The Skipper is a lesser-known pulp hero magazine that (alphabetically) fits between The Shadow and The Spider, which was perhaps a newsstand idea, but aesthetically reads like a bloody noir version of Doc Savage. I've read LOTS of The Spider and Operator #5 pulps, both of which I favor over my samplings of Doc Savage (clever, but a bit too cloying and cute) and The Shadow (often too sloppy or overwritten, even by pulp standards), and The Skipper has the violence of those earlier Popular Publications, but the bickering team antics that appear in Doc. Fortunately, The Skipper's supporting cast is not a homogeneous bunch of "comedic" scientist goofs, which is a chief complaint I have with Doc Savage, but a group of different and very complementary characters. More than anything, this rag-tag bunch reminds me of Jimmie Cordie's band of rogues, whose very enjoyable adventures were published in Argosy and Frontier pulps (and are equally recommended). And that is another thing that this novel and its backup stories have more than do most hero pulps: Adventure.
The Skipper: The Clipper Menace rivals many of the better issues of The Spider and Operator #5 in terms of overall quality. The paranoiac atmosphere of those pulps is here and the lethal violence as well, though not on as grand a scale or quite as nasty. And while the character of the The Skipper/Captain John Fury may not be much better defined than that of Jimmy Christopher/Operator #5, the former protagonist has a hard-edged noir attitude and feels far more multi-dimensional than does Operator #5, who is a good and practically flawless savior. The Skipper is not bananas like Norvell W. Page's The Spider, but he feels like a guy who might have existed and did his best with what he had.
The Skipper has personality, and this book has logical, albeit convoluted plotting (very much like Operator #5 in this regard), rich atmosphere, a sense of adventure, and a really, really exceptional vehicle. "Whirlwind" is The Skipper's highly weaponized tanker that he and his team use out in the pacific to figure out why bodies are dropping from the sky and look for Gold Island. Also, the ice torture sequence certainly smells and feels a lot like the master of mania, Norvell W. Page. Before I'd finished this strong pulp hero adventure, I'd ordered another issue, as well as The Whisperer, which was also written by Lawrence Donovan.