The Best of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes: The Cobra (I)

Cobra (I). The Cobra (I) was created by Richard B. Sale (Daffy Dill, Candid Jones, Captain McGrail, Penny Packer, Calamity Quade, Daniel Webster) and appeared in three stories in Ten Detective Aces in 1934, beginning with “Terror Towers” (Ten Detective Aces, Jan. 1934). (In at least one later story the Cobra is referred to as the “Asp”). The Cobra (I) is Deen Bradley, an Indian detective who works for British Intelligence. Bradley is a good detective, capable of operating and solving crimes in America and Britain as well as India, but it is as the Cobra, his alternate identity, that he is feared. Crooks are known to flee India when they hear the Cobra is coming after them. The Cobra is so effective that he successfully puts down a “Persian uprising” in Bombay. He is good with his fists and his guns, but his special weapon is a cigarette holder which can shoot poison darts tipped with cobra venom, a weapon that the enemies of truth and justice never expect or guard against.