After Mickey Spillane’s famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) I, The Jury introduced the hardest-boiled private dick of all time, Golden-Age comic-book publishers jumped on the bandwagon with fierce abandon.

While Comic Media’s Johnny Dynamite was easily the best of the Mike Hammer knock-offs, such characters as Ken Shannon (published by Quality) and Sam Hill (published by … Archie!?!) also brought criminals to justice in true, hard-boiled bare-knuckles fashion.

Although the great Jack Cole could spin stories as dark and gritty as any writer or artist, he took a different approach in the pages of Quality Comics’ Ken Shannon. The second issue contained a back-up story by Cole entitled, “Angles O’Day: Not-So-Special Investigator.”

One of Cole’s typically wry parodies, the tale is more reminiscent of Plastic Man than “Murder, Morphine & Me.” Like just about everything bearing the creator’s signature, however, “Angles O’Day” is well worth a look.