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Miraculas. Miraculas was created by “H. De Volta,” the pseudonym of the French author Gabriel Bernard (Satanas (II), Spanish Woman, Inspector Tony, Valentin), and appeared in Miraculas #1-20 (1921); the series was reprinted in Spain in 1925.

“Miraculas” is the codename of Daniel Dorteuil, who uses SCIENCE! to fight crime around the world. Dorteuil, "the man of a thousand and one marvels," is a French inventor-adventurer who has retreated to his laboratory on the island of Goël, which Dorteuil’s inventions have rendered invisible. Dorteuil is assisted in creating technological wonders by Thouvenel and Prof. Spurtzheim. Unfortunately, Prof. Spurtzheim goes bad and becomes a Mad Scientist and Miraculas’ arch-enemy. It is not until Miraculas #20 that Spurtzheim is defeated. In the meantime, Miraculas has discovered Atlantis, revived a frozen Neanderthal, and created Science City, a techno-utopia, in the middle of the Sahara.

Miraculas appears in stories with titles like "The Paralysing Propellers," "Into the Unknown World," and "Revived After 100,000 Years."

* I'm including Miraculas in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of its imaginative content. Miraculas is the closest the French pulps came to a full-blown ideasplosive heftroman. Like Dorteuil/Miraculas himself, Miraculas contains a thousand and one marvels, each as thrilling as the last. Miraculas is suitably heroic and brilliant, Prof. Spurtzheim is appropriately brilliant and insane, and the stories go from Atlantis to the Arctic to Science City. Big fun. 

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