Zero the Silent


DC Thomson is a publishing company based in Dundee, Scotland. Founded by David Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishing The Dundee Courier, The Evening Telegraph and The Sunday Post newspapers, and the comics Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy and Commando. It also owns the Aberdeen Journals Group which publishes the Press and Journal. DC Thomson also published Adventure  a boys' story paper from 17 September 1921 to 1961, then it was merged with The Rover.
 On February 14th 1931, Adventure #485 introduced a serial of stories featuring a masked crime-fighter called Zero the Silent. The serial ran for several weeks. Unfortunately we don't know who the author was. 
Zero the Silent, the human fly, was a masked pulp mystery man. He was a disgraced Scotland Yard detective who invented a highly advanced costume intending to become a cat burglar as vengeance but changed his mind after policemen were being killed by the Rattlers, a gang from Chicago terrorizing London, and lead by ruthless leader Whitey Cass.
Zero the Silent invented a highly advanced costume to play the role of masked crime-fighter, which in 1931 predated the modern costumed heroes such as the Phantom or Batman, and has been almost completely forgotten in comic history.  

Zero the Silent was arguably the first masked wall-crawler, wearing a skin-tight black rubber suit with "suction discs" on the hands and knees whick allowed him to crawl along walls and ceilings. Attached to his wrists were elastic cords and a rubber "throwing ball" with a lead core. Zero could hit his enemies, with the elastic bringing the ball back to him.


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