MICHAEL LEE

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       The Anglo American Publishing Company in Toronto, Canada, came into being in 1940. According to Canadian Animation, Cartooning and Illustration, it "was created because of the cancellation of a cartoon adventure strip".
       The newspaper comic strip was Robin Hood and Company. When it was discontinued, the talent behind it, Ted McCall, who owned the rights to the comic and actually held the plates, decided to repackage it and created a comic book by the same name.
       Following up that release, McCall teamed with others to create more titles for the new publishing firm. The biggest it would create was Freelance, an adventurer-for-hire.
       One other title was Three Aces, an anthology publication as was the norm at the time.
       The first issue of that new title had as its characters Pat, the Air Cadet, 'Clip' Thomson, The Crusaders, and Michael Lee, promising 64 pages of Thrills-Adventure-Mystery.
       Michael Lee would continue with adventures in just over a half dozen more adventures. We know for certain that he was in issues 1-8. He may have had an adventure in #9 and #10 but that is speculation. According to the same source as above, "between issues 109 and 2-1, Michael Lee British Secret Service was replaced by Fawcett Publications character Bulletman and Bulletgirl".

       One interesting note about the Michael Lee series is that just at the end of the adventures, in fact the penultimate one, Michael Lee is joined in his missions by a very tall, brawny fellow named Duncan MacLean. This chap is not only much larger than the hero he joins as a sidekick, he is immensely strong. The interesting aspect comes in that the original reason for creating the publishing company was to continue the adventures of Robin Hood who had a very tall, brawny fellow named Little John as his sidekick. The very popular other title the company had, Freelance, had as his sidekick Big John Collins who could easily be described as a very tall, brawny fellow. Both Robin Hood and Freelance lasted a lot longer than Michael Lee. Perhaps if the British secret agent had run into Duncan MacLean sooner, he might have hung around.

Note: titles in quotes are my creation. Those without are taken from the covers and may or may not have been intended as titles.