July 1940: Adventure Comics #53

Cover by Bernard Baily

'The Hour-Man' (by Bernard Baily): The Hour-Man takes on a crooked factory owner who is working  children to death. This story introduces the Minute-Men of America, a bunch of kids spread all over the nation who are amateur radio enthusiasts. I suppose this knocks out two fads at once, with kid sidekicks and a fan club, but neither of these are things I am a fan of.

The only other notable thing about this story is that Rex Tyler is utterly reprehensible. With other heroes, the cowardice of their civilian identity is an act. But Tyler is a genuine coward. It could work in a modern context, but here he comes across as thoroughly unlikeable.

'Mark Lansing of Mishikawm' (by Howard Purcell): Mark Lansing is a jungle explorer who, along with his friends, gets caught up in the world-conquering plot of subterranean warlord Vas Onga. They defeat Onga, but are trapped underground, and there only means of escape is to travel to the alien planet of Mishikawm. I'm guessing that this will be a 'Flash Gordon' type set-up, which hasn't been the greatest genre in comic books thus far. Certainly the opening chapter didn't inspire me with much confidence.

In other stories:

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski) tackles Fang Gow with the aid of the villain's daughter. In 'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf) Steve Carson investigates the sabotage of a train carrying radium. 'Cotton Carver' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti) battles a temple full of warrior-priestesses. 'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Gardner Fox and Jeck Lehti) accidentally stows away on a ship. 'Socko Strong' (by Albert and Joseph Sulman) continues fighting the invisible villain known as the Great I.  And 'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Creig Flessel) takes on some loan sharks.

June 1940: Adventure Comics #52

Cover by Bernard Baily

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Creig Flessel): A thug steals a glove from the home of Dian Belmont, the Sandman's partner, and leaves an amber apple behind. It turns out to be a plot to frame Dian for a gold robbery. The oddness of the original theft sets the mystery up well, but I don't think it really works in the end. No adequate explanation is ever given for the amber apple.

'Rusty and His Pals' (possibly by Bill Finger): Rusty and his pals have been captured by tribesmen, along with the villainous Unholy Three. The tribal chief sets a gorilla on them, and the Unholy Three are all killed. Rusty and his pals escape through the use of ventriloquism (which the writer pulls out of his arse, I might add), and return to American laden with gold. This all feels very cursory, and has all the trappings of a story wrapped up prematurely because the series has been cancelled.  Which, I have just discovered, is exactly the case.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Fang Gow is using a "spoilator ray" to rot all the food rations in Paris, causing the people to grow restless. Barry and Le Grand stop him, Fang Gow escapes, and it's just another average story for this strip.

'The Red Metal' (by Gardner Fox): In the first part of this prose story, explorer Terry Mallory was captured by African natives while searching for a lost city. In this part, Terry and another captive speak through a religious idol and give orders that allow them to escape. It's specifically set up for a sequel, but it certainly doesn't merit one.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): Steve must rescue a friend's daughter who has been kidnapped by an island tribe. Not only does this story feature Chang, Steve's comedy sidekick and the most egregiously racist Chinese caricature I've ever seen, it has some unflattering portrayals of the natives, and it also has Steve blacking up as a disguise. There's nothing else in the story that can offset that kind of thing.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): Steve Carson captures a smuggler who is bringing drugs into the US by train. Nothing to see here.

'Cotton Carver and the Flying Men' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti): The wolf woman Lupa is kidnapped by the winged Slooees, and taken to their city in the sky. Which beggars the question: if Cotton is having all of his adventures underground, how is there a sky at all? There's also a ton of sexual tension between Cotton and Lupa ("you're wonderful" being Golden Age speak for "let's fuck"), but I thought he was with Princess Deela? He only leaves her behind for a few panels before he's flirting with someone else.

'Socko Strong' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko and Jerry stumble across the lab of the Great I, a mad scientist with the power to turn invisible. Most of the story is a fight scene with the Great I attacking Socko and Socko trying to hit him. I quite enjoyed the cat and mouse game. The story ends with the Great I victorious, and Socko about to be blown up by a bomb.

'Anchors Aweigh' (by Bart Tumey): Don and Red are captured by gun runners, and proceed to make trouble until the navy catches up with them. The bad guys are so stupid for letting them run free that they deserve everything they get.  This is the final appearance of 'Anchors Aweigh', which has been chugging along since Adventure Comics #28.  It's never been great, but it's also never been terrible that I can recall.

'Presenting... Tick-Tock Tyler (The Man of the Hour) as the Hourman' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): Someone is impersonating the Hour-Man and committing crimes. The real Hour-Man investigates, and discovers that the culprit is his new lab assistant, under hypnosis by the villainous Dr. Clegg. This Clegg guy is presented as a returning foe, but I'll be buggered if I remember him.

May 1940: All-Star Comics #1

Cover by Creig Flessel, Harry Lampert, Jon L. Blummer and Bernard Baily

DC's new quarterly title is a compilation of their most popular strips from More Fun Comics, Adventure Comics, All-American Comics and Flash Comics. Nothing is included from Action Comics or Detective Comics, because the most popular strips from those (Superman and Batman) already have their own quarterly books. So here we get Hawkman, Sandman, Ultra-Man, Flash, Hour-Man, the Spectre, Red White and Blue, and uh... Biff Bronson. I expect that Ultra-Man will be replaced with Green Lantern pretty shortly. Biff Bronson is also an odd choice; I would have thought that Doctor Fate was much more suitable.

'Hawkman' (by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff): Hawkman is in Wales, where he stumbles across a plot in which a wicked uncle tries to gain the inheritance of his niece and nephew. At least this villain tackles the old tropes in style: he has the nephew ensconced in his castle, where he tortures him, and he's also allied with a witch who can create voodoo zombies. The set-up is all there for some crazy super-hero action. What we get isn't bad, it just zips through everything a little too quickly. Whenever Hawkman is menaced it's for a single panel, and then he's soaring off to the next challenge. Some build-up and resolution to these things would have been great.

I'd also like to illustrate just why a super-hero's civilian job is important to the stories. With someone like Superman, who works as a reporter, there's a built-in excuse for him to know about the latest crimes. Now take Hawkman, who is an antique weapons dealer. Yes, it's flavourful and explains his arsenal of ancient weaponry, but it doesn't help him get involved in stories. In this one he's just flying around Wales for no reason, and stumbles across a girl in trouble.

Also, incest alert!

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Chad Grothkopf): The Sandman tackles a pair of jewel thieves who are twins. The only notable thing about the story is that these twins give the Sandman a bigger challenge than just about anybody ever has. He gets shot in the shoulder, disarmed of his gas gun, and pistol-whipped, which is more punishment than some Golden Age heroes take in their entire careers.

'Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man' (by Sheldon Mayer and Jon L. Blummer): Now hold on a second. I was under the impression that Gary Concord was basically the supreme leader of the USA, but in this story there's a president. Not only that, but Gary's father had once secured world peace, and Gary himself was dedicated to that ideal as well. But when war breaks out in Europe between Toutonia and Balkania, he says it's not America's problem. Despite these inconsistencies, this is a cracking story. After the war breaks out, things get tough in America, and riots break out. Gary wants to stop the war in Europe, but he's kept busy keeping the peace at home. It all turns out to be the work of a foreign ambassador who is playing both sides in order to get a hold of everybody's uranium mines. The stakes are high, the action is tense, and it's great seeing the hero completely out of his depth.

'The Flash, the Fastest Man Alive' (by Gardner Fox and Everett E. Hibbard): The Flash investigates a murder, and manages to solve it before the policeman present can return to the station to report the crime. In the process, the Flash harasses the police chief so badly that he is deputised, and I assume that he'll be a police officer in future stories. This is a lot of fun, with the Flash zipping from place to place and doing his investigations in a split second before moving on. I wish modern Flash comics could hit as frenetic a pace as this story.

'The Spectre' (by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily): The Spectre is genuinely like nothing else around at the time. In this story he goes up against an arsonist, who ends up being part of an insurance scam. But in his initial investigation, after finding a scrap of cloth in a burned out warehouse, he goes to the afterlife to question the spirit who had once wore the cloth. It's cosmic on a scale that no other Golden Age hero can match. In the end, when he confronts the businessman responsible, he shows him the faces of all those who died in the fires, which causes the businessman to drop dead. And there's no doubt that the Spectre kills him on purpose. This is great stuff.

'Biff Bronson' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Biff takes on a foreign agent with a photographic memory, who is using it to memorise secret plans. "This is getting tedious!" says Biff in one panel, and I can't help but to agree.

'Exile to Jupiter' (by Evelyn Gaines): Earth has been conquered by natives of Mercury. Earthman Dik's girlfriend has been sent to the penal colony on Jupiter, so Dik steals a spaceship, frees the slaves on Jupiter, leads them in a revolt that kills every Mercurian on the planet, then retakes the Earth and kills the Mercurian tyrant. All in two pages. Needless to say, this is terribly underdeveloped. Gaines has plotted a novel and written a synopsis.

'Presenting Tick-Tock Tyler, the Man of the Hour, as the Hour-Man' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): Hour-Man goes up against an arsonist and real estate agent who wants the deed to a house. It's terribly boring.

'Red, White and Blue' (by Jerry Siegel and William Smith): Red, Whitey and BlooeyBlooey. I'm not sure if it's bad storytelling, or an attempt to build mystery around an ongoing enemy.  I favour the former.

May 1940: New York World's Fair Comics 1940

Cover by Jack Burnley

Also, it's the first ever published image of Superman, Batman and Robin together.

'Superman' (by Jerry Siegel and Jack Burnley): Clark and Lois are sent to do a story on the World's Fair, and stumble upon a jewel thief who is trying to steal a priceless emerald. This couldn't be more straightforward, but it is executed quite well. I don't know who Jack Burnley is, but he does a great Shuster impressions.  I'd happily see him on some more strips.  But in the end it's still another jewel thief story. All the solid writing and good art in the world can't get me excited about it.

'Red, White and Blue' (by Jerry Siegel and Harry Lampert): It seems as though Siegel has limited patience for the World's Fair gimmick, because here it's restricted to a mention as Red's current vacation spot. From there the story kicks off, with a meat producer poisoning the army's current meat supply so that they will get their contract back. Red, Whitey and Blooey stop them with the usual hijinks and banter. It's light and amusing as this strip always is when at its best.

'Hanko the Cowhand at the World's Fair' (by Creig Flessel): Hanko and Daisy tour the various exhibits, and Hanko gets into situations because he is a dumb hick from the country. It's a series of scenes and gags strung together rather than a story, and none of them really work.

'Slam Bradley' (by Jerry Siegel and Howard Sherman): Slam and Shorty investigate the kidnapping of a foreign princess, with some lip service paid to the fair. At this point I am really missing Shuster on this strip. Sherman does okay, but is inferior to Shuster in every respect, and the strip can't help but suffer for it. I get the feeling that I've seen the best Slam Bradley has to offer, and that it's all downhill from here.

'Zatara the Master Magician at the World's Fair' (by Gardner Fox and Joseph Sulman): Zatara puts on his own exhibit at the fair, and in the process nabs a pickpocket, some armed robbers and a jewel thief. Then he randomly takes his audience on a trip to Mars and flies them through the centre of the sun, only to reveal that it was all an illusion. The crazy, stream-of-conscious randomness fits well with the ending, but still. "It was all a dream"? That's never good.  And I'm wondering what the deal is with the creative team. Where's Fred Guardineer? It seems wrong that he's not involved here.

'The Hour-Man at the World's Fair' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): Rex Taylor is sent to run an exhibit for his chemical company, and ends up stopping some crooks from ransacking a rich guy's house while he's out hunting.  The most notable scene is when the Hourman releases the head crook to be hunted down by his intended victim, which at least has a bit of black humour to it. The rest is pretty dull.

'At the World's Fair with Jim and Jane' (by Creig Flessel): Two kids and their uncle tour the fair and react very enthusiastically to things like a film about the history of transportation. Were people really so much easier to entertain?  Anyway, I thought that this was familiar, and it turns out to be a reprint from the 1939 issue of this comic.

'The Sandman Goes to the World Fair' (by Gardner Fox and Chad Grothkopf): The Sandman must rescue his girlfriend/sidekick Dian Belmont from crooks who have kidnapped her as revenge on her father, the DA. If you want layers, don't come looking at this story. It does the job, I guess, but it's dreadfully dull, despite some uncharacteristic bursts of enthusiasm from the Sandman.

'Johnny Thunderbolt' (by John B. Wentworth and Stan Aschmeier): Johnny goes to the fair and is robbed by a pickpocket; hijinks ensue. Johnny's powers get overhauled a little in this story. Now when he says the magic words, his wishes are actually enforced by thunderbolts, and people who don't do what he says get zapped. It's going to take some getting used to.

'Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): Batman and Robin go to the World's Fair, where they must tackle a mad scientist on a crime spree with a ray that can disintegrate metal.  When Kane is firing his stories have a real energy, and that's the case here. Batman rushes from crisis to crisis with a smile, and this is easily the most fun story in the whole comic.

May 1940: Adventure Comics #51

 Cover by Creig Flessel or Chad Grothkopf

'Presenting Tick-Tock Tyler, the Man of the Hour, as the Hour-Man...' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): A mad scientist uses his power to animate wax dummies to bring some notorious gangsters back to life. The Hour-Man must stop them, which he does by melting them with acid. The story's premise is just goofy enough to work, but it falls down at the end when Hour-Man doesn't capture the mad scientist. He's acting like the trouble is finished, but that guy is out there and could quite easily continue his plan. It's an unsatisfying conclusion.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Fang Gow has been captured and is scheduled for execution. Barry seems to have forgotten all the times that Fang Gow tried to murder him, because he seems regretful at the thought of his death. He needn't have worried, because a page or so later Fang Gow has escaped, and is using a thought projection machine to send messages to the Nazis. Barry stops him and blows up his machine, but the old geezer escapes again. His continued survival is getting absurd at this point, but every ridiculous escape just endears him to me even more.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): The pirate known as Singapore Sally plans to steal some pearls from a recently sunken ship. Steve's plan to stop her is to waylay Sally's Chinese cook and have his sidekick Chang impersonate him. Which should work out fine, you see, because all Chinese people look alike. This is actually a relatively well put together action story, but there's a lot of stuff in here (i.e. Chang) that could get people riled up.

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Creig Flessel): The Sandman investigates the theft of some emeralds, only to find out that the crooks hid it in the home of Wesley Dodds, the Sandman himself. The Sandman steals the emeralds from himself and leaves his calling card, but later the prime suspect for the theft turns up dead in Dodds' home, and the police believe the Sandman did it. I was getting terribly into it at this point, but the rest of the story falls completely flat. The Sandman tracks down the real thieves, gasses them, and runs away as the police arrive. There was a lot of potential in the set-up, but in typical Gardner Fox style it fizzles out.

'Socko Strong' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Connolly, a crook posing as the legitimate head of a trucking company, is running a racket that involves covering the warning beacon on a sharp corner so that trucks going around it will crash, and he can steal their goods. Socko figures out that Connolly is the culprit, because he finds a cigar with Connolly's name on it. While making his getaway, Connolly crashes and dies because the beacon was still covered. It's a mediocre story saved at the end by a nice ironic ending.

'The Red Metal' (by Gardner Fox): Terry Mallory searches for a lost comrade and a hidden city in Africa, only to be captured by strange white savages. To be continued! It's an adequate set-up.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): A political radical named Robbel is stirring up "Nastonian" sympathisers. Steve Carson gets him convicted for tax evasion, but still has to beat the hell out of him before bringing him in. I didn't enjoy this one, and haven't really enjoyed this strip in a long time. In the very early days it was my favourite, but that seems like a long time ago now.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): A pirate crew steals a submarine, which is quickly dispatched, forcing the pirates to flee to a nearby island. Don and Red go after them, are captured, but then everything gets sorted out by a convenient hurricane. At least I think it's Red; I got confused, because there are several panels where he is drawn to look like a woman. Anyway, this story doesn't work. I guess you could interpret the hurricane as God/nature sorting out the sinners from the good guys, but it just comes out of nowhere. You need more set-up for this kind of thing to work.

'Rusty and His Pals' (possibly by Bill Finger): Rusty and his pals race the villainous Unholy Three to the hidden treasure, only for natives to pop up and capture everyone. There's certainly no shortage of incident, it's just that those incidents are dead boring.

'Cotton Carver at Grips With the Wolf Men' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti): In yet another strange land, Cotton and his friends defend some priests from the Wolf Men of Morra and their queen, Lupa. Cotton captures Lupa, but must defend her from a bloodthirsty mob, until she summons... something. This is an average adventure story, and it ends with one of my least favourite types of cliffhanger: the characters react in awe to something the reader can't see. Sure Gardner, that's bound to get me back next month.

April 1940: Adventure Comics #50

Cover by Bernard Baily

Hey look, Adventure Comics has reached a milestone!  This being the Golden Age, there is no special celebration.  It's just another normal issue.  But for me, a child of 90s comics, there's no escaping the significance of a nice round number.  And this time, unlike with More Fun Comics before it, I can legitimately say that I have read them all.

'Tick-Tock Tyler the Hour-Man' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): The Hour-Man gets involved in my favourite type of story: a horse-racing tale with crooked gamblers! Not only do I have this nonsense to deal with, but the Hour-Man, in his civilian identity as Rex Tyler, is one of the most insipid characters of the Golden Age. Not only does he allow the thugs to beat the hell out of him and put him in hospital, but he doesn't lift a finger to help a horse trainer either. I know he's protecting his secret identity, but there are limits.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Barry and Inspector Le Grand are tasked with escorting some American bombers into France, while Fang Gow plots to steal them. It's all very routine, though I was surprised to see that Fang Gow is captured at the end, and scheduled for execution.

It only occurred to me just now, but for a strip set in France in 1940 there is absolutely no mention of the war. The main villain here is Chinese, which seems like an anachronism to me given the country's situation at the time.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): Steve investigates a series of mysterious plane crashes, and discovers that they're the work of a crazed inventor using a newly created hot air ray. Steve stops him from selling the plans to a foreign nation in a mediocre story.

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Creig Flessel): This starts intriguingly, when the Sandman witnesses a hit-and-run accident, only to discover that both parties were already dead beforehand. It's the work of two crooks who are out of jail and going after the judge and jury who put them away. While all this is going on there's a lot of stuff about the Sandman being a wanted man. After he stops the crooks he's offered a pardon if he reveals his secret identity, but he refuses. It's nice to see one of the staple elements of the genre being used well, and it adds some interest to an otherwise average tale.

'Socko Strong' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko must convince a gifted violinist that he shouldn't become a boxer just to make a quick buck. Which he does by punching the hell out of him. Thankfully it all ends quite sweetly when Socko organises for the kid to play a concert at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps I'm going soft, but I rather liked it.

'Dead Reckoning' (by Tex Horton): In this prose story a US Marshall investigates the source of guns being smuggled to the Indians, and discovers that the local undertaker (and mayor) is transporting the guns in coffins. This is short and to the point, and gets the job done adequately enough.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): Steve must stop a foreign spy from uniting the native tribes on a South Seas island and attacking the US military base situated there. He does this by tricking the tribes into fighting each other again, but it's okay. Everything is fine as long as white people aren't being killed.

'The Adventures of Rusty and His Pals' (by Bob Kane): Rusty and his pals sail for Malay in search of a hidden treasure, but the guide that they hire is also after the treasure for his temple. I wasn't engaged by this at all, but it's just set-up.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): In the Philippines, Don has a fever that drives him crazy. He rides wildly away and wakes up in a pit full of political prisoners. He finds a map to an escape route, but one of the prisoners knocks him out and escapes. Red comes along and rescues Don, and the story ends, with the betraying prisoner presumably having achieved his goal. It's all very haphazard and unsatisfying.

'Cotton Carver in the City of Glass' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti): The last issue ended with Cotton and company falling down a crevasse. Here they arrive in a strange land occupied by the descendants of the lost colony of Roanoke, where the king takes a liking to Princess Deela. This is average stuff, made interesting only by Cotton's declaration that the underground kingdom of Barlunda is now the place he thinks of as home.

March 1940: Adventure Comics #49

Cover by Sheldon Moldoff

'Tick-Tock Tyler the Hour-Man' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): At first glance this is a reasonably solid story of Hour-Man rescuing a kidnapped scientist, but closer scrutiny reveals that is has all sorts of holes. The most egregious is that the Hour-Man knows the kidnappers are in the hills, without anything alerting him to that fact. There's also a scene where he finds some cold pills, supposedly a clue dropped by the scientist, but that never ties back into anything. The crooks want the scientist to create a "formula", but we never learn what it's supposed to do. Luckily there's a scene where Hour-Man throws a bear off a cliff to distract me from the poor story-telling.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): This one starts promisingly, as Barry hatches a plan to entice Fang Gow to work for France as a means to have him killed. That plan really amounts to nothing, and the story becomes about Fang Gow's attempt to kill Barry with a bomb, and Barry tracking Fang Gow to his lair. It's a shame that an interesting idea was thrown away at the start of such a mediocre story.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): A wealthy businessman is being investigated for tax evasion, and a "criminologist" offers to help him out by murdering the former employee who has all of the info on his shady dealings. I was intrigued by this criminologist, and his claims to have studied crime so much that he knew how to outsmart the FBI. This being a Jerry Siegel story, the FBI can't be outsmarted, and track him down with little trouble. It's not like he was even particularly clever in his plan. They guy didn't even stop to check that his murder victim was dead!

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Chad Grothkopf): The Sandman must rescue a doctor who has been kidnapped for his cure for the common cold. This story is decent enough, but I can't help feeling that the premise is small potatoes. Sure, such a cure really would be worth a ton of money, but it's hardly the remedy for cancer, is it?

'Socko Strong' (by Albert Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko helps track down a financier who is wanted for embezzlement. The financier disguises himself by shaving off his beard, and the whole story reads like an excuse to build up to the "close shave" pun in the final panel.

'A Sleepy Capture' (by Frank Thomas): In this prose story, a lion escapes from the circus, and a man saves the local orphanage by knocking it out with chloroform. The sheer dramatic absurdity of a lion loose in an orphanage amuses me, so I rather liked this one.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): In India, Steve Conrad protects some plantation owners from a native tribe. To be honest, it wouldn't matter how good this strip is otherwise, because Steve's sidekick Chang is just shockingly racist in every single panel. It's also pretty hard to summon up a lot of sympathy for a bunch of upper-crust English plantation owners.

'Rusty and His Pals' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): Rusty and his friends find a treasure map, are told the story of the sacred Idol of Takal, and decide to set off in a ship to find it. It's a solid set-up that gives us at least three groups going after the treasure, and you can never have too many sides in a treasure hunt story.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): Don and Red track down a spy, who captures them and forces them to run through a snake pit. The villain does have an appealing sadistic streak, but the story isn't otherwise remarkable.

'Cotton Carver at the Polar Zone' (by Gardner Fox and Jack Lehti): Last issue, Cotton and Deela reached the surface. In this story they are menaced by Red Mike and his band of Arctic traders. It's disappointingly banal; I really was hoping for something more interesting from Cotton's return home.

February 1940: Adventure Comics #48

Cover by Bernard Baily

'Tick-Tock Tyler the Hour-Man' (by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily): Well, this one certainly took me unawares. This is the first appearance of Rex Tyler, aka the Hour-Man. He is a chemist who has invented a wonder drug called Miraclo, which gives him superhuman speed and strength for one hour. The story here is pretty pedestrian, as the Hour-Man must stop a gang of jewel thieves and also try to help one of them go straight and return to his family. The limited duration of Hour-Man's powers adds a little bit of extra tension as the clock counts down, but it's not enough to make such an average plot interesting.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Jean LeGrand has been hypnotised and framed as a spy, and that can mean only one thing: Fang Gow has returned from the dead! Again! At this point Fang Gow has probably cheated death more than any other villain around. Barry tracks him down and frees Jean from his mental hold, but Fang Gow escapes. This is solid stuff, and Ed Winiarski probably does his best work on this strip.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Chad Grothkopf): Steve Carson infiltrates a "crime school", where crooks are taught how to kill people, crack safes, and commit other nefarious deeds. In a neat twist on the FBI set-up, the crooks have complete finger-print files on all law-enforcement officers, which they use to expose Carson. Then they hook him up to a Suicide Machine, clamping his arms in place so that he is pointing a gun at his own head that is set to go off. One of the crooks ends up saving Steve because he's annoyed at getting in trouble for not doing his homework. This is truly insane stuff. I'm a little disappointed that Shuster didn't draw it, though, because he's a master of this kind of bonkers, tongue-in-cheek material.

'The Sandman' (by Gardner Fox and Ogden Whitney): This is the first strip to feature both the Sandman and his new partner, the Lady in Evening Clothes (aka Dian Belmont). Dian's father is threatened by racketeers, and there are three suspects. All three end up being in on it in a clever twist. This strip is taking a slightly lighter tone, and I quite like it.

'Dead Man's Chest' (by Clem Gordon): Two sailors find a dead body, and figure out that the culprit is a millionaire sportsman who is obsessed with a jade idol of the weather god Hurican. It all fits together well enough, but without ever being enjoyable.

'Socko Strong' (by Al Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko's film rival Monte Swift is still trying to kill him, but Socko turns the tables. Swift's murder attempts are a bit more sedate after last issue's house full of death-traps, and the story is poorer for it.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): While on a cruise, Steve sees the notorious jewel thief Singapore Sal, and suspects that she's up to her old tricks. A woman's jewels are later stolen, but it turns out to be a trick to claim the insurance, rather than a plot by Sal. This is a decent twist on the usual formula, even if it setting up one over-used cliche only to serve into another. It's too bad that Chang's speech patterns are the most egregiously racist I've seen so far.

'Rusty and His Pals' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): Continuing from last issue, Rusty and his pals, along with their new friend Angus, explore the dead old man's house for treasure. A dwarf and a man named Zoroff are looking for it too, and the strip ends when Rusty finds the old man's diary and a secret note. I'm a sucker for kids hunting for lost treasure (a legacy of "The Goonies", I suspect) so I enjoyed this. I'm still not sure why the swords here are being referred to as spears, though.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): Don Kerry goes undercover as criminal Joe Madsen to catch a dope smuggler. I was amused at the constant hounding and attention Don gets, from telegrams congratulating him on his release from jail, to a visit from Madsen's wife. But other than that this is average stuff.

'Cotton Carver and the Earth Passage' (by Gardner Fox and Ogden Whitney): Carver and Deela crash land in a strange valley, where they are menaced by Ape-Men. Eventually they escape, and climb a volcano until they reach the surface world. This is an interesting direction to take the strip, as Carver has been stranded underground for a long time now. The next installment promises to be an interesting diversion from the norm.

January 1940: Adventure Comics #47, Flash Comics #3

Cover by Creig Flessel

'The Sandman and The Lady in Evening Clothes' (by Gardner Fox and Ogden Whitney): The Sandman teams up with Diana Ware, aka "The Lady in Evening Clothes", an expert safe-cracker who is searching for her parents. Together they solve the murder of banker Anson Port, and also discover that the D.A. is her father. This is solid stuff, and Diana Ware is a strong addition to the Sandman's supporting cast.

Trivia Time! Did you ever want to know where Wesley Dodd's money comes from? This story reveals that he's a steel magnate. File that one away, minutiae buffs!

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Barry is entrusted with the transport of important papers, but a spy disguised as Inspector Legrand lures him into a trap. Barry escapes and deals with the crooks in the usual display of Golden Age violence. This one could have been good if they'd played out the Legrand impersonation a little more, but as it is it's fairly bland.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and possibly Mart Bailey): Steve Carson goes up against "subversive elements" who are trying to assassinate the Commissioner of National Functions. The art on this story is very awkward and amateurish, and the absurdly convoluted method used in the assassination attempt isn't helping things either.  The site I usually consult for credits (http://www.comics.org/) suggests Mart Bailey as a possible artist for this strip, but he's usually much better than this, and his signature is nowhere to be found.  I'm wondering if Siegel drew this himself.  It certainly doesn't look like the work of a professional artist.

'Socko Strong' (by Al Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Socko is starring in a movie, and his jealous co-star Monte Swift tries to arrange his death at every opportunity. It ends with Socko trapped in a dungeon, up to his neck in rising water. (Yes, the movie director lives in a replica medieval castle. With working deathtraps.) This is absurd yet entertaining.

'The Walking Ghost' (by Rex Vance): In this prose story a madman is struck by lightning and believed dead, only to revive and go on a crime spree. Either I have read this before, or it's very similar to a story from the early days of DC.

'Captain Desmo' (by Ed Winiarski): Continued from last issue, Desmo and Gabby rescue the prisoners of the villainous Vasili Gerke, and lead them in an attack on Gerke's forces. This is pretty uninspiring, and ends with the note that the natives who served Vasili will be tried by the British government. Let's hear it for colonialism!  It looks as though the next appearance of this strip will be in More Fun Comics #53, and I'm hoping that the switch to a different comic is a last-ditch effort to save this before it gets cancelled.  I'd love not to have to read it any more.

'Professor Doolittle' (by Bob Kane): This mostly silent comedy strip about an absent-minded professor makes its last appearance in this comic.  Kane made his start with humour strips, and this one wasn't bad.  Assuming he did it himself, it showed that he had an ability to tell stories with the art alone.

'Steve Conrad, Adventurer' (by Jack Lehti): Steve Conrad is back after a long absence (since New Adventure Comics #25), replacing 'Skip Schuyler'. In this story he goes up against a dope ring that is also kidnapping girls. The plot is okay, but Steve's Chinese manservant has to be seen to be believed.

He's like that the whole way through. The only other Chinese characters in this story are criminals or dope smokers, so it's not like they can balance things out.

'Rusty and His Pals' (by Bob Kane): Rusty and his pals are still in the old mansion, where the owner is dying and a mysterious someone is knocking on the door. Said door-knocker turns out to be a midget with a gun, but it's never really explained what he wants or why he runs away so suddenly. The dying old man also sends Rusty to find his nephew, who also ends up being a midget, albeit a Scottish one. This strip is setting up a lot of mysteries, but with no sense that they relate to each other at all. This is unfocused and unsatisfying.

'Anchors Aweigh!' (by Bart Tumey): Don is in Jamaica investigating a freighter that sank with a shipment of gold. It turns out that the captain is responsible, and has stolen the gold for himself. So far, so mediocre, but the story then takes a sudden swerve into voodoo territory when the captain tries to get a witch doctor to give Don drugs that will leave him a mindless zombie. That wraps up a little too neatly as well, but it did provide a glimmer of interest, as well as a somewhat ironic end for the villain.

'Cotton Carver and the First Ones' (by Gardner Fox and Ogden Whitney): Cotton Carver rescues Deela from the First Ones, who are pretty much just normal dudes. This strip has none of the intoxicating weirdness or charm that it usually presents.

Cover by Sheldon Moldoff

'The Flash' (by Gardner Fox and Everett E. Hibbard): Joan's father has been framed by a newspaper with foreign interests that wants his plans for a new energy source. The Flash clears his name by running around a lot and going undercover. The plot of this story is mediocre at best, but Fox understands that a story about a man with super-speed needs to be pacy.  And once again he's using non-powered folks to good effect, shwing their stunned reactions to the Flash to make him seem more impressive.  I was also surprised that everybody knows that Jay Garrick is the Flash already.  He doesn't wear a mask, so I guess it makes sense.  And I suppose that at this point it's too early for the common tropes of the super-hero genre to be in place.  The strip also has a new artist in Everett Hibbard, who doesn't have the same fluidity of style that previous artist Harry Lampert gave the strip.

'Cliff Cornwall, Special Agent' (by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff): A female spy tries to seduce Cliff to obtain plans for a new type of ship, but Cliff tricks her and gives her plans that sabotage her country's whole fleet. It was obvious where this story was going from about panel two.

'The Hawk-Man' (by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville): Hawk-Man goes up against Una Cathay, a madwoman who has kidnapped a number of scientists so that she can learn the secret of eternal life. The scientists all seemed to die before Una took them, and there's a lot of talk about keeping their hearts and brains alive with chemicals, but then it turns out that they were never really dead in the first place.  The details here never quite add up.

'Johnny Thunderbolt' (by John B. Wentworth and Stan Aschmeier): Johnny is scheduled to fight the world heavyweight champion, Gunpowder Glantz. This story sets up a novel situation, in which Glantz wants to throw the match to clean up on betting, and Johnny is asked to throw the match so that he can marry his girlfriend. Johnny's power backfires on him and he wins the match, setting up further hijinks. This was just enough of a twist on the formula to work.

'Rod Rian of the Sky Police' (by Paul H. Jepsen): Rod Rian is captured by the evil Mephisians, and sent to the Land of the Living Dead, where he is menaced by a strange beast. This feels very old-fashioned, more like the kinds of strips I was reading from 1935, with cramped art and an over-reliance on captions. It's very stilted and stiff compared to everything else in this comic.

'King Standish' (by Gardner Fox and William Smith): King Standish is a crime-fighter who uses lots of disguises. In this story he goes up against a dope peddler called Boss Barton. This story rises above its pedestrian plot by starting from the perspective of Barton's secretary, who has no idea who King is, and no idea that her boss is crooked. It works well to give King a greater sense of mystery, even though we know pretty much everything we need to know about him by the end. The art is clean and attractive as well, with some good storytelling.

'Adventure in a Time Warp' (by Gardner Fox): Two astronauts are caught in a time warp and return to Earth 1,000 years after they left. They find the remnants of humanity in the city of "Kikago", being menaced by an army of green men from the moon. There's some pretty clever time loop stuff here: the future people know the astronauts will save them, because it's in their history books, and it's in their history books because the astronauts returned to their own time after doing it and told everybody. This is far better than the prose stories usually are.

'The Scarlet Scarab' (by Ed Wheelan): A wealthy banker's lucky scarab is stolen by his daughter, who holds it to ransom for a million dollars. The story goes a long way to set this up as a mystery, and even introduces all five of the banker's servants as potential suspects, but then on the very next page his daughter appears and admits to the crime. Other than that misstep it's not bad, but I did try very hard to memorise those suspects just before they were made irrelevant.

'The Whip' (by John B. Wentworth and George Storm): The Whip takes on crooked businessmen who are paying their workers in coupons instead of money. I'm still having fun with this strip, mostly due to the outrageously over-the-top character of the Whip. Still, I'm not sure why the surprise reveal at the end of this is the Whip's secret identity of Rod Gaynor. That was established two issues ago!

December 1939: Adventure Comics #46, Flash Comics #2, All-American Comics #11, Action Comics #21

Cover by Creig Flessel

'The Sandman Meets With Murder' (by Gardner Fox and Ogden Whitney): The Sandman goes up against the Coin, who is one of his old college buddies who has murdered an artist as part of a counterfeiting scheme. This one is probably a little too convoluted, and the bad guy's plan doesn't make much sense.

'Barry O'Neill' (by Ed Winiarski): Barry is captured by Fang Gow, and Inspector LeGrand stages a rescue attempt. This is action-packed, with shoot-outs, lion wrestling, exploding bridges, and a whole lot of brawling. It's a shame that Winiarski's art is not dynamic enough to convey the excitement.

'Federal Men' (by Jerry Siegel and Mart Bailey): A crooked stock dealer is arrested by Steve Carson and sent to court. He has some thugs stage a fake accident so that the judge runs someone over and thinks he has killed them, but Steve manages to sort the mess out. I give this one points for having the thugs show some creativity, but otherwise it's not great.

'Socko Strong' (by Joseph Sulman): Socko has a boxing match booked with Spike Logan, the world heavyweight champion. There are the usual scenes depicting Logan as a complete dickbag, and a bit of attempted foul play to stop Socko getting to the arena. It does pretty much everything this type of story can do right, but the actual match lacks drama, and Socko's winning punch isn't even shown on panel.

'Unseen Terror' (by Terry Keane): In this prose story, a crazy museum curator develops an obsession with an Egyptian mummy princess, starts writing threatening notes to himself, and sets up an elaborate system to frighten people away. This is pretty bizarre, and doesn't go anywhere. He's just crazy because he's crazy.  And you know, I'm pretty sure that I've read this story before.

'Captain Desmo' (by Ed Winiarski): Desmo and Gabby investigate some missing planes and their gold shipments. They find the culprits, who have a machine that can stall planes, and a dam to release water and wash away all traces of their runway. The story ends with Desmo and Gabby on top of the dam when it opens, about to plunge into a raging torrent. It's a decent enough set-up and cliffhanger, albeit with well worn plot elements.

'Skip Schuyler' (by Tom Hickey): Skip comes to the rescue of a general's niece, who has been kidnapped. Tom Hickey is competent at the very least, and does some good action scenes as Skip fires from his plane on the kidnappers' boat. But his extreme luck in just flying around until he spots something suspicious is pretty lazy plotting.

This is the final appearance of Skip Schuyler, which never really hit its stride in the way Tom Hickey's other strips have.  I'm imagining that he has a distinguished military career, then marries the general's daughter.

'Rusty and His Pals' (by Bob Kane): Rusty, Specs and Tubby take shelter from a storm in an old mansion. The owner of the mansion is paranoid, and thinks a mysterious "They" are out to get him. Sure enough his bodyguard is soon murdered by a dart through the neck, and the old man dies of a heart attack. The boys are left in the mansion alone, and the strip ends with a strange knock at the door. This is alright, and successfully evokes the horror movie atmosphere that it's going for.

'Anchors Aweigh' (by Bart Tumey): While on holiday, Don and Red come across Educated Eddie, a chemist who is being driven from his land by foreign spies. They use his new formula to blow the spies up, and Eddie gets a big pay day from the military. Eddie is a fun character, but the story never really comes together, and it's not clear what the spies were after by driving Eddie from his land.

'Cotton Carver in the Land of Sere' (by Ogden Whitney): Cotton leads the pirates of Barlunda on a raid to the land of Sere, looking for radium. The raid goes sour, and Cotton is the only survivor, but he ends up helping a Serean priestess rescue her lover from prison. Cotton gets a tiny bit of character development here, as he considers marrying the pirate princess Deela, and thinks that he would now hate to return to the surface world. And he's not above busting into another country and killing people for radium, either. Like most of the stories in this serial, there are some good ideas, but they never quite combine into an effective whole.

Cover by Dennis Neville

'The Flash' (by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert): The Flash goes up against Lord Donelin and Goll, two crooks who are terrorising the entertainment industry in order to buy it up cheap. The plot is pretty much nonsense, but this story derives a lot of energy from the Flash and his boundless enthusiasm, as he races from crisis to crisis with a smile, a wink, and just a hint of mischief. It spends a lot of time showing regular people reacting to him as well, which is always a contrast that I like in super-hero fiction.

'Cliff Cornwall, Special Agent' (by Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff): Cliff and Lys take on two spies who are offering the plans to the Panama Canal for sale to the highest bidder. It's a solid enough spy story, but it doesn't feature anything out of the ordinary.

'The Hawk-Man' (by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville): Hawkman and Shiera battle against a guy calling himself Alexander the Great, a scientist with a gravity ray who wants to conquer the world. There's a lovely scene where Alexander invites Hawkman to dinner to politely ask him not to get in his way, but after that it gets into generic super-hero territory.  Even that part is well told, so it's a decent story all round.

'Johnny Thunderbolt' (by John B. Wentworth and Stan Aschmeier): Okay, I've got this figured out now: it's a humour strip, in which Johnny has the power to make anyone do what he says after he says "say you", but doesn't know it. Shenanigans ensue, and Johnny is signed up for a boxing match with the Suicide Kid. He wins by accident ("Say you! Why don't you go fall on your face and count to ten, and we'll call everything square!") and is scheduled to fight the champ. This would be very funny if the narration didn't stop to explain the joke so often.

'Rod Rian of the Sky Police' (by Paul H. Jepsen): In the year 2500 AD, agent Rod Rian investigates some air piracy, only to be kidnapped by devilish aliens to the planet Mephis, where he gets caught up in a war between the Mephisians and the horned Unicors. This is one of those futuristic stories that feels the need to give everything a weird name. Sensotators! Pilotars! Earthons! It's annoying, and the gobs of exposition aren't helping either.

'Warfare in Space' (by Gardner Fox): Continued from last issue, this prose story sees Billy Morton flying a solo space mission to destroy the fleet of Ralph Farnham, the dreaded pirate who killed his father. He does so, by virtue of being the only guy with a weapon that can fire in space. There are some amusing ideas about space in this one, and the battle is written fairly well, but as a story it's just not interesting.

'The Demon Dummy' (by Ed Wheelan): Last issue, Dunstan started talking to his ventriloquist's dummy, which urged him to kill Devlin, the man who sent him to jail. Now Devlin is in prison, and a desperate Dunstan robs a jewelry store so that he can go to jail as well. Dunstan's dummy talks the other crooks into murdering Devlin, and the crazed Dunstan smashes his dummy and becomes miraculously sane. The story ends when the now-sane Dunstan adopts the child of his former love Madge. I don't know what it is with Ed Wheelan, he's either very good or terrible. This is the former.

'The Whip' (by John B. Wentworth and George Storm): The criminal Association of Ranchers hires five thugs to wipe out the Whip, but he turns the tables on them by pretending to be a ghost. All of the usual super-hero tropes are present - a secret identity, a girl who loves the Whip and hates his other identity, a ridiculous costume - but none of it is presented with any real life or originality.

Cover by Jon L. Blummer

'Red, White and Blue' (by Jerry Siegel and William Smith): Red and Doris West take on Mr. Glib, who has the power to turn invisible, and is using it to murder senators and make it look like suicide. Red was being incredibly sexist last issue, and he keeps that up here. This time it's acceptable because Doris's hunch that the senator was murdered pays off. In fact, her leaps of logic in identifying the killer almost make me think that she knows she's a character in a story. It's all quite amusing. It only falls down with the villain, who has no discernible motive. I also can't figure out why his car exploded at the end of the story. Oh, and Blooey and Whitey are sidelined again, which is a shame. Red is easily the most boring of the trio.

'Hop Harrigan' (by Jon L. Blummer): Hop Harrigan and his buddies fly home from the Arctic, but Hop is pissed because Gerry is still hanging around with Maurice the poet. It's all getting a little ridiculous, but the absurdity of the various misunderstandings is enough to keep me interested.

'Wiley of West Point' (by Lieut. Richard Rick): Bob trounces upperclassman Baxter in their boxing match, graduates to a full-fledged cadet, and has a reunion with his girlfriend Betty. Again, while I know that this is not very good at all, I'm kind of absorbed by it.

'Adventures in the Unknown: A Thousand Years a Minute' (by Carl H. Claudy and Stan Aschmeier): Ted and Alan, still trapped in prehistoric times, are beaten up and captured by Ape-Men. Ted has to wrestle one of them, and is about to be killed as the cliffhanger. This strip is always stupid, but in a good way. I don't know why there's an extended interlude about a chocolate bar having melted in Ted's pocket, but it just adds to the lunacy.

'Scribbly' (by Sheldon Mayer): Scribbly is spending New Year's Eve on a farm with his brother, but his lonely mother and the Hunkels end up coming for a visit. This was okay, but I felt like the comedy was a little flat. It spends too much time telling the reader how rowdy and wacky the Hunkels are, then forgets to have them do anything rowdy or wacky.  And to be honest, I'm over the whole "oh hey, aren't those neighbours wacky!" style of comedy anyway.

'Ben Webster' (by Edwin Alger): The whole reform school plot line gets sorted out, and then Ben is off on another adventure, as a guy named Taffy Tate comes asking for help to find Prof. Mattix's brother. It's a transitional story, but Tate is such an ornery character that it made a fun read.

'Death's Playground' (by George Shute): In this prose story (continued from last issue) Jimmy is still undercover in an aircraft factory, helping to find a saboteur. He overhears two guys complaining about being made to take a lie detector test, and afterwards he angrily kicks over an ashtray stand and finds a secret note. I question Jimmy's anger at these guys, who after all are just exercising their right to free speech, and his finding of the note was pure dumb luck. And to top it off, this lightweight story is continuing into a third installment.

'Popsicle Pete' (by Sheldon Mayer): After months of build-up to the kids getting their own radio station, the plot veers off into some nonsense about a crazy aviator who is looking for gold at the end of the rainbow.

'Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man' (by Jon L. Blummer): Stella Tor escapes with a sample of the precious foam, but Gary catches up to her ship and blows it up with DESTROYNAMITE. After that he crash lands in Tor's nation and is captured by her father, who has declared war. Good job Gary. Your Dad spent a lifetime creating world peace, and you've wrecked it within a week. I'm giving this story a high mark, just for the Destroynamite.

Cover by Joe Shuster

'Superman' (by Siegel and Shuster): The Ultra-Humanite returns, and as I predicted he's still in the body of movie starlet Dolores Winters. He uses his feminine wiles to seduce atomic scientist Terry Curtis, then captures him and has him invent a disintegrator ray. When Superman comes to the rescue, the Ultra-Humanite threatens to kill Curtis unless Superman steals some jewels. This leads to several pages of cops trying to stop Superman, which is always fun, but in the end he returns and stops the Ultra-Humanite with Curtis' help. The weirdness of the female Ultra-Humanite and the battle with the police make this a good fun read.

'Pep Morgan' (by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer): In this story Pep is hired as bodyguard to a horse trainer who has refused to throw a race for an unscrupulous bookie. The bookie's thugs decide to kill the horse instead, first by throwing a bucket of acid at it (!) then by injecting it with poison. Pep tricks the thugs into killing the wrong horse, and the real one goes on to win. This is a pretty generic race fixing story, but the ridiculous overkill in the thugs' methods made it enjoyable.

'Chuck Dawson' (by Homer Fleming): Chuck takes an a pair of kidnappers. With names like "Apache Joe" and "Lynch" he should have known they were bad guys straight away.

'Clip Carson' (by Sheldon Moldoff): Clip Carson is tricked into smuggling arms to some Arabs, who then try to kill him. Clip escapes and gets his revenge, but without Bob Kane's art the character has lost his joyful exuberance. Kane would have had him punching Arabs with a smile, but under Moldoff he's become yet another generic action hero.

'Tex Thomson' (by Bernard Baily): When Colonel Rushmore receives a wooden doll with a knife in the chest that looks exactly like him, and a blackmail note demanding $50,000, he calls on Tex Thomson. Thomson captures the culprit in a decent murder mystery, albeit one with only one suspect. As usual, the presence of Gargantua makes things a bit uncomfortable.

'A Blaze of Glory' (by Terry Keane): A fireman rescues a man and a puppy from a fire. There's nothing else to say about this.  He sure did rescue 'em.

'Three Aces' (by Bert Christman): The Three Aces help a landowner against an unscrupulous businessman trying to buy his land. Their real goal is the "Lost Scot" gold mine, and a murder attempt by the bad guys allows the Aces to find it. To be honest, the outrageous accents of the various characters were too distracting for me to take this in.

'Zatara the Master Magician and the Deaths on the Moor' (by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer): This story makes no sense. It's a murder mystery. The murder weapon ends up being a pack of vultures trained to lift people and drop them from a great height (this isn't too strange for a Zatara story). The murderers are the local sheriff and coroner, together with an exact double of their intended victim. Their plan was to murder this wealthy man and have the double take his place, but I can't really figure out why some other random characters were murdered. It doesn't hang together as a story, but scenes of Tong choking a vulture, and Zatara working his crazy backwards magic are entertaining enough to make up for it.