I love reading old Canadian comics. They're a piece of modern history that is too often overlooked. This book is a reprinting of comics published in Canada during WWII when a law called the War Exchange Conservation Act (WECA) prohibited the import of nonessential items such as comic books from America.

There is some racism, and misogyny present in this book (these stories were published in the 1940s) and as such lessened my enjoyment.

The art was much better than I expected, with that Canadian Whites (they were black and white and named thusly until the WECA ended) flair, and the stories were entertaining and actually flowed from one into the other as a sort of continuation rather than a different or new story with the same characters like other stories published in the same period.

I can understand complaints that the title is misleading since the majority of the stories are Doc Stearne pulp adventure stories. It's not until the final issue (unfortunately the series ended due to the publisher dissolving thanks to the WECA ending and American comics being allowed back into the Canadian market) that Mr Monster makes his first costumed appearance and the series changed into a superhero horror story. However, Doc Stearne's early adventures fighting unusual creatures are the origin for Mr. Monster and his "secret" identity and are an important inclusion for this book.

The rest of the material is very well designed, and put together with foreword, introductions, interviews with Fred Kelly, afterwords, and an artist's gallery.