Dial E For Eternity--The Spin-Off!!

Hey, look who's back!!

Last time out, we met Her Highness and her moll Silk, a pair of low level criminals whom the kid captured and put into jail.

Someone must have liked them, because they came back the very next issue!!

Of course, there's the teensy problem of getting them out of jail:

Well, that's our Her Highness and Silk!! Lovable scamps.

After seducing and stealing their way to (relative) wealth and a swanky hotel suite, they encounter the wealthy Maharajah, and Her Highness decides to marry him and take his money!!

But...

It turns out he's just a con man, Moe Botsky of Brooklyn, and he's trying to pull the same scam on her!!

Ain't crime grand?

Anyhow, they discover the truth about each other, and switch up their scheme to use their wealthy identities to rob a charity benefit box office. Kid Eternity stops her (we'll get to his summonings in a bit!) And so...

Well, if you thought she got out of jail fast last time, just nine pages later...

...Her Highness and Silk have their own continuing feature in Hit Comics!!

It's one of the first true comic book spin-offs (and certainly one of the first starring "villains"!). I don't think they ever tangled with Kid Eternity again. They just had their wacky adventures of busting out of jails...

...trying to run cons and scams, and usually failing. Sometimes they even accidentally did good, like to time they inadvertently captured a Japanese submarine as part of another scam!!

Running away because they thought the folk were angry with them, when really they wanted to reward them!! That is so Her Highness and Silk!!

Their feature ran for 30 issues of Hit Comics, almost as long as the Kid's own feature. But then they faded from memory--I believe their only "modern" appearance came in the 1970s SHAZAM! comic, which retconned Kid Eternity into the Fawcett Universe.

It's a shame, really. A couple of things break differently, and maybe these guys could have been quite the hit. People love rogues, especially rogues who aren't too deadly. I can easily see them in a Hustle or Leverage or Sneaky Pete type of comic series, with their misadventures subverting the audience into being on their side. Given their unique look, I can see lots of people cosplaying her Highness and Silk at conventions. And I can see a lot of people projecting a Xena/Gabrielle relationship onto them (which of course wasn't even hinted at in the 1940s), making them icons of a different type.

But it wasn't to be.

Meanwhile, back in the first story, Kid Eternity needs someone wise to cut through the tangled schemes of Her Highness and the Maharaja, so...

Mr. Keeper is right! Because...

HOLY CRAP!!!

We should note, obviously, that Kid summoned more than just Solomon...there's animals and retainers and slaves! Purposeful? Do some people get to "travel" with their own retinue when summoned from the afterlife?

We also have a first here:

This is the first time that the summoned hasn't obeyed the Kid's desires!! It would seem that the heroes and legends he call do not have to obey his whims!! He can call them...but he can't control them!! It won't be the last time that happens!

Another first:

Now this is the first time that the Kid has summoned a real, actual person from real history!! We've had Robin Hood, figures from Greek mythology, comic book characters and biblical characters. Let's put aside the "were they really real" arguments here, and leave it at "Kid Eternity clearly called the legendary versions of these characters."

But John L. Sullivan was really real, renowned as (depending on whom you ask) the last bare-knuckle boxing heavyweight champ, and the first gloved heavyweight champion. He once knocked out an opponent in round 75 (!!!) of a scheduled 80 (!!!!!!!) round fight. So, real men back then.

And while the thugs aren't impressed...

...Sullivan beats the crud out of them!!

It should also be noted that when Kid summons people, it's at their apparent physical peak. When Sullivan died, he was supposedly severely overweight and sick from way too much drinking. But here he's not only at his prime...

...he's busting up pillars and punching people through the floor with his bare fists!!

After 4 stories, our summoning count is...

Achilles	1
Blackhawk	1
Nobody	1
Robin Hood	1
Samson	1
Solomon	1
Sullivan, John L.	1

Tune in next time, when the Kid goes nuts in summoning people than all his previous stories combined!!

From Hit Comics #28 (1943)