July 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #11

 Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Torch goes against the law to burn down a plague-infested slum. He is also targeted by crooks who want the plague to spread. It's not a great story, but it is nice to see the Torch wreaking some destruction again, even if it is in a good cause. It's also apparent that Burgos has no interest in exploring the Torch's robotic nature. Here his arm is wounded, and a doctor bandages it and expects him to heal like any normal person. Shame.

'Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): An American sailor has been captured by Namor's people. Namor spends the whole story doing things to sabotage the American's chances of escape, but in the end it turns out to be his plot to help the man escape. Which is all well and good, except that he kills this guy's entire crew in the process. In any other strip out there Namor would be the villain, and the American sailor would be the hero. But Namor is just so much more interesting.

'Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): Ka-Zar goes up against Rajah Sarput, an Indian nobleman who takes ownership of Ka-Zar's jungle and uses it to hunt big game. The story ends with Ka-Zar and his pet lion on a ship to New York, and Rajah Sarput surprisingly still ruling the jungle. Normally I wouldn't give extra comment to this story, but it features what may be the first genuine double-page spread I've seen during the course of this blog. It's fairly impressive in context.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): Last issue the Angel was trapped underground, and here he spends most of the story punching the hell out of seriously creepy ghouls. He meets a girl who belonged to a civilisation that the ghouls destroyed thousands of years ago. She gifts the Angel with a cloak that belonged to Mercury (the god, I assume, though it would be fair to say that Freddie Mercury's cloak would also have magical powers), which gives him the power of flight. I'm not certain whether he keeps it or not. This could either be a significant story, or an inconsequential one (albeit one with awesome-looking monsters).

In other stories:

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders) catches some robbers whose leader is posing as an old egg-woman. 'Terry Vance the School-Boy Sleuth' (by Ray Gill and Bob Oksner) tackles a gang of crooks that is fixing motor races by injecting the car tires with mercury.  (Again, probably not Freddie, but there is a joke to be made here about lethel Mercury injections.) 'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman) deals with some arsonists working for a disgruntled lumber mill president.

June 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #10

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett and Carl Burgos): Remember how excited I was to read the finale to the first battle between the Torch and Namor?  Well forget it, because it's a complete dud.  Instead of a great pay-off to the months of build-up, we get a single page where Betty Dean shows up, talks to Namor, and the two former enemies hug it out and go their separate ways.  Marvel, this is complete bullshit!  I can't believe I'm angry about a comic that came out nearly 40 years before I was born.

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Torch deals with a gang of racketeers who are driving up petrol prices by blowing up any petrol station that won't comply with it.  It's no great shakes to begin with, but doubly disappointing after the previous anticlimax.

'The Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Trust the Sub-Mariner to pull me out of the doldrums!  After Namor returns home and gets a bollocking from his parents, a crew of Americans arrive in the Arctic trying to track him down.  Namor, along with his cousin Dorma, leads an attack on the ship, and gets to act the villain again. This is cracking good stuff.  I'm constantly surprised by how good Everett is.  I'm also surprised by the presence of Dorma.  I had always assumed she was a Lee/Kirby creation, but here she is in the original stories helping Namor out.  It's cool that Lee and Kirby remembered her when they revived Namor in the Silver Age.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel tackles a horde of ghouls, who are kidnapping young ladies to sacrifice to their volcano god.  Gustavson has a knack for creepiness, and his ghouls do not disappoint.  It ends on a cliffhanger, with the Angel trapped underground being menaced by monsters.  Good stuff.

'Electro' (by Steve Dahlman): Electro must battle a mad scientist and his undead army.  It's a well-worn Golden Age plot, but this one stands out for sheer gruesomeness.  It's full of scenes of mass murder and carnage, as the zombies run riot in the streets, stabbing people and shooting them point blank.  Then the giant robot Electro gets in the mix, and he's tearing the zombies to pieces.  The mad scientist ends up being thrown into a vat of acid, and his castle is bombed by planes.  It's one of the most viscerally exciting stories I've read for this blog.

'Terry Vance, the School-Boy Sleuth' (by Ray Gill and Bob Oksner): This is the debut of Terry Vance (the boy with a thousand hobbies!) and his monkey assistant Dr. Watson.  It's a standard murder-mystery plot, with the victim murdered by a man left out of his will.  I've rarely had time for child protagonists, and this one didn't grab me at all.

In other stories: 'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders) is framed for the murder of a tax collector.  'Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson) rescues two Scotland Yard detectives left for dead in the jungle by a crook.

May 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #9

Cover by Bill Everett

'The Human Torch versus The Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett and Carl Burgos): The Torch and Namor fight for twenty pages or so, and it ends with Namor having trapped the Torch in a transparent tube. This is a classic Marvel-style fight comic, something I have always been a fan of. The fight here is more than the two just trading blows for the whole story; they change environments and use their surroundings, and keep it varied enough so that it stays exciting. I can't wait to read the next chapter.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel is in a European village that is being menaced by vampires. He discovers that the vampires are really a gang of mad scientists, who are trying to transfer the minds of people with gorillas. This is a well-paced action/suspense story, with just the right amount of creepiness.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider outwits some bandits who are stealing gold shipments. It's relatively well done for what it is. Perhaps I'm just in a good mood due to the Namor/Torch story?

'High Steel' (by John H. Compton): At face value, this is a story about a construction worker in South America who stops a payroll robbery by shooting the robber in the face with a rivet gun. But it has a contemplative, emotionally ambiguous ending that makes it feel a little deeper. Add in some genuine knowledge of construction work and an expansive vocabulary, and this feels light-years ahead of the usual crop of short stories.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): Last issue, Professor Zog and Electro were kidnapped by alien dragon men and taken to their planet Ligra. Now they are forced by the dragon man leader Jago to help him overthrow the Lion Men. What results is a pretty rad battle, complete with ray guns and giant eagles. Eventually Zog manages to gain his freedom and turn Electro on the dragon men. The robot also has to rescue the queen from the creepiest giant octopus ever. I don't know what's going on with this comic; everything is great!

'Ferret, Mystery Detective' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): Ferret investigates the murder of a cleaning company owner, who was killed by a guy he didn't want to take on as a partner. There also some stuff with a thug called Hook (who has a hook for a hand, naturally), and I can't really figure out how it ties together. It's confusingly told in a number of places.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): Ka-Zar rescues a girl lost in the jungle and returns her to her father, pursued all the while by savage pygmies. It's adequate.

March 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #7

 Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Human Torch goes up against a crooked politician who is burning down buildings to collect the fire insurance. That particular plot is nothing special, but there are a couple of interesting things going on around that. The first is that the Torch, under the alias of Jim Hammond, becomes a police officer. It's one of the few things that I knew about the character before I started reading the stories, so it was nice to see that fall into place. It also gives the Torch a good excuse to be stumbling across crimes; you'd be amazed how many writers don't bother to give their super-hero characters a job that can actually help drive the plots forward. But best of all, the story ends with the Torch hearing about a riot by none other than the Sub-Mariner. Now that's a confrontation I'm looking forward to.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel must stop a woman who is trying to murder her brother and niece so that she will be the sole surviving heir to the family fortune. So far so boring, but I do appreciate the Angel's inventive interrogation techniques. Any character who ties a thug to the front of a car then pushes it down the side of a mountain is okay by me.

'Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Oh man, shit just got real. After declaring war on the human race last issue (again), Namor spends the entirety of this story on a rampage through New York. I know that I've seen it before, but I don't care because it's so much fun. From Namor breaking the top off the Empire State Building and hurling it at pedestrians below, to him throwing people from the top of the Statue of Liberty, it's all great. I could read page after page of this. And just like 'The Human Torch' did above, this story teases the imminent crossover battle. I am so psyched to read it.

'The Masked Raider' (by William Allison): Instead I have to read a story about the Masked Raider and a crooked marshal instead. This whole chronological thing sucks.

'Blasting Bombers' (by David C. Cooke): An American pilot flies to the rescue when "Vinland" is attacked by "Nussia".  Honestly.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): Electro takes on Boss Zarpo, a crook who is leading a crime spree while the police are occupied with a flood. The plot is mediocre, but the execution isn't too bad. I could just have been swayed by Electro's wrestling match with an elephant. As you may have guessed, I have a weakness for characters punching the hell out of animals.

'Ferret, Mystery Detective' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): Ferret takes on a gang of kidnappers, one of whom is a man dressed as a woman for reasons inexplicable to me. Equally inexplicable is the Ferret's method for figuring this out: "You were too strong for a woman, and when you lit that cigarette in the taxi, you struck the match towards you like a man, instead of away from you like a woman!"  Is this a real thing?

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): A plane lands in the jungle, with a scientist, his daughter, and their evil pilot, who tries to blackmail them for money and the daughter's hand in marriage. Ka-Zar knifes the bad guy in the throat, but not before the scientist is killed. Everything in this story seems to be set-up for the girl to stay with Ka-Zar in the jungle, but at the end he takes her back to civilisation. It's not a bad action story, though.

February 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #6

 Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): Some crooks set a forest fire, and rob the local bank while everyone is distracted trying to put it out. The crooks steal plans for a bomb, and plan to sell them to foreign agents. The Torch tracks them down and destroys the plans. It's not a great story, though it's far from short on incident. The strangest bit comes when the Torch has been knocked unconscious, and the forest fire comes to his defense. Is fire sentient in the Marvel Universe?  Probably not, but it's an intriguing scene nonetheless.  It's exactly the sort of thing that the Official Marvel Handbook would spend a paragraph explaining away.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel rescues a woman named Mary Edwards, who has been kidnapped for her valuable necklace. It's a perfectly adequate story, but that's the extent of it. Mary comes across as a rounded character, which is unusual for the token hostage, so it does have that going for it.  We also learn the Angel's real name (Tom Holloway) for the first time.

'Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Despite his best efforts to prove that he is not a menace to humanity, Namor is placed on trial for murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death. His food is drugged to make him weak, but his stint in the electric chair only serves to return him to full power. Which is great, because it brings us back to a point where Namor can be an enemy of mankind. He escapes to the ocean, vowing to return, and I'm really looking forward to it. This is an exciting, compelling read that gets the character back to his roots.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider takes on a crooked rustler who has stolen a ranch that borders the Rio Grande, so that he can send cattle across the border to Mexico. Not only were rustlers a menace to the US cattle economy, they were responsible for hundreds of shitty westerns for years afterwards.

'The Shrinking Spy' (by Andrew McWhiney and Frank Thomas): Two FBI agents put a stop to a foreign agent who has invented a shrinking formula. This prose story features the absurd notion that American spies are all about fair play and sportsmanship: "We prefer to do our spying in a nice, clean, healthy way!" It would be amusing if I believed for a second that this was tongue-in-cheek.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): Professor Zog decides to destroy America's dope trade, so he sends his operatives out to investigate. In each major city, they are to find the head dope peddler and summon Electro to take him out. Normally I'll take any excuse to watch a robot smash things, but this is pretty lacklustre. It doesn't help that the villains only appear for a few panels each. It's hard to make the reader care about their defeat when they barely qualify as characters.

'Ferret, Mystery Detective' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): The Ferret investigates the murder of the head of a cosmetics company. The killer then masquerades as the victim's brother in order to collect a lot of money, but the Ferret figures out what's going on with some very dodgy evidence.  Apparently, the brother of the head of a cosmetics house could never have a bad complexion.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): Ka-Zar takes on an evil ivory hunter, arranging it so that he gets trampled by an elephant herd. This story is notable only because it depicts a tribe of Africans in a positive light, and not as man-eating savages.  I'll take the small victories.

December 1939: Marvel Mystery Comics #4

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Torch goes up against a mad scientist named Manyac, and his Green Flames, men wearing suits covered in a freezing fire. Manyac is terrorising New York, holding it to ransom for vast sums of money, and the city is under martial law. The Torch puts a stop to his plans in a fairly middling story.

The most important thing that happens in this story is that the Torch adopts the name of Jim Hammond, something he does on the spur of the moment when questioned by the police. I hadn't even noticed before that he had yet to get a name.

The Torch's powers are also pretty inconsistent. There's a bit where he makes bullets veer away from him with a wave of his hand, which doesn't seem like something he should be able to do. And I've always wondered why, if his body burns hot enough to melt bullets, can he be put out with water? Surely the water would evaporate.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The mob goes on a crime spree, using a bullet-proof giant called Butch to wreak havoc. The Angel shows up and beats him, and there's not much more to it than that. This is a strange story, in that the Angel is a complete cipher in it. He only has one line of dialogue. The focus is on the crooks, and Butch. Butch is also unexplained; he's just a big, bulletproof giant and nobody ever bothers to ask where he came from. He could be a mutant, he could be from Asgard, who knows.  I quite liked this, but I'm a sucker for super-hero fight stories.

'Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Having been swayed by Betty Dean in the last issue, Namor leads an army of Sub-Mariners to intervene in the war. His plan is simply to make sure that food and medical supplies get where they're supposed to go, regardless of whose side they're meant for. This is a massive turnaround for a guy who was prepared to destroy the human race not so long ago. The story ends with Namor having liberated an American freighter, and leading it towards Scotland. I'm not really feeling this one. Namor's heroic turn has made him much less interesting, and the action mostly consists of an uninspired aerial dogfight.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider protects two prospectors from thugs trying to kill them over a rich gold deposit. It's another story in which the title character barely appears. It falls flat at the end; there's a panel of the Masked Raider punching one of the crooks, and suddenly all four of them are beaten. It's pretty weak stuff.

'Warning Enough' (by David G. Cooke): A driver named Steve Naylor picks up a hitch-hiker who ends up being a crook on the run from the law. The crook provides his own undoing by making Steve drive extra-carefully, as the uncharacteristic caution alerts the police that something isn't right. I thought the ending to this was relatively clever.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): Professor Philo Zog invents a robot called Electro, with which he wants to help the human race. He also hires twelve operatives to aid him, which he hilariously does by calling an unemployment agency and asking them to send only those of "courage and good character". It's not the most foolproof way to set up a spy network, but in at least one case it works, as agent Dick Gardner stops a kidnapping ring with Electro's help. Unfortunately, too much of this story is taken up by the human characters, and when Electro goes into action he's not all that impressive.

'Ferret, Mystery Detective' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): Ferret is a writer and a detective. In this story he investigates a wave of jewel robberies. This story is really choppy and difficult to follow. It also has one of the worst montage sequences I've ever seen. It's not good.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): DeKraft, the killer of Ka-Zar's father, returns to the Congo to hunt for emeralds. Ka-Zar begins planning his revenge, and the story continues into the next issue. The use of DeKraft in this story gives it a bit of extra weight, and this is all perfectly good set-up. There are all sorts of possibilities for shenanigans and double-crossing, with a rift in DeKraft's camp, as well as Ka-Zar's.  DeKraft's partner wants to kill him, and vice versa.  DeKraft's native guides want to get the hell out of the jungle.  Ka-Zar wants to kill DeKraft.  Various animals think that Ka-Zar is in league with DeKraft.  There's a lot going on.