(Doll Man 001, 1941)
Just n' Right is perhaps my favourite forgotten Golden Age super-hero, or at least the one I've thought about the most. I'm not sure I can adequately explain why but since he only ever appeared in a single six-page story I can at least present the entire thing to you and note the things that prey on my mind in the wee hours.
So: the setup. Justin Wright is a lumberjack and an orphan who has just come of age and inherited his parents' monies. Please note that he is such an orphan that he can't even conceive of having parents.
It's the old Batman-style "crime orphan vows revenge on crime" origin, only this time it's an adult man rather than a child making the vow.
And in keeping with the Batman-style origin, Justin takes inspiration from a totemic object: sheer fabric, which he had evidently neither encountered nor conceptualized in his former life as a simple lumberjack.
Two things to point out on this page: 1. here's where it's revealed that Justin Wright has chosen Just n' Right as his vigilante name, which is about as extreme as nominative determinism ever gets in comics, I reckon. Take a seat, Edward Nygma.
2. the 'Wayne Reid' credit on the first page is a nom de plume for George E. Brenner, who did a fair amount of work for Quality Comics. I'm generally a fan but this is the perfect page to complain about how many people in his comics have these gaping toothless maws that I can't look away from.
Also the "frame Just n' Right for murder" plot never pays off.
Appreciate a calling card.
And finally: my theory on why Just n' Right never appeared again is that he was immediately arrested for vigilantism after antagonizing this poor police captain who just wanted a nice door.
So there you have it: Just n' Right. The only explanation for the frequency with which I think of him is that he was a one-and-done. If he'd had a dozen or so mediocre adventures and appeared long enough to get killed in an issue of All-Star squadron he'd be trivia but as it stands he's a weird mystery.
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