Thanks to Mark Waid, the Golden Age Quicksilver found new life as a prominent supporting character in the Wally West Flash and Bart Allen Impulse titles. Of course, Marvel Comics’ tendency to repurpose the code names of defunct super-heroes forced Waid to rename the Quality Comics hero “Max Mercury.”
Although Quicksilver/Max headlines today’s tale, he doesn’t really play an integral role in bringing the villain to justice. Perhaps that is because the real star is Fred Guardineer, who lends his atypically striking art to the effort. Given his masterful depiction of an otherwise lurid murder mystery, it’s easy to see why Guardineer would become such an integral part of the wildly successful Crime Does Not Pay comic.
From National Comics #28 (Quality Comics, January 1943), here’s “At The Circus!” The art, if you haven’t already guessed, is by Guardineer.
