Secret Agent X-9 is a comic strip created by writer Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) and artist Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon).

[citation needed] After Charteris left the strip in 1936, scripts were credited to a King Features house name, "Robert Storm".

[1] Mel Graff [fr] took over the art in 1940 and began writing the strip as well in 1942, devising the name Phil Corrigan.

[citation needed] Graff also gave X-9 more of a personal life, introducing Belinda "Linda" Reed as Corrigan's gal Friday and early romantic interest in 1940.

[3] Graff also created a series of often grotesque villains with colorful names, including Blue-Jaw (introduced in 1944), Goldplate (1945), Liver-Lips (1946, 1947), and Grape-Eyes (1947).

Additionally, Corrigan encountered the beautiful criminal businesswoman Bargain Benny (1954) and the endearing rogue Prince Iguana (1953).

Otterfoot is the rare depiction of a Native American in comic strips of this period in that he is portrayed as intelligent, competent, witty and attractive enough for a female painter to seek him out as a male model.

[5] After a few years, Goodwin eliminated Wilda with an off-panel divorce in order to free up Corrigan for romance with the various attractive women he encountered.

He also introduced a number of villains, including criminal matriarch Millicent Murkley (1967), hitman Joe Ice (1969), and Corrigan's nemesis, Doctor Seven (1971).

[citation needed] The first comic-book story with X-9 produced in the U.S. was a serialized backup feature in the Flash Gordon book, in a quintet of five-page installments in issues #4–8 (1967).

In the 13 chapters, American, Australian and Chinese agents join forces against the Nazis and Japanese to uncover and possess the formula that will help create a synthetic aviation fuel, code-named "722".

[7] In 1976, Nostalgia Press published a trade paperback reprinting many of the early Hammett/Raymond strips, with an introduction by Bill Blackbeard.

In 1983, International Polygonics published a trade paperback edition (ISBN 0-930330-05-6) of the original Dashiell Hammett/Alex Raymond strips that included an additional story scripted by Leslie Charteris and a foreword by William F. Nolan, author of Hammett: A Life on the Edge.