Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Al Camy, Irv Novick
Black Hood & Romania’s 1940 Crisis in Top-Notch Comics #10, at Auction
Weeks after Romania’s 1940 political crisis, Top-Notch Comics #10 transformed it into a short Fran Frazer story with surprising detail.
Article Summary
- Top-Notch Comics #10 features only the Black Hood’s second appearance, with Al Camy bringing him back against the Skull.
- The lead Black Hood story continues his debut conflict as the Skull escapes custody, kills, and targets War Department plans.
- A Fran Frazer backup lightly disguises Romania’s 1940 crisis, swapping in Murania, Count Codrenu, and the Steel Guard.
- With just 18 CGC census copies, Top-Notch Comics #10 stands out for early MLJ rarity and remarkably current wartime content.
Top-Notch Comics #10 is only the Black Hood’s second appearance, with Al Camy returning him to battle the Skull. But the issue’s most startling history is tucked into a four-page Fran Frazer feature, where Romania’s 1940 political crisis is disguised so lightly that the substitutions almost function as a key: Murania for Romania, Count Codrenu for Corneliu Codreanu, and the Steel Guard for the Iron Guard. With an October 15, 1940, on-sale date from the Copyright Office for this December-cover-dated issue, the story was in American readers’ hands about six weeks after Romania’s king was forced from power and the Iron Guard entered its government.
The Black Hood had debuted in Top-Notch Comics #9, where police officer Kip Burland was framed by the Skull, left for dead, and trained by a hermit to become a masked crime fighter. The first story ended without settling the conflict, and issue #10 becomes a sequel of sorts. “The Return of the Skull” begins with the villain in custody, but he drugs his guards and opens the way to escape. He murders Major Quentin Duff, inventor of the Iota-Ray, and sets out to steal plans Duff intended for the War Department. The Black Hood and Barbara Sutton pursue the gang onto a train bound for Washington, while the Skull vows revenge. Camy supplies both the cover and all fourteen pages of the lead story. He was an experienced commercial illustrator by this stage of his career. For example, the Saturday Evening Post archive credits Alfred F. Cammarata with its April 1, 1933 cover.
Romania Becomes Murania
Harvey Biern and Irv Novick has Fran Frazer’s editor getting right to the point in this story, announcing, “Looks like trouble in the Balkans.” The London-based photojournalist flies to Murania to interview King Farol. Crown Prince Miklas tells her that Madame Mupescu is working with Count Codrenu’s Steel Guard “to turn over the oil fields to the Nazis.” Fran is captured, but photographs a Steel Guard meeting with her concealed camera as the conspirators give straight-arm salutes and declare, “Tomorrow Murania is ours. Heil!” Her evidence reaches the prince and king in time to stop the coup. Murania remains in royal hands, and Fran receives a medal for saving its oil fields.
The names, roles, and the specific situation make this more than a generic war-era story. Corneliu Codreanu had founded Romania’s fascist Iron Guard. King Carol II and that movement had been locked in violent conflict during the late 1930s. A contemporary report published September 5, 1940 described an Iron Guard coup attempt, attacks on the royal palace, radio station, and telephone office, calls for Carol’s abdication, and a plan to put Crown Prince Michael on the throne. Carol abdicated the next day. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes that a coalition led by General Ion Antonescu and the Iron Guard then came to power. The comic story here reverses that history: Prince Miklas helps expose the Steel Guard and preserve King Farol’s rule.
The conflict between Carol and the Iron Guard was already well known, and Codreanu had been dead since 1938. Madame Mupescu’s real-life counterpart here was Madame Magda Lupescu, the mistress and advisor to King Carol II. The oil field motive was equally rooted in history. A history of the Romanian oil industry identifies oil and economic agreements with Germany in September 1939 and May 1940, followed by more than 1.5 million tons of petroleum-product exports to Germany during 1940. Even with the exact timing of this story’s production unknown, MLJ’s version of this history reached readers incredibly quickly.
There are 18 copies across all labels on the CGC Census, including 17 Universal, with two CGC 5.5 Universal copies, and four higher. Heritage says it has seen only three higher-graded copies through its own auctions. Top-Notch Comics #10 combines the Black Hood’s immediate rematch with the Skull, an Al Camy cover, and an incredibly fast tranformation of real war era history into a Golden Age comic book story. For collectors interested in an early MLJ superhero book with considerably more history inside than its milestone cover suggests, there’s a Top-Notch Comics #10 (MLJ, 1940) CGC FN- 5.5 Cream to off-white pages up for auction at the 2026 August 13 Golden Age Century Comics Showcase Auction V #40377.
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