Number 2248: Hero and the Porcupine

Twilight is another character from the moldering archives of old comic books. He appeared in Hillman’s Clue Comics #’s 1-5, 7-9, and then like a lot of masked crimefighters, was gone. I can't say I like his costume; the color is what I’ve heard described as “sh-t-brindle brown.” In this story he is up against a character called The Porcupine, which may be one of the more unusual villains I have seen. And yes, Porkie (as Twilight calls him in one panel), shoots quills.

Twilight is credited by Public Domain Super Heroes and Grand Comics Database as being created and drawn by John Cassone. Comic art spotter extraordinaire Jim Vadeboncoeur Jr also claims in a note with the online scans that Reed Crandall worked with Cassone on the story. I see figures that look like Crandall’s...and I know Cassone and Crandall both worked for early Quality Comics. The only biographical information I can find on Cassone is in an obituary published online that gives his birth year as 1923, and his death in 2008, making him 85 when he died. He would have been about 20 when this story, and his stories of the sexy Black Angel, were published in Air Fighters Comics, also published by Hillman. You can find a link to a Black Angel story below.

There is also a talking parrot who goes around with Twilight. Talking animals weren’t common, like the underage boys who were sidekicks of superheroes, but I have also seen some other non-human sidekicks.

From Clue Comics Vol. 1 No. 2 (1943).

Here is a story by John Cassone of the Black Angel. It is from Air Fighters Comics #3. Just click on the thumbnail.

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