Caped, in flight (in another dimension) and drawn by Joe Shuster, Dr. Occult might easily be mistaken for somebody else.
But this supernatural detective preceded the publication of Superman by three years.
“Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Dr. Occult was the first horror-oriented feature in comic books,” declared comics historian Rob Goulart. “Beginning in New Fun 6 (Oct. 1935), it was signed with the pen names Legar and Reuths, not quite anagrams of Siegel and Shuster.
“Dr. Occult was a ghost detective by trade. Bearing a strong facial resemblance to Siegel and Shuster’s Superman, who had yet to make his debut, he dressed in the trench coat and snap-brim hat style much favored by movie detectives of the period.”
“He himself had certain supernatural powers, such as an ability to enter the astral plane and observe earthly events without being seen, and to emerge from that locale wherever he pleased (i.e., teleport),” comics historian Don Markstein. “He also had telekinesis, and could cast illusions.
“Some of his abilities were focused through a magic amulet he carried which resembled a Maltese cross set inside a circle. To top it off, he had a device that could locate evildoers by focusing on their thought waves. He had an associate who went by the name ‘Rose Psychic.’
“Later DC writers have speculated that both Occult and Psychic may have been assumed names. Gosh, d’ya think?”
“Most of Dr. Occult’s tales involve the usual paranormal elements,” wrote the blogger Time Trust. “But (one) multi-chapter story … was somewhat different. The foe was a memorable one named Koth, whose nature is both alien and supernatural. Dr. Occult would require the help of his mentor, Zator of the Seven. In order to battle this foe, Dr. Occult eschewed his regular civilian clothing … for a Flash Gordon-inspired costume with a definite superhero look to it, which predates Superman’s publication by two years.”
“The Seven anticipate other wise old men who form all-knowing organizations for good: for instance the Guardians of the Universe in John Broome’s Captain Comet and Silver Age Green Lantern stories,” wrote comics historian Michael E. Grost. “The whole Koth and the Seven series is a complete change of pace for Dr. Occult. He travels within a magical world and wears a mystic belt that allows him to fly and which gives him other fantastic powers. Today we would say that he is a prototype superhero. This tale appeared a year and a half before the first publication of Superman, the first great superhero. It must have seemed spectacularly strange back then to contemporary readers.”
“Some superhero-oriented comic book fans see this as Siegel and Shuster groping toward the full realization of Superman, or even as DC doing a trial run of the Superman concept,” Markstein observed. “In reality, Superman was already fully realized, and his creators were then trying (unsuccessfully) to sell him to newspaper syndicates; and if DC was doing a ‘trial run,’ then they waited an awfully long time before acting on it — that issue was dated October 1936, more than a year and a half before Superman’s June 1938 print debut. In any case, the transformation to full-superhero mode didn’t stick, and Dr. Occult’s most characteristic look remained the trench coat version.”
More typical foes included vampires, werewolves, snake gods and zombies.
“Such supernatural detectives have long roots in prose fiction,” observed Grost. “That long literary tradition stretched back well before World War I, including such characters as Sheridan Le Fanu’s Dr. Martin Hesselius, William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost Finder, Algernon Blackwood’s Dr. John Silence, Sax Rohmer’s Moris Klaw, Dion Fortune’s Dr. Taverner, Aleister Crowley’s Simon Iff, Dennis Wheatley’s Neils Orsen, Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin and Manly Wade Wellman’s John Thunstone, Bram Stoker’s Abraham Van Helsing.”
But this particular supernatural sleuth was about to vanish mysteriously, in mid-story. Enter Superman, exit Dr. Occult.
Superman debuted in Action Comics 1, which went on sale in May 1938, and Dr. Occult’s final appearance was that same month in More Fun Comics 32. He wouldn’t reappear until All-Star Squadron 49, almost 50 years later.
Roy Thomas would later work Koth and the Seven into Dr. Occult’s origin story in Secret Origins v2 17 (Aug. 1987).
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