Police Comics #103
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freePolice Comics #103 (December 1950) marks one of the most consequential editorial pivots in Golden Age comics: with this single issue, Quality Comics retired nine years' worth of costumed superhero storytelling — including the long-running Plastic Man and Spirit features — and relaunched the anthology as a hard-boiled crime and espionage vehicle. The issue serves as the debut platform for two characters who proved viable enough to graduate to their own titles: private eye Ken Shannon and U.S. Treasury agent Pete Trask (T-Man). As such, it documents in real time the industry-wide post-war retreat from superheroes and the surge of interest in grittier, procedural crime fiction that would define the early 1950s comics landscape.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 12 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Quality Comics publisher Everett Arnold had sustained Plastic Man as the cover and lead feature of Police Comics from issue #5 all the way through #102, a remarkable unbroken run driven first by Jack Cole's inventive artwork and later by the character's sheer momentum. By late 1950, however, waning superhero readership — a trend affecting publishers across the industry — prompted Quality's editorial team to retool the book entirely rather than let it coast. The cover artists for issues #102 and #103 are unconfirmed by current research, and the specific editorial personnel who green-lit the format change have not been documented in publicly available sources.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover dated December 1950; published by Quality Comics under its 'Comic Magazines' imprint — the 103rd issue of a run that had begun in August 1941.
- First appearance of Ken Shannon, a hard-boiled private detective who immediately took over the cover slot previously held by Plastic Man; his debut story is titled 'The Mad Irishman.' Shannon was popular enough to receive his own Quality title beginning in 1951.
- First appearance of T-Man (Pete Trask), a U.S. Treasury Department agent whose debut story in this issue is titled 'A Date With Death'; he, too, spun off into his own Quality series, T-Man, which ran until the publisher folded in 1956.
- The issue simultaneously dropped both Plastic Man and Will Eisner's The Spirit — the two dominant features that had anchored the book since issues #5 and #11 respectively — ending their Police Comics tenures with #102.
- The book's contents shifted to crime, spy, and detective anthology fare, including stories headlined 'Badge of Honor,' 'Cop Killer starring Inspector Denver,' 'Hot Rod Homicide' (Dan Leary), and a text mystery piece titled 'Murder Most Foul.'
- The cover artist for issue #103 is currently unattributed; sources note the artists for covers #102 and #103 are both unknown.
- Both Ken Shannon and T-Man continued as backup and lead features through Police Comics #127 (October 1953), the series' final issue — meaning the format established in #103 sustained the book for its remaining three years of publication.
- When Quality Comics ceased operations in 1956 and DC Comics acquired its properties, Ken Shannon and T-Man were among the characters DC chose to discontinue rather than integrate into ongoing continuity.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Un Faux Livre #[nn] (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #1487
Key issues in Police Comics
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.