In 1943, Russell Stamm wrote a 248 page novel based on the comic strip character,
Invisible Scarlet O’Neil, published by Whitman Publishing. The novel had the same title and because I was familiar with the comic strip, I wanted to read the adventure. As a fan of radio’s The Shadow, I always felt the comic strip was a deliberate intent to cash in on the success of an invisible superhero, and making her a woman (whereas Lamont Cranston was a man) made me suspect they wanted to replicate from the opposite end of the spectrum. Scarlet got the power of invisibility from a ray her father, a scientist, was experimenting with. She curiously put her finger in the ray, and she suddenly disappeared, clothes and all. Fortunately, she discovered that a certain nerve in her left wrist could work as a means of toggling the power, turning her invisibility on and off. Along the way she met with a number of colorful villains.
Russell Stamm, who was an assistant to Chester Gould on the comic strip
Dick Tracy, created this series in 1940 and was syndicated after it premiered in the
Chicago Daily Times. Nine years later, the strip took a drastic turn as her ability to turn invisible was dropped (slowly fazed out, to be specific) and the title of the comic strip changed to
Scarlet O’Neil. In 1954, Emery Clarke began drawing the comic strip while Stamm continued to write the stories/scripts. Under Clarke’s auspice, he changed the title to
Stainless Steel but that revision of the strip only lasted two years. Alas, dear Scarlet was dropped from the newspapers in 1956 and never heard from again.
Scarlet O’Neil made the transition to comic books, courtesy of reprints from the newspaper strips, which are collectible today. Sadly, no one has collected a partial or entire run of the newspaper strip and reprinted them. So, with the exception of the handful of comic books, the only thing we have today is the 1943 novel.
Comics historian Don Markstein remarked how the series was light (compared to the raw violence portrayed on
Dick Tracy) so her combats with Nazi spies, Japanese saboteurs and master criminals were more cat and mouse with her ruining their schemes. The violence, it would seem, be reserved for the
Dick Tracy strip.
In the novel concerned a hit and run, a ransom note, the kidnapping of a little boy, a stolen puppy, arson and a boxing match. What might sound like a lot of excitement was simply an amusing read for someone like myself who was curious to enjoy an adventure of the Invisible Scarlet O’Neil… until someone one day publishes the newspaper strip.
