Green Lantern #30 - The Debut of Streak the Wonder Dog

Streak the Wonder Dog was not the first dog hero of the Golden Age of comics.  Bulletdog (Bulletman #10, cover-dated December 1942) and Rang-A-Tang (Blue Ribbon Comics #1, November 1939) among others came along earlier. 

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But Streak did debut seven years before Krypto (Adventure Comics #210, March 1955), and his history and legacy have taken some interesting twists and turns.  He essentially came to dominate the Green Lantern titles more than Green Lantern himself, and his debut in Green Lantern #30 is a much tougher get than you might think.

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Streak appears to be at least in part inspired by the forgotten film dog star of the 1920s and 1930s, Silver Streak the Wonder Dog.  Movie star Silver Streak was a brown-colored German Shepherd with a similar appearance to his comic book counterpart. 

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As told in his origin story and debut in Green Lantern #30, Streak was born and grew up on a farm run by a woman named Sara.  Streak helped watch over the farm, its animals, and Sara herself, keeping everyone safe from predators.  Sara left the farm suddenly one day, leaving Streak in the care of her brother Luke, who was a forest ranger.  Streak learned to aid Luke as he was helping people in various ways in his territory.

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Sometime later, Luke got a letter from Sara and immediately left Streak behind in the care of a fellow forest ranger.  But Streak deduced what was happening by smelling Sara's scent on the letter, and followed Luke's trail to Gotham City.  Just as Streak finds Luke in Gotham City, Luke is gunned down by gangsters.   

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Streak is also shot in the exchange, but is saved by Green Lantern.  Soon, Streak finds Sara, who has been drugged by a war criminal named Dr. Malorgo, whom the world believes is dead.  It is revealed that Sara is actually Captain Sara Dale, of U.S. counter-intelligence, who had been on Malorgo's trail during WWII and had been called back to service when it was discovered that he might be alive.  Green Lantern and Streak are ultimately able to rescue Sara and defeat Dr. Malorgo.

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Most accounts of Rex's backstory note that he's a rebooted version of Streak and also point out the similarity to a dog star of the film era of the 1920s.  In total, this earlier movie dog star Rex appeared in about 28 films 1923-1930, and went on to become a performer in circuses, county fairs, and the like.  When this Rex died in 1946, it was noted in newspapers across the country. Since "Rex" was a very popular name for dogs for many decades, and there's been more than one famous dog star named Rex besides that, the history of Rex the Wonder Dog has largely been left at that.

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It is perhaps no coincidence that in the same month that the last issue of The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog hit the newsstand, Green Lantern returned in Showcase #22. The day of the dog stars was in decline, and it was time for the superheroes again. But the memory of DC Comics' original Wonder Dog Streak lives on.