Walter Lang’s comic strip magician translated to the low-budget serials as your regular one-dimensional man of action with two fists and a pure heart. No black magic here. Not much charisma, either. With minor rewrites, Mandrake could be any old G-Man, enterprising journalist or boy scout leader who heeds the call of a scientist friend who loses his radium ray invention to a masked thief called The Wasp. Who’s the face behind the mask? You’ll never guess. Mostly because you’ll never try. You may not even be able to tell the supporting cast apart, aside from the inevitable squeaky clean love interest and young boy who gets to play sidekick every few chapters. It’s a second tier cliffhanger job from Columbia Pictures, recommended only to those who are up for another run through the formula. Watch for some modern overdubbing of the voices in the first chapter. This is due to a damaged soundtrack on the old print. From chapter two onward, the sound switches back to the original actors.