The Black Owl

Black Owl
The Black Owl, 1940
Publication information
Publisher	Prize Publications
First appearance	Prize Comics #2 (April 1940)
In-story information
Alter ego	Doug Danville
Notable aliases	K the Unknown
Abilities	None

The Black Owl is the name of two fictional superhero characters, one of which is the successor of the other. Both appeared in the Prize Publications title Prize Comics in the 1940s.

In 1940, Prize Publications, which was already established as a producer of pulp magazines, began publishing superhero comic books with a new title, Prize Comics. The first issue featured “K the Unknown,” whose name was changed to the Black Owl in issue #2 (April 1940). In issue #24 (Oct. 1942), the Black Owl was part of a large, one-time crossover in which several heroes, including the Green Lama, fought together against the Frankenstein monster.

In issue #34 (Sept. 1943), the identity of The Black Owl was passed on from Doug Danville to Walt Walters, a character who was already established as the father of Yank & Doodle; the two series were merged. In issue #64 (June 1947), the father was sidelined by means of a bullet, and the focus was almost entirely on Yank & Doodle.

With issue #69 (April 1948), Prize Comics became Prize Comics Western, and everything that didn’t fit the new Western format — including Yank, Doodle, and the Black Owl — was discarded. The three characters have since fallen into the public domain.

In 2008, the online superhero fiction site Metahuman Press debuted the series Living Legends which featured the first Black Owl as part of its cast. The second Black Owl appeared briefly in Fantastic Comics #24, the first issue of the Next Issue Project. In issue #6 of Project Superpowers, The Black Owl and Yank & Doodle were included in a two-page layout of Golden Age character sketches; In the one-shot Project Superpowers: Chapter Two Prelude, it was stated that the three of them would appear in the second volume of this comic title, and that The Black Owl (which one is not yet known) would be transformed into a living black hole.