Respect the Chief (Sally the Sleuth, Spicy Detective Stories)

[u/Trim345]

"There would be no Superman without Sally the Sleuth", or at least comics historian Tim Hanley claims.

"Sally the Sleuth" is an obscure comic that first ran in 1934 in a monthly pulp mystery short story collection called "Spicy Detective Stories." Its creator, Adolphe Barreaux, convinced the publisher Harry Donenfeld to add the comic to the magazine, and Donenfeld would decide to help found DC soon after. Barreaux would in fact later draw another comic series, "The Magic Crystal of History", which would be printed in the very first DC comic in 1935.

"Sally the Sleuth" ran for 9 years, as Sally went from a private eye to an Allied spy during WWII, but it was cancelled in 1943. However, it was briefly revived from 1949 to 1953 in "Crime Smashers". This thread only covers the original black-and-white incarnation. For the "Crime Smashers" run, see here.

All scans come from the 2018 Sally the Sleuth Kickstarter Edition (edited by Hope Nicholson). Warning: While I've cropped out the explicit nudity for Imgur, a lot of these images still involve women in lingerie or other states of undress.

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The Chief, who is never given an actual name, runs the detective agency that Sally works for. While he seems to have a number of other men who work for him, most cases seem to only involve him, Sally, and a boy named Peanuts.

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Strength

• Carries Peanuts on his shoulders while wading through waist-high water
• Smashes through a window
• Breaks a brand new lock using a rock
• Digs up a grave, seemingly by himself
• Drags a tree trunk across a road to block it

Durability

• Survives a biplane crash

Agility

• Rappels down a rope
• Swims underwater, wearing an alligator skin as a disguise

Dodging

• Dodges under a gunshot
• Dodges under another gunshot

Combat

Unarmed

• Grabs a criminal's throat and threatens to strangle him
• Punches a mad doctor, making him drop the syringe he's holding
• Punches a man and knocks him to the ground
• Fistfights some Nazi sailors
• Knocks out a Nazi guard and steals his uniform
• Hides behind a bush and ambushes a criminal
• Ambushes a spy from behind and grabs him
• Hides on a tree branch and ambushes a passing car underneath
• Climbs a tree and jumps down to ambush a Nazi spy

Weapons

• Hits a man on the back of the head with his gun
• Uses a knife to fight a shark underwater

Guns

• Shoots and kills many giant bugs
• Shoots a man from behind
• Shoots a man before he can escape
• Shoots a Nazi spy
• Shoots a criminal without hitting Sally
• Shoots a man from far away

Detective Skills

• Notices a tiny needle mark on a corpse
• Searches for and finds a hidden code book
• Solves a complex crime by noticing some welts on a person's palm
• Smells Sally's perfume, alerting him to a secret door
• Secretly had his men infiltrate a suspicious person's bodyguard for weeks

Miscellaneous

• Can fly a biplane
• Makes a rope snare from his blanket to catch a guard