Biography of Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan, 1937

The following is a **biography of Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan for the year of 1937**, in which the two teamed up and became a formidable detective duo.

## Biography

### The Chinatown antique shop

After a tustle with a group of foreign gangsters in early 1937, Bradley was summoned to the police station. The captain there informed him of a job offer from business heiress Rita Carlisle, who asked him to guard her poodle ahead of a prestigious contest. The masculine Slam was affronted at her request, and stiffly brushed her off. Instead, Slam handed the job off to Shorty Morgan, a diminutive aspiring detective who had been pestering him for some time looking for a chance to progress. Morgan had taken a mail-order course on "scientific crime detection," and was desperate for an in into the detective profession. Shorty was disappointed by the frivolity of the job, but he was excited for his first opportunity. Shorty kept hold of the dog and accompanied Rita during a day out on the town. She had her driver stop at a Chinatown antique shop, despite Morgan's warnings that it was a dangerous part of town. Shortly after she went into the shop, Shorty went inside, but the Chinese proprietor denied having seen her and angrily told him to leave. Later, Shorty urgently called Slam to tell him that Rita was in danger: she had gone into a Chinese antique shop and disappeared while out on the town with Shorty and her dog Mimi. Slam angrily went to the shop, annoyed that Shorty had let Rita out of his sight. Slam and Shorty teamed up to infiltrate the antique shop, which through the back led into a series of underground tunnels. The shop was run by ferocious crime boss Fui Onyui, who had kidnapped Ms. Carlisle and was attempting to coerce her into signing over her fortune. Slam and Shorty made their way through a series of perils and Chinese mobsters, eventually reaching the inner sanctum where Rita was being held. Slam fought a larger group of thugs, while Shorty caught Onyui in a puddle of sticky tar. As Onyui was brought to justice, Rita thanked Slam with a kiss. Slam was surprisingly impressed by Shorty's resourcefulness, and offered to take him under his wing full-time—Shorty of course eagerly accepted.

### The steel-union murders

Some time later, under unknown circumstances, Slam got into a fight with a steel worker named Pete Graves. There was no animosity between the two—they were evenly matched, and even respected each other's prowess. Slam got the better of Pete, but Pete was confident that he would win their next encounter. Later, Slam was approached by police, who informed him that Graves had been murdered, and Slam was wanted for questioning. He arrived at the station, where he was confronted by a lawyer claiming to represent Graves. Slam had a suspicious feeling about him, and asked Shorty to tail him. Meanwhile, the police allowed Slam to return home for the time being, while advising him not to leave town. Upon entering his apartment, Slam was shot at by a strange woman. She missed, and Slam restrained her and asked who she was. She was Betty Graves, Pete's sister, and had come seeking revenge. Even after Slam suspended her from a clothes hanger in the closet, she produced a second gun and continued to fire at him. Dodging bullets, Slam answered a phone call from Shorty, who gave him the address of a garage where the lawyer had taken him. Slam fled, leaving Betty to hang. Slam arrived at the garage, but Shorty was nowhere to be found. A helpful note left by Shorty tipped Slam off that criminal dealings were afoot, and Slam beat Shorty's location out of a supposed mechanic at the garage. His partners had taken Shorty to the top of Jinx Tower, an unfinished building where Pete Graves had been working, threatening to throw him off. Slam arrived at the tower in time to save him, fighting off the group of criminals. As the leader of the operation, the supposed lawyer, dangled perilously from a stray girder many stories up, he confessed that he had organized the murders of Pete Graves and other steel workers in an effort to coerce others into joining his union. With that, the criminals were brought to justice—Betty Graves apologized to Slam, and kissed him for finding her brother's true killer.

### The mob double-cross

One day, Slam was approached by a proper-looking man with an offer to deliver an envelope to a man at the nearby expo event. The man was paying $200, a conspicuously high amount for a simple delivery. He accepted the job, ready for any issues that were likely to arise. As Slam and Shorty walked through the expo, they were repeatedly accosted by a group of people who wanted the envelope for themselves. The intended recipient of the envelope at one point threatened Shorty with violence should he fail to deliver the envelope. After the parcel changed hands a number of times among the many colorful attractions at the expo, Slam found that the thugs trying to grab it from him were led by the very man who'd given him the envelope in the first place. He was essentially a transitioning double agent for different criminal organizations, having handed off a piece of valuable information to a third party with the intent of intercepting it with his new group. Slam and Shorty managed to fight off their foes, and Slam opened the envelope to find that it contained the combination to a safe at a nearby bank. He turned in the note to the bank's president, who rewarded the detectives with a check for $5,000.

### The Hollywood murder

Soon after, Bradley tracked down a murderer in a circus, drawing a great deal of media coverage for his bravery as he took the culprit down on the trapeze in front of an audience. Slam and Shorty's exploits caught the attention of Hollywood manager Terril Desmond, who offered them jobs as movie stuntmen. The two eagerly traveled to Hollywood, where Desmond assigned Bradley to be a stunt double for leading man Larry Garry in the film *Jungle Man*, while Shorty would be working in comedy pictures. Throughout their first day on the job, they were subject to various attempted attacks from a mysterious source. They also found that the president of the studio had been murdered, and had attempted to send a telegram to Slam asking for help after having received threatening messages. Shorty deduced that Terril Desmond had sent his own telegram to divert Slam from receiving the president's, planning to kill him when he arrived. Slam and Shorty trailed Desmond, leading to a daring car chase, a successful capture, and a subsequent confession. The new president of the studio offered the detectives an even more lucrative offer, but Slam and Shorty turned it down and returned to their regular gig in Cleveland.

### The elementary-school scheme

Slam took Shorty along to visit his old elementary school on a lark. While there, the principal informed him that students' lockers had been repeatedly broken into of late, although nothing had been stolen. Shorty soon overheard a trio of gangsters in the school discussing the fact that they had hid a bag of stolen money in one of the lockers after a robbery, and had scoured hundreds of lockers trying to find it after forgetting where it was. The thugs soon got hold of Shorty and the principal, and forced the latter to relay a message to the student body to search their lockers and bring the satchel in question to his office. Slam heard this message, got hold of the satchel himself, and cautiously brought it to the office, fearing the worst. Slam and Shorty went on to play keep-away with the thugs, and Slam eventually incapacitated them long enough to turn them and the robbed money in to the police.

### The Mexican gold mine

While walking around town, Slam happened upon a man being attacked by a couple of thugs. Slam sent them packing, and greeted the man. He was Alvardo Cortez, a wealthy Mexican gold-mine owner who was visiting America. The two became fast friends, and Slam and Shorty played host to Alvardo and his daughter Rosita for the next several days until they returned home to Mexico. The following week, Slam received a telegram from Rosita telling him that Alvardo had been kidnapped by bandits. The two made haste to Mexico, and there their train was accosted by some of the bandits in question. As the two rendezvoused with Rita, Shorty spotted one of the bandits and trailed him. He was caught by the bandit party, led by Don Carlos, but lied that he intended to join them. They gave him the task of killing Slam Bradley, and Shorty climbed into Slam's window that night to tell him the situation. They agreed to fake Slam's death to allow Shorty to advance further into Carlos's organization. The plan was a success, and Shorty was let in on the situation with Cortez. Slam followed Shorty to the bandits' hideout, where they were keeping Cortez captive in order to discern the location of his secret gold mine. Left alone with Cortez to "interrogate" him, Shorty convinced Cortez to tell him where the mine was and trust that he and Slam would sort things out. Cortez complied, and indeed the detectives cut off the bandits at the gold mine, took them down, and handed them over to the Mexican police. Rosita was overjoyed at her father's rescue, and thanked Slam with a kiss.

### The Atlantic City drownings

Slam and Shorty soon received a telegram from a hotel manager named George Grayson in Atlantic City, who urgently requested their assistance in an unspecified matter. When they arrived, the two found that Grayson had drowned and washed up on a nearby beach. They further learned that three other people had also recently drowned. Slam and Shorty disguised as lifeguards to investigate the peculiar situation. Slam rescued one woman named Ethel Mann, who later that night told him that she had felt inhuman arms pulling her beneath the water. The next day, Slam, Shorty, and Ethel went out on a boat and she was once again dragged down beneath the water. Slam followed her down and found the culprit to be a man in a diving suit. Slam fought the attacker and disconnected his breathing apparatus, causing him to suffocate. They found the man to be a former employee of the hotel who had been fired for stealing and had begun the murders as a means of driving down business out of revenge. Ethel thanked Slam for saving her twice with a kiss.

### The Kentucky bank robber

Slam soon stopped a bank robbery committed by Zeke Willis from Kentucky, but Willis escaped from jail that night. Feeling responsible for Willis's fate, Slam took Shorty along to chase him down to the Kentucky mountains. They wound up in the middle of a family feud between the Willis and Tolliver clans, and got separated. Shorty got captured by the Willis family and pretended to love the young Lucy Belle Willis to buy himself some time. When this led to an attempted wedding, Shorty had to cut things short, but Slam was able to rescue him when things got hostile. As they brawled with the Willis clan, Slam and Shorty got hold of their mark Zeke, binding him and taking him all the way to Cleveland to put him away once and for all.

### The Human Fly

Slam and Shorty were called in by the police sergeant to investigate a robbery on the 14th floor of a commercial building. They met detective Snoop Dolan, a hardnosed gumshoe of the same stature as Shorty who insisted that he'd be a better assistant for Slam, much to Shorty's chagrin. The robbery in question involved more than $10,000 worth of jewelry, and the police couldn't place how it was possible. Slam suggested that the culprit had climbed in through the window, and himself climbed down the side all the way to the street to demonstrate that it was possible. The burglar came to be known as the Human Fly for his penchant for scaling walls. Snoop approached Slam and suggested that apprehending the Fly would be enough to justify making him his new assistant. Slam agreed, and Snoop marched off confidently. Shorty trailed him, and the two wound up caught in a trap set by the Fly in his hideout that Snoop had successfully scoped out. The man himself arrived and declared his intention to kill Slam Bradley and then rob a nearby insurance company. Snoop and Shorty escaped and phoned Slam in time, and the three arrived at the insurance company to cut off the Fly. After he and Slam had a daring gunfight scaling the side of the building, the Human Fly surrendered and was brought to justice.

### The perilous pugilist

One day, Slam met boxer Danny Blake, and the two became fast friends. Blake gave Bradley three front-row tickets to his fight that night with Nick Cardoni, and Slam, Shorty, and Snoop eagerly attended. Shockingly, Blake not only lost the fight, but died in the process. The next day, Shorty learned from the paper that this was just the latest of a series of opponents to die in the ring fighting Cardoni. Slam took his usual brute-force way of getting to the heart of the matter, and began a boxing career of his own through manager Frank O'Day. In a few months, Bradley became a sensation, quickly rising through the ranks until he was signed to fight Cardoni that December. Shorty tried to talk him out of the fight, but Slam was confident that the same fate wouldn’t befall him as all of Cardoni's other opponents. Shorty and Snoop took it upon themselves to ensure that Slam wouldn't get killed. They infiltrated Cardoni's manager's stable as sparring partners, and overheard that the manager had killed Cardoni's opponents from the crowd using a special electric gun that left no trace of foul play, which they had stolen from a dead scientist. When no one was looking, Shorty reconfigured the gun to simply shoot water. When the fight came, the manager's gun was utterly ineffective, and Slam beat Cardoni into submission, prompting a confession in the middle of the ring. Cardoni and his manager were both taken into custody, and Slam quit the boxing business.

## Notes

1. ↑ The narration states that "no one knows or cares" how the fight started.

## References

1. ↑ *Detective Comics* #1i: "Slam Bradley." (March 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
2. ↑ *Detective Comics* #2a: "Skyscraper Death." (April 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
3. ↑ *Detective Comics* #3i: "Slam at the Expo." (May 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Bettersworth, Joe (art).
4. ↑ *Detective Comics* #4i: "The Hollywood Murders." (June 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
5. ↑ *Detective Comics* #5a: "Slam Bradley." (July 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
6. ↑ *Detective Comics* #6i: "Slam Bradley in Mexico." (August 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
7. ↑ *Detective Comics* #7a: "Slam Bradley in Atlantic City." (September 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
8. ↑ *Detective Comics* #8i: "Slam Bradley and the Hillbillies." (October 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
9. ↑ *Detective Comics* #9j: "Slam Bradley and the Human Fly." (November 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
10. ↑ *Detective Comics* #10i: "Slam Bradley in the Ring." (December 1937) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).