Exciting Comics #53

Miss Masque — billed right on the cover as the "Scourge of the Underworld" — commands the spotlight in this January 1947 issue from Pines, her red costume and domino mask making her impossible to miss as she levels a pistol at a crowd of very alarmed criminals scrambling below her. Alex Schomburg's cover work is on full display here, packing the composition with a startled mob of gangsters and a convict in stripes while Miss Masque stands triumphant against a bold circular backdrop. With the Black Terror also featured and a story titled "The Case of the Chinese Casket" waiting inside, this is a wonderfully spirited slice of late-Golden Age superhero adventure.