June 1940: Daring Mystery Comics #6

Cover by Jack Kirby

'Marvel Boy' (by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby): This strip debuts in pretty awesome fashion.  When Hitler rises to power and foments war, Hercules is reincarnated in the body of a teenager, and dubbed Marvel Boy. The rest of the story is an action-packed (albeit formulaic) battle against fifth columnists.  But the mythic power of the origin story is hard to deny, even if the writer does have Hercules living in Valhalla. Dude, wrong mythology!

'The Fiery Mask' (by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby): The Fiery Mask investigates a series of murders, and discovers that the culprit is a demonically-possessed toddler. The investigation eventually leads the Fiery Mask into Hell, where he seriously confronts a being that can only be Satan. Yes, it ends with the Fiery Mask waking up in his lab, but the door is left open for this story to have actually happened, and that is rad.

'Stuporman' (by Creators Unknown): Stuporman is not really a Superman parody as I would have expected, but more of a parody of the super-hero/adventure strip genre as a whole.  Stuporman must a plot by a mad scientist and his thugs to turn glass doorknobs into fake diamonds.  The philosophy here is to throw as many jokes at the reader as possible, with the hope that some will stick.  My experience was that some fell flat, some were utterly inscrutable, and a small few were decent.  It does make nice change in tone from the rest of the comic, though.

'The Flying Flame' (by Bill O'Connor and Ben Flinton): Ye gods, another strip making its first appearance!  The Flying Flame is a red-haired American pilot who is fighting in World War 2.  In this story he must battle the Black Ace, a German pilot.  It's more exciting than the usual crop of aviation heroes, I'll give it that.

'Monako, Prince of Magic' (by Larry Antonette): This is the final appearance of Monako and his fez.  He rescues a girl from some thugs and an old hag, which isn't the greatest way to go out. Monako's stories were mostly boring, with the exception of his origin story. Seriously, the dude lived for years with the tribe that murdered his parents! Bye bye Monako, see you in The Marvels Project!

'Dynaman' (by Steve Dahlman): Yep, it's another debut, which just goes to show how popular the previous strips in this comic must have been.  Anyway, in an ancient city called Korug, Lagaro is the most awesome dude ever, and his name translates to Dynaman, Man of Power. When Korug sinks beneath the waves Dynaman flies to safety as the only survivor.  He goes to Egypt, where he defends it from cavemen, a brontosaurus, and pretty much every animal in the zoo. Seriously, if you like to see super-heroes punching animals (and I sure do), this story is for you.

'Tigerman' (by Mike Roy): Not to be confused with Trojak the Tiger-Man from previous issues, this guy is yet another white man raised in the jungle. In his debut story he rescues some white explorers from the Monolink Men, a subterranean tribe of ape-dudes. It otherwise has little of interest.

In other stories: 'The Falcon' (by L. Bing) goes after some bank robbers. Boo Falcon, you're the only boring story in this comic.

April 1940: Daring Mystery Comics #5

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Fiery Mask' (by George Kapitan and Harry Sahle): A mad scientist named Dork (yes, Dork) has created a huge mass of flesh-eating protoplasm that he unleashes on the city from his phallic tower. Dork's men are wearing suits that make them immune to the protoplasm, and they go out in search of women for Dork's experiments. "Come! Dork needs your body to experiment on!" Anyway, the Fiery Mask is able to resist the protoplasm due to his intense body heat, and he deals with Dork and his deathtraps with little difficulty. He even interrupts one of Dork's experiments on a lady, which sounds suspiciously like a near-rape scene. Subtext, welcome to comics.

'Trojak the Tiger Man' (by Arnold Hicks): Trojak's friend Jerry is dying, and only the life-juice of the devil-flower can save him. Trojak and his girlfriend Edith embark on a quest through the jungle, fighting natural threats, supernatural menaces, and the tribe that worships the flower. There's enough general weirdness to keep me entertained here, and a good-dose of man-on-animal violence as well. The disinterested expression on Trojak's face as he throttles an ape is priceless.  This is the last we see of Trojak, but he goes out on a high.

'K-4 and His Sky Devils' (possibly by Jack Binder): K-4 and his partners are tasked with getting some photos of a Nazi coastal base, but as events unfold they end up destroying it. It's unremarkable.  This is the last appearance of K-4, who never made much of an impression.

'Monako, Prince of Magic' (by Larry Antoinette): Monako deals with a pair of jewel thieves on a cruise ship, but of much greater interest is his account of his origin story. While in India, Monako's parents were killed by a tribe of evil magicians, who then took Monako in and taught him all of their arts. Eventually the tribe was wiped out by colonial soldiers, Monako returned to civilisation, got educated, and devoted himself to fighting evil. It's pretty messed up that this guy had to live with the tribe that killed his mum and dad for years and years. He actually seems pretty dispassionate about it, which I find intriguing. I know it will never go anywhere, but he's still a better character for having such a messed up background.

'Marvex, Super Robot' (by Hal Sharpe): Marvex is targeted by Doctor Narr, a mad scientist who wants to dissect Marvex to improve upon his own robot army. There's plenty of robot-smashing action, but Marvex himself has become terribly bland.  This is his last appearance.  Marvex was never particularly interesting after his origin story.

'Whirlwind Carter of the Interplanetary Secret Service' (by Fletcher Hanks): Earth is targeted by the Black Light Planet and it's weird lizard-like people. Their plan is to freeze the Earth, kill all the humans, then sell the planet to Mars. Whirlwind Carter leads a fleet to destroy the Black Light People in a serious case of counter-genocide. Then he returns to Earth to proclaim victory, never mind that millions died in the attack. The body count in this story is brutal, even if it's mostly off-panel.

'The Death Clutch' (by T.K. Hawley): In this prose story, a man who murders his uncle is found out due to the victim having grabbed his fountain pen. It does what it does quite well.

'Breeze Barton in Rebuilding the World' (possibly by Jack Binder): Breeze and his companions start building a city, but they are raided by a strange white-skinned tribe. Breeze beats them by blowing up their leader with rocket fuel, then offers peace to the survivors. This was okay, but the most notable thing was that Breeze's girlfriend Ann gets into the action as much as he does, gunning down the enemy with skill. Good to see after years worth of ineffectual female characters.  Even so, this is Breeze's last appearance.  There's some serious reshuffling going on with this book.

'Little Hercules' (by Bud Sagendorf): Hercules is a boy who is inexplicably the smartest and strongest person in the world. He has invented a new explosive, and beats the hell out of the spies who try to take it. But as portrayed he's kind of dull, naive and clueless. And yet he's a doctor of every science and is basically impervious to physical harm. The sheer nonsense of it amuses me (and it is supposed to be a humour strip). I hope they never explain it.

'The Falcon' (by Maurice Gutwirth): The Falcon is Carl Burgess, assistant DA. As far as I can tell he has no powers, just a semi-decent costume and a gun. In this story he investigates some mysterious deaths, in which all the victims were sent a wand of death. The Falcon traces the killings to Doctor Sunga, and figures out that the parcels the wands were sent in were set with a lethal charge of static electricity. As an action story this is mediocre, and the villain has no motivation to speak of.  There are suggestions that this character is simply a reworking of the Purple Mask, which makes a lot of sense.  They're basically the same guy.

March 1940: Daring Mystery Comics #4

 Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Purple Mask' (by Maurice Gutwirth): The Purple Mask stops a gang of bank robbers that has (gasp!) committed the robbery at the behest of the bank manager himself! Once again this is terribly generic, and the storytelling is choppy.  This is the last appearance of the Purple Mask in the Golden Age.  He next appears in The Twelve in 2008, in his original and superior identity as the Laughing Mask.

'K-4 and His Sky Devils' (by Maurice Gutwirth): K-4 and his posse take on a Nazi zeppelin that has dropped a bunch of mines into the Thames. The adventure is not terribly interesting, but the panel that shows the zeppelin exploding is quite impressive.

'Monako, Prince of Magic' (by Larry Antoinette): Monako is back, having not appeared since Daring Mystery Comics #1.  He's on the trail of his old enemy Muro, who has stolen the defense plans to the Panama Canal. I wasn't greatly enjoying this, until a scene where Monako rides on the back of a giant vulture came along to liven it up. But on the whole Monako is just too powerful for the story to provide any drama.

'Whirlwind Carter of the Interplanetary Service' (by Fletcher Hanks): Whirlwind Carter is the head of the Interplanetary Secret Service on Venus. When Martians conquer Earth, Carter rallies the Earth-men and leads them in an attack to retake the planet. There's some seriously economical storytelling going on here. "Millions of Earthpeople are overcome and captured by the Martian." That's a single panel. It shouldn't work, but it carries it off with some gonzo flair. I love that the Martians just load every person on Earth into a rocket and fire them into space.

'Marvex the Super Robot' (by Hal Sharp): Marvex must stop a prison riot. Without his bizarre disrobing habits from last issue, Marvex becomes just another robot, albeit one who spends a lot of time punching crooks.

'G-Man Don Gorman' (possibly by Jack Alderman): Don Gorman has invented a new "super-supercharged" airplane engine, and must stop a plot by the Nazis to steal one hundred passenger planes that have been fitted with it. This would normally be very pedestrian material, but the creators really sell the fact that hundreds of people have gone missing along with the planes, giving it an added sense of urgency.  This is the only appearance of this strip.

'Breeze Barton in the World of Savages' (by Jack Binder): After his other-dimensional adventure last issue, Breeze returns to Earth, only to find that fifty years have gone by and that the war of 1945 has destroyed civilisation. Breeze assumes leadership of a village that is fighting against some primitive hordes. I like the set-up here. It has a lot of potential, even if this particular story isn't up to much.

'Outlaw-Buster' (by Rex Evans): A crook tries to join up with some notorious bandits, but the bandit leader thinks he is a lawman due to his past experiences. I think that this is supposed to be an ironic twist, but it's unclear to me whether the bandit's suspicions were correct or not.

'Trojak the Tiger-Man' (possibly by Joe Simon): When Nazis set up shop in Trojak's jungle he wages war on them. This is worth reading if only to see a tiger detonating some explosives.

February 1940: Daring Mystery Comics #3

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'Dale of the F.B.I.' (by Phil Sturm): Dale, as you may have guessed, is an ace FBI investigator. He's only ever called Dale, so who knows if it's his first or last name; he's just Dale. In this story he takes on a gang of crooks whose leader has just escaped from jail. It's pretty tedious stuff, except for one bit where Dale snatches a girl hostage away from them while surfing on the wing of a plane, then shoots the gang's leader through the heart. It's a rad maneuver in an otherwise terrible story.  It's also probably the absolute zenith of Dale's career, as we never see him again.  I picture him sitting in the FBI office, constantly reminding his colleagues about it.  "Hey, remember that time I rode the plane wing!  Wasn't that super?  Hey, who wants a coffee?"

'Breeze Barton in the Miracle City' (by Jack Binder): In the far-flung future of 1945! World War 2 is still raging, and Breeze Barton is an American pilot. He is shot down in the desert, and stumbles through "The Spot", a portal to another dimension where time has no meaning. There's a city there full of creatures from all through time, as nothing ages there. There are also the Demon People, who want to destroy Earth for no readily apparent reason, and Breeze gets caught up in a war between the Miracle City and the Demon People. There are some fun concepts here to go along with a pacy adventure story. It still don't know why they bothered to set it in 1945, though.

'The Purple Mask' (by Will Harr and Maurice Gutwirth): In the last issue, Dennis Burton appeared as the slightly creepy Laughing Mask.  In this issue, he has changed his identity to the ultra-generic Purple Mask.  The Purple Mask takes on a gang of crooks who are searching for a wealthy man's treasure that is hidden in an underground vault. I'm a sucker for underground vaults filled with traps and treasure, but beyond that there's very little to recommend in this story. The Purple Mask has zero personality, and the villains are no better.

'The Phantom Reporter' (by Robert O. Erisman and Sam Cooper): I cannot keep track of these early Marvel heroes.  I was sure the Phantom Reporter had appeared already, but this is actually his first appearance.  There's a rash of murders on the East Side, and the Phantom Reporter sets about putting a stop to them. Pretty much everybody is in on this murder plot: two newspaper publishers, the chief of police, and even the commissioner of parks. The Phantom Reporter has got to be pissed about it, because he punches one of the murderers so hard that he dies. Otherwise this is an average story. I do like that the Phantom Reporter maintains identities as both a cub reporter and a playboy; it's like he's got both of the most cliched super hero professions covered.

'Powdersmoke Showdown' (by James P. Olsen): Yes, Jimmy Olsen wrote this prose story. It's about two former partners who have a shoot-out over a widow woman. Only the guy who wins isn't interested in the woman; he only wants to get his socks back from the man he shot. It's a bizarre tone shift.

'Trojak the Tiger Man' (by Joe Simon): Trojak battles a gigantic prehistoric monster, and rescues a girl from a Nazi encampment. Both stories are solid, though there is little to connect them.

'Marvex - the Super-Robot' (by Creators Unknown): Marvex is a robot created in the Fifth Dimension, but he refuses to be a slave and so he escapes to Earth. On Earth he meets a girl named Clara, gets caught up in the theft of some important plans, and puts a stop to the crooks by completely wrecking them. And then we see the weirdest exchange of the whole story. After Marvex returns the plans to a grateful Clara, he tells her that they can never be more than friends, because he is Marvel the Super-Robot. The last line of the strip reads "The Super-Robot quickly disrobes, showing his metal body." I was all set to dismiss this as a story of no particular interest, but those last couple of panels are brilliant.

'Captain Strong of the Foreign Legion' (possibly by Jack Alderman): An Arab tribe is plundering caravans, and the Foreign Legion must stop them. This is a good eight pages of Arabs and Legionaries straight-up killing each other, which is great if that's what you're into. The action scenes are quite well done, which is a good thing when your whole story is an action sequence. Still, there's no story to speak of, and Captain Strong never appears again.

December 1939: Superman Daily Strip #259-288, Superman Sunday Strip #1-8, Daring Mystery Comics #2

SUPERMAN DAILY STRIP #259-288 (by Siegel and Shuster)

In this story, Superman helps a hard-nosed politician go up against organised crime. The parts of this story that feature Superman are nothing I haven't seen before, but it's really Lois Lane's story. Her desire to get out of the "lovelorn" columns and back into real journalism makes her a lot more likable than her usual portrayal. And the pay-off to that story is quite amusing, as she gets her scoop, only to be forced off the front page by another unexpected headline. It's not often that "War in Europe!" can be used as a punchline, but here it's done to good effect. We also see Superman give his first ever interview here, as he opens up slightly to Lois and explains his desire to do good. I was pleased to see that he doesn't know where he's from. I kind of figured that he knew he was from Krypton already, but it appears not, and I'm looking forward to him discovering his heritage.

SUPERMAN SUNDAY STRIP #1-8 (by Siegel and Shuster)

The beginning of Superman's run as a Sunday strip is pretty banal, with him helping Mike Hensely, the owner of a logging business, against an unscrupulous rival. Still, even though the basic plot isn't that interesting, Siegel and Shuster get the most out of it with some great moments. I'm always up for scenes of Superman being a bully, and the one where he threatens a bank manager into giving Hensely a loan is a good one. He also throws a few cars around, lifts a train, uproots an entire forest, and wrestles a bear. Every installment makes sure to show him doing something impressive, and the net result is a decent story, despite the uninspiring premise.

A notable change has occurred in both of these strips: Clark Kent and Lois Lane now work for the Daily Planet. I think the name appears in the daily strip first, but only by a few days, and I'm not entirely sure that I've got the dates right. It's always possible that I've missed a previous mention of it in an earlier story, but so far as I know another piece of the Superman puzzle clicks into place here in these newspaper strips.

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'Zephyr Jones and his Rocket Ship' (by Joe Cal Cagno and Fred Schwartz): Zephyr Jones and his partner Corky try to fly a rocket to Mars, but instead land on the hidden planet of Sunev. There they befriend the Bird Men, and aid them in battle against the evil Parrot Men. Although the story is fairly cliched, it's told with enthusiasm, and there is some impressive art during the battle scenes. Plus, it has evil Parrot-Men.  This strip appears next in Mystic Comics #1, out fairly shortly.

'The Phantom Bullet' (by Joe Simon): The Phantom Bullet is Allen Lewis, a reporter for the Daily Bulletin. When he gets his hands on a gun that fires ice bullets, he decides to dedicate his life to fighting crime. (The bullets melt after killing the target, so the Phantom Bullet is free to execute criminals without fear of the law.  It's an idea that's been used in a DC strip at some point, but I can't remember which.)  In his first adventure, the Phantom Bullet takes on a murderous blackmailer and his gang of African ape-men. I seriously couldn't make heads or tails of the villain's plan, and I can't say I really followed the Phantom Bullet's investigation either. The only positive thing is that I rather like the Phantom Bullet's abrasive personality, but I've noticed that those types of heroes are invariably softened as they make more appearances.  That won't be a problem, though, because the Phantom Bullet won't be appearing again.  He did show up recently in The Marvels Project, which revealed that he had been killed pretty shortly after his debut.  I knew ice bullets were a crappy super-power.

'Trojak the Tiger Man' (by Joe Simon): Trojak is a white man who grew up with a native tribe in the African jungle after the death of his father. White hunters come into the forest, Trojak falls in love with the girl who is with them, and ends up helping them escape from an evil tribe. There isn't a lot to be interested in, and there are definite suggestions that Trojak is superior to the natives because he is white.

'Six-Gun Dynamite' (by Russell A. Bankson): A prospector is held up by bank robbers, and bluffs them with a box they think is full of dynamite. There's also a subplot about his wife, and her planning to leave if he comes back with dynamite instead of food, and it all comes together into a solid story.

'K-4 and his Devils' (possibly by Jack Alderman): K-4 is an aviator and secret agent. He has sidekicks, a French swordsman and an English disguise specialist, but they don't do anything in this story. K-4 goes undercover as a Gestapo officer and blows up a German munitions dump. It's probably one of the better World War 2 stories that I've read so far, in that it involves something other than page after page of Nazis being killed.

'Mr. E' (by Joe Cal Cagno and Al Carreno): Wealthy sportsman Victor Jay is also Mr. E, a generic masked detective. In this story he goes up against his old enemy the Vampire, a hooded criminal who is blackmailing rich people. The Vampire has a certain villainous style, but Mr. E is terribly bland, as is the story that he stars in.  This is Mr. E's only Golden Age appearance, but he did return in The Twelve quite recently.

'The Laughing Mask' (by Will Harr and Maurice Gutwirth): Dennis Burton is an assistant DA, and also fights crime as the Laughing Mask. In this story he tackles a gang that is sabotaging trains so that they can buy up the railway license for a song. The story is just dull, but the Laughing Mask himself is pretty creepy looking. That, coupled with his eagerness to murder criminals, makes the criminals' fear of him very believable. But that's about the only thing to compliment here.  Like Mr. E, this is his only appearance in the Golden Age, and he also reappeared in The Twelve.

October 1939: More Fun Comics #49, Daring Mystery Comics #1, Marvel Mystery Comics #2

Cover by Creig Flessel

'Wing Brady' (by Tom Hickey): In the last story Wing captured the Arab chieftain Ali Pascha behind enemy lines. After beating Pascha up, he single-handedly takes on his army and opens the gates of his city for the Foreign Legion. It's a decently entertaining action story.

'Biff Bronson' (by Joseph Sulman): Biff and Dan accidentally receive an invitation to a secret meeting, where they find a group of hooded criminals who want to kill the scientist Tnopud and take his formulas. The gang is eventually arrested, but their leader escapes. There's a bit of interest when a disguised Biff and Dan are tasked with killing Tnopud, but I've already seen that plot done better just a few days ago.

'King Carter' (by Paul J. Lauretta): New strip!  King Carter is a wealthy oilfield owner, jewel hunter, and adventurer. He and his friend Red Rogers photograph some top secret Chinese installations, and spend the rest of the story running away and beating up Chinese soldiers. I think that this is supposed to be a good-humoured adventure strip, but the relentless racism is too hard to ignore.

'The Buccaneer' (by Bernard Baily): After Prince Natria helps Dennis win his ship back from Dr. Killmen, Dennis decides to help him win his country back from its usurper. He infiltrates the pretender's palace, only to find... Regina? To be honest, I have as much idea who she is as you do. The rest of this story was okay, but the cliffhanger was meaningless to me. Whether that's my own fault or the writer's I'm not sure about.

'Radio Squad' (by Jerry Siegel and Mart Bailey): A rowdy young man kills a bar owner by accident and hides out with his criminal brother, and Sandy and Larry must chase him down. It's decent enough.

'Unexpected Exercise' (by Jack Anthony): A man training for football sees some people swimming away from a burning ship and dives into the ocean to rescue them. And remember kids, you too could save someone's life if you exercise enough!

'Lieut. Bob Neal of Sub 662 in the Flaming Inferno' (by B. Hirsch and R. Lehman): In Honolulu, Bob saves a scientist from an exploding volcano. Take how exciting that story sounds, invert it, and that's exactly how boring it is.

'The Magic Crystal of History' (by Homer Fleming): This strip finally gets away from English and French history to tell the story of Ivan the Great and the rise of the Russian monarchy. The new setting livens things up considerably, and it doesn't hurt that this story is more concerned with battles than politics.

'The Flying Fox' (by Terry Gilkison): Rex Darrell and Buzz deal with a group of air pirates who are stealing jewel shipments. This is predictable and dull.

'Detective Sergeant Carey and the Voodoo Vengeance' (by Joe Donohoe): Carey and Sleepy investigate a mysterious murder in a voodoo nightclub. The mystery here was intriguing, but the conclusion was unimpressive. Still with dialogue like this, who can complain: "You're a fool Congi! All your voodoo can't save you from the law!"

'Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol' (by Jack Lehti): A recently fired lumberjack named Pierre tries to steal his former boss's payroll. I normally hate this strip, but Pierre is the greatest villain ever.

This guy needs his own spin-off, BY GAR!

'Bulldog Martin' (by Bart Tumey): Martin is helping at an Egyptian archaeological dig that is being menaced by a masked phantom. From the very unfunny "wacky" Englishman to the complete lack of motivation for the villain, this is terrible.

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Fiery Mask' (by Joe Simon): Doctor Jack Castle is called in to investigate a strange case, and ends up fighting against a gigantic blue mad scientist and his army of hypnotised zombies. Jack ends up captured and subjected to the scientist's hypnotism ray, but his resistance causes the ray to explode and gives him all the powers of wind, rain, storm and sunlight. His face even glows when he's angry, and so he takes on the identity of the Fiery Mask to fight evil.

This is nuts. This story never stops to explain anything, it just barrels on from one crazy thing to the next with no regard for logic. Why is the mad scientist a giant? Where do the huge subterranean vultures come from? Who knows. The plot is terrible, but it gets by on sheer energy and manic enthusiasm.  I'd be happy if the Golden Age was full of more stuff like this.

'John Steele, Soldier of Fortune' (by Larry Antonette): Steele is an Allied soldier fighting against the Nazis. In this story he must help a female spy get a message to a general, and in doing so kill as many Nazis as is humanly possibly in the span of 9 pages. I swear he kills or punches a Nazi in almost every panel. The plot is nonexistent, but it certainly does pack in the action.  I believe that this is the only appearance of this character in the Golden Age, but he was revived recently by Ed Brubaker in Secret Avengers and The Marvels Project.  On the strength of this I'm not sure why, but recycling old, obscure characters is something I approve of.

'The Texas Kid, Robin Hood of the Range' (by Ben Thompson): The Texas Kid is a generic cowboy do-gooder. In this story he deals with a gang that has been raiding local ranchers, and the banker who is in on it. This is exactly the same sort of crap I've been dealing with in DC's

'Monako, Prince of Magic' (by Larry Antonette): Monako is a heroic magician, basically a knock-off of Zatara from Action Comics (who is probably a knock-off of Mandrake, to be honest). Monako's old foe Muro is after the formula to a new explosive, and kidnaps its inventor. Monako goes to his rescue, using his inventive magic tricks. It's not awful, but it lacks a lot of the charm of Zatara.

'The Thundering Terror of Gold Creek' (by Ray Gill): This prose story certainly doesn't muck about: it opens with a herd of crazed horses demolishing a mining town in the Old West. It turns out that a rival town has inserted pieces of metal into the horses' brains and is controlling them with radio waves. That's pretty much cooler than every single prose story in any of the DC comics so far.

'Flash Foster at Midwestern' (by Bob Wood): Aah, a football strip! And in the grand tradition of all sport strips, the first plot is about match fixing, as gangsters kidnap Flash's girl to try and get him to throw the game. It's all territory we've seen before, though it should be said that Flash determines to play at his best regardless of what might happen to his girlfriend. Wotta jerk!  Luckily he's a one-off, and I'll never have to see him again.

'Phantom of the Underworld' (by Maurice Gutwirth): Detective Denton, also a master surgeon, infiltrates a gang of crooks and becomes their doctor. I couldn't find much to like or hate about this one, and we never see Denton again.

'Barney Mullen, Sea Rover' (by Chas Pearson): Barney must carry a cargo of gold filigree to Rotterdam, as both sides in World War 2 try to blow him up and his own crew tries to mutiny. There are no shortage of threats in this story, which raises an otherwise crap story to an average level.  Again, Barney Mullen is a one-off, which makes five such strips in this comic book.

Cover by Charles J. Mazoujian

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Torch tackles a crook who is fixing motor races by firing incendiary bullets into the cars from his plane. The bad guy, Ross, is certainly resourceful - in the course of this story he manages to frame the Torch for his own crime, bury him in boiling lime, and encase him in molten metal. It doesn't work, but he's got one up on most Golden Age villains. With a decent villain and a breakneck pace I enjoyed this despite its crudeness. I'm still amazed just how much more energy than everything else the Marvel comics have.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel goes to Hong Kong to protect a girl from people who want the treasure map she's carrying. It's not bad, but the Angel is pretty generic. It's hard to stand out when you're sandwiched between the Human Torch and Sub-Mariner.

'The Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Sub-Mariner continues his war against humanity, this time in New York. There's absolutely no plot to this whatsoever; it's just a string of events, with Namor following his every whim and impulse while trying to avoid the authorities. But in saying that, Namor is a compelling character. He's almost the flip-side of Superman. Both characters can be seen freaking out and destroying public property, but Superman does so to help the downtrodden, while Namor just does it because he wants to. He's probably the most interesting character of the Golden Age so far.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider goes undercover to take on a gang of outlaws. Being terribly uninteresting, it's firmly within the law of averages for Golden Age westerns.

'American Ace' (by Paul J. Auretta): Perry Wade is an American who gets caught up in the war between the fake countries of Castile D'or and Attainia. This thing has more explosions than a Michael Bay movie, and ends about as satisfyingly. Perry survives a bombing raid, and that's pretty much the whole story.

'Death-Bird Squadron' (by David C. Cooke): Speaking of bombing raids, this prose story sees the Angel caught in the middle of one in Poland. His solution: jump up into the plane, throw the pilot out, then shoot down the other planes. As a scene, it's not bad. As a story, it's woeful.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): Ka-Zar fights an ape-man over a mirror and wins, but spares his life. Later, that same ape-man returns for vengeance, kidnapping a cub of the lions that Ka-Zar now lives with. Ka-Zar tracks him down and kills him. The moral of the story? Always kill your enemies, no matter what.