Continuing my look at the cult character of The Green
Hornet:
As I've previously pointed out, the success of TV’s Batman
in 1966 led to the production of the Green Hornet television series.
Like America, the UK was in the grip of Bat-mania at that
time. The Green Hornet began airing on
American TV during September 1966, and finished its run in March 1967.
As it was expected that The Green Hornet would soon be
broadcast in Britain, comic and annual publisher World Distributors which had
already published many American TV tie-in books for the UK market, like Burke’s
Law, The Man from UNCLE, as well as Batman, produced a Green Hornet annual prior to the anticipated TV series airing
nationally in Britain.
As with most World Distributors annuals it had striking
front cover artwork by Walt Howarth, based on a publicity photo used on the
first of the three American Green Hornet Gold Key comics.
A single comic strip featured in the annual was a reprint of
that same first Gold Key comic, ‘The Ring of Terror’. The rest of the annual was
the usual World Distributors fare of illustrated text stories.
World Distributors were also involved with the contents of
the TV Tornado comic, and in issue 7 dated February 26, 1967, The Green Hornet
joined the comic’s line up as an adventure strip.
The comic front cover proclaimed- SCOOP! America’s latest TV
hero – Green Hornet in… TV Tornado.
The front cover art, again based on photos and illustrations
from the Gold Key comic based, was by editor, Mick Anglo, and also featured
another strip joining the comic, Magnus – Robot Fighter 4000 AD.
TV Tornado provided an introduction for Green Hornet, as
youngsters in the UK would be largely unaware of the character. A small feature
inside described the links between the TV series of Green Hornet and Batman,
along with the speculation that Green Hornet toys and games would soon be
flooding across Britain as it was outselling Batman merchandise in America.
The accompanying three page adventure strip was a redrawn
and greatly abridged version of the Gold Key comic ‘Ring of Terror’ story.
All the strips were one-off simple stories, generally using specific
elements from the TV series like The Black Beauty’s hidden underground garage,
or the flying surveillance Scanner
housed in the boot (although it was depicted more like a satellite rather than
the flying saucer type thing that was seen on screen).
A couple of the strips did veer away from the usual TV
format. In ‘A Surprise for Kato’, the action took place in Tijuana, with Kato
appearing in just one panel. The rest of the story has the Green Hornet don his
mask and round up some foreign diamond smugglers single handed.
Issue 9 is notable as it looks like a reworked Saint comic
strip. Its set in Hong Kong and a Chinese character that’s supposed to be Kato
(looks nothing like him) appears in just three panels, The Green Hornet doesn't
wear his familiar outfit of hat and coat, only his mask, and he looks
remarkably like Roger Moore, oh and just to push the point, the car he drives
is a Volvo P1800.
However, most of the strips did keep to the spirit of the TV
series, some even showing Kato do a little Gung Fu on the villains.
Here are some panels showing Britt Reid’s pocket watch
transmitter sending an alert to D.A. Scanlon, and the Black Beauty emerging
from the secret entrance behind Britt Reid’s apartment.
The Green Hornet continued as an adventure strip up to issue
17, then following a break it returned on and off as a text story, usually
covering just one page.
The Green Hornet‘s last text story, ‘Horror in Wax’ appeared
in issue 36, dated 16 September 1967. The following week TV Tornado merged with
the failing Solo comic.
The Green Hornet did appear in the first TV Tornado annual which was published towards the end of 1967.
The character featured in both an adventure strip and a text story.
Unfortunately, Bat-mania was quickly beginning to fade, and
as things turned out, The Green Hornet was never shown nationally across the UK
at that time. It was seen on a couple of
regional television stations, but any
youngsters in Britain would only see The Green Hornet and Kato on TV in the
cross-over Batman episode, ‘ A Piece Of The Action – Batman’s Satisfaction’.
Some of the TV Tornado comics that included Green Hornet on the cover.