums Series," which ran from 1913 to 1916 and began with The Motion Picture Chums' First Venture, or, Opening a Photo Playhouse in Fairlands.  The Chums were like the Moving Picture Boys (see their entry below), a pair of stalwart cinematographers who used their cameras to solve crimes, have adventures, and film the war.

Moto, Mister. Mister Moto was created by John P. Marquand and appeared in six novels and a number of films, beginning with Mr. Moto Takes a Hand (1935). I.O. Moto is Japan's top intelligence agent and, in the films, detective. He is soft-spoken, very polite, and relatively modest about himself, although he is, more properly, a modest man with much to be immodest about. He has a wide range of skills, is multi-lingual, has studied abroad, is very bright and insightful, and is an expert in judo, being capable of killing an enemy with very little difficulty.

Motor Boat Boys. The Boys (whose names I haven't found yet, sorry) were created by Louis Arundel and appeared in the seven-volume "Motor Boat Boys Series," which ran from 1912 to 1915 and began with The Motor Boat Boys' Mississippi Cruise, or, The Dash for Dixie. The six boys (including Buster, the requisite fat boy) have various adventures fighting crime and having fun; they use three high-powered motorboats to travel down the Mississippi (in pursuit of a pair of bank robbers), through the St. Lawrence (in pursuit of smugglers), on the Great Lakes, along the Florida coast and the Keys, and even down the Danube.

Motor Boat Club. The Club (whose names I haven't found yet, sorry) were created by H. Irving Hancock and appeared in the seven-volume "Motor Boat Club Series," which ran from 1912 to 1915 and began with The Motor Boat Club of the Kennebec, or, The Secret of Smuggler's Island. The Club fellows have various adventures on the Kennebec River (that's in Maine, and I've kayaked down it) (I know, I know, you're happy for me), off Nantucket, Long Island, in Florida, by the Golden Gate, and on the Great Lakes.

Motor Boys. The Motor Boys were created by "Clarence Young," a Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonym, and appeared in the "Motor Boys Series," which ran for 22 books, starting with The Motor Boys, or, Chums Through Thick and Thin (1906) and continuing through 1924. Ned Slade, Bob Baker, and Jerry Hopkins, the three Motor Boys, used cars, motor boats, submarines, and planes to have adventures on land, sea and air in the years before, during, and after World War One. The trio are friends from childhood. They grew up in the village of Cresville, "not a great many miles from Boston." Ned is the only son of Aaron Slade, who owns the largest department store in town. Bob is the son of Andrew Baker, one of the wealthiest men in Cresville. And Jerry is the son of the wealthy widow Hopkins. Together this trio of "great chums" has a wide range of adventures. They drove into Mexico and discovered the underground ruins of a lost city of Aztecs buried centuries ago in an earthquake. They used high-speed motor boats to explore the Everglades of Florida and discovered a lost race, the survivors of an old Seminole culture. They fought on the front lines as soldiers during the War. They won money in motorcycle races, they found a lost gold mine and used it to fund themselves; they found Lost Lake and helped a hermit living there; they caught the criminals who sought to wreck a steamship, to their own financial advantage; they found a gold-rich derelict; they befriended an inventor, invested in his flying machine, and won an air race with it; they find a fortune in radium in the Grand Canyon.

The Motor Boys
A site with some information--not lots, but some--on the novels.

The Motor Boys
This story is actually e-texted!

The Motor Boys, or, Chums Through Thick and Thin
Believe it or not, the e-text to this is available on line. (No kidding!)

Motor Cracksman. The Cracksman was created by "Roland Johnson," a pseudonym for an unknown author, and appeared in stories in Flynn's Weekly running from mid-1925 to mid-1926. The Cracksman is Basil Lisle, Esquire, a handsome young English lord who has been cut off and disinherited by his father, the pompous Sir Fortescue Champreys Basil Lisle of Winterton, Northumberland. (The reasons for the disinheritance were never quite made clear) Basil decides to take up a life of crime as a way to raise funds. One of his ancestors was a robber nicknamed "the Laughing Highwayman," after all, and why not follow the traditional family path? He puts a khaki handkerchief over his face (he can see through eye slits in the kerchief, though, never fear), waves a pistol about, and takes to the highways. His m.o. is to sneak out on to a road at night, flag down an oncoming car (this being the 1920s, the top speed was around 40 mph, and many cars never reached that), and hijack it. Scotland Yard is eventually called in, but they can't stop him. Eventually Basil becomes known as the Cracksman, and so he changes his name, has his face redone, and retires to another location near the village of Belford. He continues to steal, but in one story turns a dope smuggler driving a silent white roadster over to Scotland Yard, dope being something that a proper gentleman just didn't do.

Motor Cycle Chums.The Chums (don't know their names, sorry) were created by Lt. Howard Payson and appeared in the six volume "Motor Cycle Chums Series," which began in 1912 with The Motor Cycle Chums Around the World. The Chums drove their motorcycles just 'bout everywhere, having adventures and fighting crime. They were active in the Pacific Northwest, in South Africa, and in Central and South America.

Motorcycle Chums. The Chums were created by Andrew Carey Lincoln, who was not Edward Stratemeyer. They debuted in  Motorcycle Chums in New England, or, The Mt. Holyoke Adventure (1912) and appeared in five more novels, through 1914. The Chums were very much like the Speedwell Boys. Freckles was the leader of the gang, the son of a prominent local physician. Budge was the fat boy, slow but jolly. Jack Kinkaid was the troubled one, the son of an inventor whose lucrative patent had been stolen by a disgruntled worker. Alec, an orphan, was the handsome one; he lived with a wealthy guardian who gave him the Comet, a souped-up Reading motorcycle that the other Chums envied. The Chums drove around the U.S., catching criminals, finding lost treasure, capturing runaway tigers, and doing the boys' adventure thing.

Motor Girls. The Motor Girls, Belle, Bess, and Cora, were created by Margaret Penrose and appeared in the ten-book "Motor Girls" series, which began in 1910 with The Motor Girls, or, A Mystery of the Road. Belle, Bess and Cora motor around the U.S., having adventures and solving mysteries, dealing with kidnaping Gypsies in New England, orphans in California, and strange caves in the Ozarks.

Motor Maids. The Motor Maids were created by Katherine Stokes and appeared in the six-book "Motor Maids" series, which began in 1911 with The Motor Maids' School Days. The Motor Maids, Bellie Campbell, Nancy Brown, Genevieve Martin, Elinor Bulter, and others, began their driving adventures locally in the Midwest, but soon moved much farther afoot, going to Japan and then driving clear across Europe.

Motor Rangers. The Motor Rangers were created by "Marvin West," the pen-name of John H. Goldfrap, and appeared in the six book "Motor Rangers Series," beginning in 1911 with The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine and running through 1914. The Motor Rangers (I haven't been able to discover their names yet) used motorcycles, motorboats, and a motorized airship to have adventures, win races, and fight crime. In one story they discovered the city of a lost race on a fog-shielded island off the coast of Bolivia; the island has weird temples devoted to Sun and Moon worship and is filled with giant, ferocious, carnivorous birds and reptiles. After the Motor Boys explore and plunder and fight their way off the island, it sinks in an effusion of smoke and flame and noise.

Moving Picture Boys. The Moving Picture Boys, whose publication history is so complicated that I'm not even going to begin to sort it out, appeared in at least eight novels published during WW1 and were written by "Victor Appleton." The Boys were Blake Stewart and Joe Duncan, patriotic American farm boys who were content in a bucolic life until a motion picture company began filming in the neighborhood. The pair were taken under the wing of Mr. Hadley, the company manager, who taught them everything he knew, and from there they began taking photos of all kinds and in every situations, from natural disasters to ships being torpedoed to battlefront action. They were romantically engaged with starlets Nellie Shay and Birdie Lee.

Moving Picture Girls. The Moving Picture Girls were created by Laura Lee Hope and appeared in the seven-book "Moving Picture Girls" series, which began in 1914 with The Moving Picture Girls, or, First Appearances in Photo Dramas. The Girls were active around the U.S., solving crimes and having adventures, from Colorado to the "wilds of Florida."

Muenchhausen, Baron. Yes, that Baron Muenchhausen. Although the original was of course a real person, the stories about this one were written by the one and only Hugo Gernsback and appeared in Electrical Experimenter from 1915 to 1917. The premise is that the original Baron Muenchhausen was accidentally injected with embalming fluid and that he only awakened in 1915, when he was forced to leave Germany because of the crimes he committed in his lifetime. Muenchhausen, now a free agent, has a wide variety of adventures, helping the French battle the Germans during WW1, traveling to the moon (which turns out to be hollow) and Mars (which of course has Martians, although they are friendly and scientifically advanced).

Mulligan, Patrick. See the Skin O' My Tooth entry.

Mulligan, Tim, and Elsie Mae Hunt. Tim Mulligan & Elsie Mae Hunt were created by Aaron Marc Stein and appeared in eighteen books, beginning with The Sun is a Witness (1940). Tim & Elsie are professional archaeologists and amateur sleuths.

Muncing, Doctor. Doctor Muncing was created by Gordon MacCreagh, a writer of pulp and occult/fantasy/horror stories. Muncing appeared in a few stories in Strange Tales in the late 1920s and early 1930s, with Dr. Muncing, Exorcist coming in 1931. "Doctor Muncing, Exorcist," was an occult detective of the 1930s old school, full of pseudo-scientific terminology to explain the psychic (and otherwise) monsters he faced. So, for example, the Dr. Muncing stories are full of terms like "geoplasm" and "visophaging" and discussions of vibrations and elementals from higher dimensions. Dr. Muncing lives in a sober, respectable office in a middle-class part of New York City and is assisted by Dr. James Terry, a large young man, of the sort of "devoted more of his college years to study of football than of medicine" but one who is intelligent, capable, and a help to Dr. Muncing when needs be. Muncing himself is "of little more than middle height, broad, with strong, capable-looking hands," a "square cut" face, "deep set, brooding eyes, suggestive of a knowledge of things that other sober citizens did not know," generally tanned ("from much travel in far-away lands") skin, and a "thin, wide mouth that closed with an extraordinary determination." Muncing is very confident (without at all being obnoxious or conceited) and quite good at putting his worried patients at ease. He has a distaste (well-earned, it must be said, from the stories) of amateur psychics who ignorantly tamper with "what forces exist on the other side of that thin dividing line that we don't begin to understand" and thereby unleash or free those forces. In the world of Dr. Muncing humanity is surrounded by disembodied vibratory consciousnesses, of greater and lesser intelligence, which appear to humans as ghosts or, occasionally, more physical, malign, poltergeist-like...things. But they don't like cold iron (and "pentagons, Druid circles, etc, and even the holy water of the Church"), and Dr. Muncing is capable of driving them off, though more from depriving them of their human energy sources (they draw on humans for their vitality) than through any feat of psychic or physical exertion. He does make use of his impulses and instincts to track down the various spectral bogey-men, and in at least one story he uses a "queer, five-sided emblem of iron" to exorcise a very nasty ghost.

Munro, Aarn. Aarn Munro was created by John W. Campbell and appeared in four stories, beginning with “The Mightiest Machine” in Astounding Stories (December 1934). Aarn Munro, active in the late twenty-first century, is a superman. He’s from Jupiter, and that planet’s high gravity leads to Munro having  superstrength (tons of weight) and superhuman agility. He’s also got a superhuman brain and is capable of solving in hours the problems of antigravity, “a momentum wave for propulsion,” infallible meteor shields, and traveling at FTL speeds. Naturally, with all of those advantages small problems like alien invaders pose no difficulty for Aarn.

Munsker, Doctor. Doctor Munsker was created by Harold Bell Wright & his son Gilbert and appeared in The Devil's Highway (1932). I wouldn't normally include a singleton here, but Dr. Munsker's fun, and so in he goes. To quote Dr. Joyce Kinkead:

Dr. Munsker, the "little Monster" as he calls himself, is a mad scientist whose Arizona desert laboratory underneath a volcanic cone rivals the mad scientists' hideouts of British suspense writer Ian Fleming (1908-1964).  Dr. Munsker, a hideously deformed dwarf with a huge head and a large mental capacity, discovers a new force in nature, similar to electricity, which he calls "ethericity".  With it, he hopes to annihilate mankind.  His bitter hatred of the race is based upon the cruel treatment he received as a child, for he is the son of a Chicago prostitute and an unknown father.

Murdock, Captain John. Captain John Murdock, a chief of detectives in New York City, was created by Carl McK. Saunders and appeared in a series of stories in Ten Detective Aces in 1933. "Hard-boiled" John Murdock was a hard-boiled type who ran the NYPD in a very brusque, efficient, take-no-crap manner. In the words of one of his stories, "with Captain John Murdock, a duchess was given no more consideration than a Tinpan Alley dame." Typically he chews on a cigar, wearing a suit that hangs on "his huge body like a sack," with a dirty shirt and scuffed and muddy shoes. He usually needs a shave and at least eight hours of sleep, and ordinarily has bloodshot eyes. His two assistants are Bert Andrews and Jimmie Spence.

Murdock, Kent. Kent Murdock was created by George Harmon Coxe and appeared in 23 novels, beginning with Murder with Pictures (1935). Murdok was a photographer for the Courier-Herald and is called to many crime scenes in the course of his job. A lot of the time he can solve the crime better than the police can. Of course, a lot of the time Murdock is suspected of a crime and has to find the criminals to solve himself. He is married to Joyce Archer, a smart woman and capable detective in her own right (although she disappeared after the sixth novel).

Murdock, Rachel. Rachel Murdock was created by Dolores B. Hitchens and appeared in thirteen novels, beginning with The Cat Saw Murder (1939). Miss Rachel is a spinster in her seventies who lives with her sister, Jennifer, and a black cat. Miss Rachel is slim and small with twinkling blue eyes and has a grandmotherly appearance about her, but she loves lurid, gory mysteries. With the help of her friend on the police force, Lieutenant Stephen Mayhew, Miss Rachel takes on whatever crimes she discovers or reads about and solves them all.

Murphy, Rambler. Addison Francis "Rambler" Murphy was created by Fred MacIsaac and appeared in Dime Detective Stories from 1933 to 1940. Rambler was just that--a rambler. He wandered from town to town, always getting jobs with the local newspaper, solving the crimes that he reported on, and then moving on. His case of wanderlust was one of the most pronounced in the pulps. A tall, skinny redhead, he always caught his man and always got the front page of the papers with his scoops, whether they were big city newspaper or small town one-sheets. He put away crooked politicians, ordinary crooks, and in one story a version of the KKK.

Murphy, Tim. Tim Murphy was created by Graham M. Dean and appeared in the "Tim Murphy Series," which began with Daring Wings in 1931 and ran through four books, into 1934. Murphy was a two-fisted newspaper reporter who had his own biplane and flew around the country, reporting on and making news, from the Smoky Mountains to the deserts of Arizona.

Musket Boys. The Musket Boys were created by George A. Warren and appeared in the four book "Musket Boys Series," which ran from 1909 to 1910 and began with The Musket Boys of Old Boston, or, The First Blow for Liberty. The Boys (don't know their names yet) were active in Boston, New York, Trenton, and Princeton during the American Revolutionary War.

Mystery Boys (I). The Mystery Boys were created Howard Garis and appeared in the two book "Mystery Boys Series," which appeared in 1930 and 1931 and consisted of Mystery Boys in Ghost Canyon and Mystery Boys at Round Lake. Presumably they were Boy Scout-types who had adventures and such.

Mystery Boys (II). The Mystery Boys were created by Van Powell and appeared in the five-volume "Mystery Boys Series" beginning in 1931 with The Mystery Boys and the Inca Gold and running through the rest of the year. The Mystery Boys (I don't know their names yet) travel around the world, finding mystery, adventure, and treasure; they find a hidden city in the Andes, complete with a lost race of Incans, and they find very valuable hidden gems in China.

Mystery Hunters. The Mystery Hunters were created by Capwell Wyckoff and appeared in the four-volume "Mystery Hunters Series," which appeared from 1934 to 1936 beginning with The Mystery Hunters at the Haunted Lodge. The Hunters were a group of boys who found adventure and mystery at school, college, and in the "Great North Woods."

Mr. Mystic. Created by the immortal Will Eisner, Mr. Mystic debuted on 2 June 1940 and ran through May of 1944. Mr. Mystic was originally Ken, a young American explorer and adventurer, who got lost while trekking in the Himalayas and discovered the Council of Seven Lamas, who gave him a new name, magical powers, and a series of directions via telepathy. Mr. Mystic traveled the Earth, fighting crime on every continent at the orders of the Council and always, of course, being triumphant. He also romanced the ladies, eventually converting an agent of darkness, Elena, to the light and then settling down to be her guy.
 

Introduction
A. The Abbey Girls to Dusty Ayres
B. Bagley to Scott Burton
C. Orhan Cakiroglu to Dr. Theodore Cunliffe
D-E. Dana Girls to Don Everhard
F. Ralph Fairbanks to Miss Fury
G. The Gadget Man to G-8
H-I. Dr. Hackensaw to Baron Ixell
J. Jack, Doc & Reggie to Justice Syndicate
K. Calvin Kane to Kwa of the Jungle
L. Major John T. Lacy to Langhorne Lyte
M. Professor Maboul to Mr. Mystic
N. Lee Nace to Nyoka
O. Fergus O'Breen to Ozar the Aztec
P.  Penny Packer to Judge Pursuivant
Q.  Oliver Quade to Sebastian Quin
R. Ed Race to Captain Rybnikov
S. The Safety First Club to Tom Swift
T-U. Tahara to Godfrey Usher
V. Lieutenant Valcour to Norton Vyse
W. Inspector Wade to Dr. Xavier Wycherley
X-Z. X Bar X Boys to Zorro
Links.