Captain Battle vs Dr. Dracula, Silver Streak Comics #17 Up for Auction

Posted in: Comics, Heritage Sponsored, Vintage Paper | Tagged: Jack Binder, lev gleason, otto binder, silver streak

Silver Streak Comics #17 features Captain Battle vs Dr. Vampire by Otto and Jack Binder, and Eldon’s copy is one of the best you’ll ever find

Captain Battle debuted in Lev Gleason Publications’ Silver Streak Comics #10, the creation of Carl Formes and Jack Binder.  Binder is well known as the founder of a major comics production studio active throughout the Golden Age and somewhat beyond, as well as being the older brother of Earl and Otto Binder.  Formes is far less well known, at least today.  In his era, he was a world-famous opera singer and grandson of the man who was considered in his day the world’s greatest basso profundo.  Otto Binder joined his brother Jack on this issue’s Captain Battle and the Death Ray story, featuring Nazis disguised as vampires, in the type of story for which publisher Lev Gleason would become famous.

In the lead story, Captain Battle and the Death Ray,  Captain Battle faces off against a villain named Dr. Dracula, who leads a team of Nazi spies disguised as winged vampires. The story merges archetypal evil with contemporary human evil and in the process, frames the impending conflict as a fundamental imperative.  Later in this issue, in the story Reign of Death, Silver Streak and Meteor battle Nazi parachute troops who are launching a blitzkrieg against coastal towns in South America. This plotline directly addresses a key concern of the time, the fear of Axis encroachment in the Western Hemisphere. As was not uncommon in comics 1940-1941, this presents a scenario where the war is no longer a distant European affair but is now at America’s doorstep.

This comic book is from the Eldon Pedigree, which was officially designated by CGC in 2019 (identifying the wrong Eldon, unfortunately) in an announcement that included five newly recognized pedigree collections. Eldon M. Tuffentsamer (1928-1978) of Morton, Illinois had wide ranging interests in a number of publishers including Fiction House, Lev Gleason, Fawcett, DC Comics, and Marvel among others from roughly 1940-1945.  Tuffentsamer wrote his name in a printed handwriting style in many of the earlier issues of the collection, before switching to cursive.  Tuffentsamer was a lifelong resident of Morton, Illinois, and an army veteran of the Korean War.  Prior to entering the service in November 1950, he had worked in the auto repair shop of the Morton Ford dealership. According to military records, he was seriously wounded in action by a missile in October 1951 in North Korea, returning to duty the next January.  He reached the rank of Corporal before his August 1952 discharge. Eldon married in 1951 and the couple had five children.  He served as a police officer in Morton 1960-1977, following in his father’s footsteps in that regard, according to 1940 census records. By some accounts, Eldon Tuffentsamer’s comic book collection had surfaced among the collector community by the mid-1980s, and it has gained stature over the past decade or so as collectors have begun to understand the scope of the collection.

This one is way more rare than you might think.  There’s only 10 unrestored copies of Silver Streak Comics #17 on the CGC census, with just four copies higher than this CGC 6.5.  Heritage has only sold one copy with a higher grade in the past eight years.  Eldon’s CGC FN+ 6.5 Off-white to white pages copy of Silver Streak Comics #17 (Lev Gleason, 1941) is up for auction in the 2025 September 18 Golden Age Comics Century Showcase Auction II at Heritage Auctions.

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