Judgment is a book from Moonstone published in 2015 that stars Judgment, a Spider-like New Pulp hero created by C.J. Henderson.
It contains a long story and two stories. One short story is a Domino Lady story by John L. French, and the other has the Domino Lady and Judgment teamed up to help Secret Agent X, and is written by Joe Gentle.
As noted, Judgment is a Spider-like character. He is really rich playboy William Benedict. He is helped by female warrior Nelu Qui, who fills the Ram Singh role. Benedict’s girlfriend is Nora Madison. The police commissioner is Stanley Pearson, who suspects his friend Benedict is really Judgment.
In the main story, Judgment had been in more or less retirement when his girlfriend Nora has fallen into a strange coma. But he comes back into action with a vengence against a gangland foe. A trio of people approaches Benedict: Madame Sarna La Raniella, Inspector Legrasse of New Orleans, and Koji Matsuriki. I think Legrasse is based on the character of the same name from a H.P. Lovecraft story. No idea of the other two, though wonder if Koji is based on Mr. Moto. These three inform Benedict that to same Nora, Judgment must travel to Hell.
But to find out what happens, you’ll have to read the story as Judgment’s fight against a ganglord intersects with his journey to Hell.
The Domino Lady short story is pretty good, going up against a new foe that figures out her identity.
The final story is a bit strange. It’s based on a comic strip script by C.J. Henderson that Gentle turned into a very short story. It has Domino Lady and Judgment teaming up to rescue Secret Agent X. But it’s more a setup. Interestingly, Secret Agent X shows up “out of costume,” (or is that “in costume?”) but wearing a skin-tight blue face mask.
Overall it’s an interesting collection. Now, I had wondered if there are more Judgment stories, but I’ve been told that the reason Judgment & company are so similar to The Spider is that this story had been written as a Spider story, but after the rights to use the character were taken away (similar to what happened to the planned new Operator #5 novel that was turned into “Jimmy Flint, Agent X-11“), The Spider was turned into Judgment. But check it out and think of what might have been.
