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.

April 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #8

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Last issue we were left with the tantalising prospect of a confrontation between the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. This story follows that up with more teasing. Luckily it's teasing that's fun to read, with Namor on yet another rampage. Mostly it's him releasing deadly animals from the zoo, and showing that he has a heart of gold by rescuing a baby from a killer elephant. Never mind that he just killed hundreds of people a few pages earlier by bombing the Hudson Tunnel; he rescues a baby, so he must be a good guy. There's a short battle with the Torch near the end, but it doesn't live up to the hype.

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): I was expecting more of the Torch/Namor fight here, but instead what we get is a story running in parallel. The events of the previous story are told from the Torch's perspective, with him running around town and cleaning up the destruction Namor has caused. It does result in a pretty funny scene of the Torch being man-handled by an ape, but on the whole it's frustrating. I just want to see the characters fight, but the only fight scene we get is a repeat of the one from the previous story. The main event is promised next issue, but at this point I'm getting a bit tired of it.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel must rescue a girl who has been kidnapped, all as part of a plot to buy her father's stock in a mining company. This starts promisingly, as I always like it when the Angel is presented as a figure that strikes fear into criminals. But from there it's a straightforward action story, albeit not a bad one. The ending strikes a bizarre note, with the rescued girl pretending to faint so that she can be carried in the Angel's arms. I guess he's a rugged, handsome dude, but it honestly comes off as a little creepy.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider, along with his new sidekick Mexican Pete, track down a gang of bank robbers. Surprise surprise, the bank manager was in on the whole thing. It was either going to be him or the sheriff, and they went with the slightly more cliched option of the two.

'Dynamite's Doom' (by Jack D'arcy): A watchman for a mine tracks down a gang of train robbers. The set-up for this is done well enough, but the conclusion is rushed, probably because the whole thing has to be crammed into two pages.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): This starts out normally enough, with some crooks kidnapping Professor Zog and forcing him to use Electro in a crime spree. I was all set for scenes of Electro smashing the police and the army, and there's plenty of that, but halfway through the scene switches to the Planet Ligra, where the alien Dragon-Men decide that they want Electro for themselves. The aliens fly to Earth, defeat the gangsters, and capture Zog and Electro. It's a bizarre turn that I certainly didn't see coming. I did enjoy the insanity of it, but this story really does portray Zog as pretty gutless. He rolls over for the crooks with no resistance, and is similarly willing to cooperate when the aliens show up.

'Ferret' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): Ferret captures some bank robbers with the help of a cryptic clue placed in the classified section of the newspaper. So cryptic that I can't relate it to the happenings of the story at all. Either I'm stupid, or the story makes no sense.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar' (by Ben Thomspon): Ka-Zar goes up against an unscrupulous miner, who has hired a tribe of natives to supply him with slaves. It's the same old same old for Ka-Zar.

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.

January 1940: Marvel Mystery Comics #5, Smash Comics #8

Cover by Alex Schomburg

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Torch goes to the rescue of a town caught in a blizzard, but the medical supplies he is carrying are stolen by two recently escaped crooks. This isn't particularly exciting, and about halfway through the criminals just have a plane out of nowhere. The Torch was much more fun to read as a menace than a hero.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel tackles a gang of bank robbers. I was amused by his initial plan, which involved overturning all the cars in the street while the gang was in the bank so that they would have no getaway vehicle, but otherwise it's a simple and uninteresting beat-em-up.

'Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): Namor returns to New York, where he's pursued by the authorities until a doctor jumps him with some chloroform. Thus subdued, he is held captive until his policewoman friend Betty Dean lets him go, and he tackles a gang of bank robbers who are tunneling underground. I really enjoyed the first half, with Namor fighting police and firemen, but the second half wasn't nearly as interesting. I definitely prefer Namor as an anti-hero.  His motivations change from issue to issue, so it's possible that he will return to villainy soon enough.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): The Masked Raider goes up against a guy who is murdering people with poisoned arrows and blaming it on the local Injun. I think he's trying to make the sheriff look bad so that he can become the next sheriff. To be honest the finer details escaped my concentration, but what i did catch was terribly boring.

'It's in the Cards' (by Ray Gill): In this prose story a drunken circus knife-thrower kills his assistant, then tries to convince the only witness to tell everyone that it was an accident. Dull.

'Electro, the Marvel of the Age' (by Steve Dahlman): The fake country of Molivia is attacked by the fake country of Torpis, and Electro goes to help. Besides the usual scenes of Electro smashing tanks and killing troops, there are some startling depictions of dead women and children. And the scene where the dictator of Torpis shoots himself rather than be captured has eerie similarities to the end of World War 2. But the crude art, which often has no connection to what's happening in the narrative captions, lets the whole thing down.

'Ferret, Mystery Detective' (by Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen): The Ferret solves a murder mystery involving counterfeiters. I don't know if this was the case last issue, but now he has an actual pet ferret that helps him fight crime. Other than that, this is totally uninteresting.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar' (by Ben Thompson): In the last issue, a whole mess of potential double-crosses and intrigues was set up, but in this issue it mostly comes down to a fight between Ka-Zar and DeKraft, the man who murdered his father. That confrontation is done well enough, but I thought a lot of the potential set up last time was squandered.

Cover possibly by Gill Fox

'Espionage starring the Black X' (by Will Eisner): Again with the war montage! Yes Will, you're brilliant at it, I know, but please get a new trick. In this story the Black X must infiltrate Germany and escape with an American reporter. It's a well told action story, with some humour thrown in when the reporter decides she really would like to carry on pretending to be the Black X's wife.  Madame Doom also returns, although she doesn't make much of an impression.

'Clip Chance at Cliffside' (by George Brenner): Two crooks kidnap one of Clip's ice hockey teammates, so that one of them can impersonate him and purposely lose the game. Clip figures out that it's an impostor and they win the game without him. It's the same old sports comic routine.

'Abdul the Arab' (by Vernon Henkel): Abdul tackles some oil thieves in a story that can best be categorised as existing. Yep, it's definitely there all right.

'Captain Cook of Scotland Yard' (by Stan Aschmeier): Cook investigates the destruction of a castle and the theft of some gold bullion. There's some solid detective work going on here, but in the end Cook only wins because he happens to stop at a certain farmhouse to seek shelter. I never like these kinds of circumstances in a mystery story.

'Hugh Hazzard and His Iron Man' (by George Brenner): Hugh and Bozo put a stop to "Batzi" spies who are trying to draw America into the war in Europe. Nice to see Hugh heroically fighting to stop America from helping the Allies!

'Chic Carter, Ace Reporter' (by Vernon Henkel): It's the old 'cursed jewel' routine, with a wealthy man being threatened to return the Star of Egypt before he is murdered. Chic investigates, and the culprit ends up being the very first person that is suspicious. This is as straightforward and boring as this type of story gets.

'Invisible Justice' (by Art Pinajian): The Invisible Hood goes up against a guy who is using his voodoo powers to hypnotise factory workers and make them cause fatal accidents. I think this is the first time we see a mastermind who makes his thugs dress in some kind of bizarre themed uniform. In this case it's medieval armour, as the crooks are all hiding out in an old castle. This is probably the best installment of this strip so far, as the Invisible Hood is actually captured and must work for his victory. It's still crippled by having an invisible protagonist, though.

'Flash Fulton' (by Paul Gustavson): Flash goes to the Amazon Jungle to rescue a white man from the natives. This one never gets past the usual cliches.

'The Winged Emeralds' (by Robert M. Hyatt): Some treasure hunters go to South America, where they use balloons to steal some sacred emeralds from a mine. I've reread this thing, and I still can't figure out how they did it.

'John Law, Scientective' (by Harry Francis Campbell): In this story, John Law finally works out the identity of the Avenger who has been targeting wealthy businessmen. Despite his one leap of logic (his belief that the Avenger is actually one of the people on the Avenger's hit list), his plan is bloody ingenious. He calls each of the thirteen businessmen and tells them he has a new phone number. Each number he gives out is unique. He then has a phony newspaper printed in which he taunts the Avenger, and when the Avenger calls him on one of the phone numbers he knows exactly who it is. John Law, truly you are the greatest scientective of them all!

'Wings Wendall of the Military Intelligence' (by Vernon Henkel): Wings Wendall goes up against a dirigible that is bombing strategic American sites. He shoots it down with incendiary bullets, in a story that defines the word mediocre.

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.

November 1939: Marvel Mystery Comics #3

'The Human Torch' (by Carl Burgos): The Torch has to stop agents from Mars from stealing the formula for a new type of TNT. But when he discovers that the Martians need the explosive to save their planet, he lets them take it. Like most Marvel stories this is dynamic and action-packed, and it also has a very lengthy chase sequence in the middle. But the Torch has become a fairly bland character. He was much more interesting as a hunted outcast than a respected hero.

'The Angel' (by Paul Gustavson): The Angel must rescue a girl from a voodoo cult. The Angel is also a pretty bland character, but he has the advantage of being a pure human wrecking machine. Sometimes in my comics I just want to see a guy punch some people who deserve it, and the Angel does a lot of that here. He also has a pretty good costume by the standards of the time.

'Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner' (by Bill Everett): With Namor still lurking in the New York harbour, the police decide to lure him into a trap with a pretty girl. Enter lady cop Betty Dean, who actually succeeds in getting Namor's attention. But while he is dragging her out to sea, he stumbles across a naval battle between the US and Germany, and just starts wrecking the German fleet. Betty tries to convince Namor to help the Allies on a more permanent basis, and we'll see his answer next issue.

Namor is still an interesting guy, and his motivations haven't changed much in the last 70 years; he's still a sucker for a pretty girl. Even so, I hope this isn't the last we've seen of him as a villain, because I was hoping for a lot more stories of Namor vs. humanity.

'The Masked Raider' (by Al Anders): A gang of crooks tries to scare off some ranchers whose land has valuable gold and oil deposits. The Masked Raider stops them in exactly the sort of story I was sick of back in December, when I started this project.

'American Ace' (by Paul J. Lauretta): Perry Wade rescues a woman during a bombing raid, then flies her to her sister and grandfather's farm. When he tries to leave himself, he is shot down and badly hurt, and must be nursed back to health.  At times this feels like it wants to be a serious war comic, but it's full of fake countries and situations that undercut the tone.  This is the last American Ace story, and I'm going to imagine him a happy ending where he marries the woman he rescued and has a peaceful life on the farm.  You know, once the whole World War 2 thing blows over.

'Siegfried Suicide' (by David C. Cooke): The only American soldier in a company single-handedly takes out a bunker, allowing his allies to win an important ally. The end quite sickeningly states that he's better than all of the others, because he's American. Dreadful.

'Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' (by Ben Thompson): Ka-Zar stops a white hunter from capturing animals, and fights off a vengeful leopard. It's not particularly interesting.  There's some foreshadowing for the return of the guy who killed Ka-Zar's parents, but he's another generic white hunter type, so it's not like the story will be significantly different.

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.