P.J. COLT was one of those one-hit wonders who popped up in a comic book story once, and was never heard from again.
Although in this case, it was more like a one-shot meh…
In his one and only appearance, an untitled story in the Winter 1945 issue of Conqueror Comics, he’s head operative for Trouble, Inc. Investigations, an agency that employs at least one secretary and P.J.’s assistant, “Smiley” Bidou. The two are hired by a yong man to help his wealthy girlfriend retrieve a stolen necklace that, it turns out, hadn’t really been stolen at all.
There’s nothing really outstanding about the story–P.J’s suitably broad-shouldered, and he gets slugged and shot during the course of events–pretty much standard PI fare for the era. About the interesting turn of events is that P.J’s real first name is… Â “Percy.”
The fact I the story went uncredited suggests that nobody even back then thought that much of it.
Still, it’s a good example of how familiar (and often, generic) a trope the private eye had already become, as early as the 1940s.
COMICS
- CONQUEROR COMICS
(1945, Albrecht Publishing)
One issue
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
