From the Vault: the Pulp Files is a neat little piece of fan service in the form of a collection of case files on a number of crime noir style superheroes, vitalities and criminals entitled The Originals. Some of you may remember the cards that use to come with G.I. Joes growing up that gave a brief bio and brief origin story on the character you have purchased that would be the best way to describe what this book is all about.
From the Vault: the Pulp Files features eighteen case files in total of the characters Black Bat, Captain Future, Death Angel, G8, Gladiator, The Golden Amazon, The Green Ghost, The Green Lama, I.V. Frost, Ki-Gor, The Moon Man, Operator 5, The Phantom Detective, Rocket Man, The Secret 6, Secret Agent X, Skull Killer, and The Spider. Each character features their alias, occupation, allies, their history, powers, skills, weapons of choice, information on their first appearances, creators, and their publishing history.
Growing up I always loved these sort of deals and as a nerdy kid who was into pencil and paper role-playing games I would have quickly used this collection as a means to fashion a noir themed campaign using the ample amount of back story and cast of characters presented in the pages of From the Vault: the Pulp Files. As a fan of crime noir I really found this book to be interesting and plan on looking into some of the characters featured in it more closely in the near future.
The character I find myself most interested in has to be The Spider, as I have stated many times before I am a huge fan of vigilante stories. The Spider who is a millionaire, amateur criminologist, and vigilante really caters to my obsession with street justice as a theme in a comic series. Not to mention he looks like a mixture of a vampire and old school Dick Tracy villain making him really stick out among the rest on a personal horror junkie level.
I had fun going through and reading the history on all these characters and would recommend this to any readers out there who find they are fans of any of the characters mentioned above or those looking for some new noir titles to investigate. I would like to see other publishers do similar books as a way for new readers to play catch me up in a way that isn’t overwhelming or wallet breaking in the form of buying generations of back issues.
