December 1939: Detective Comics #35

Cover by Bob Kane

'The Batman' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): Batman gets caught up in machinations involving a sacred ruby idol of the Hindu god "Kila" (I assume this is supposed to be Kali). The idol is seemingly wanted by Hindu priests, crooked gangsters, and a Chinese crime lord named Sin Fang. Batman's raid on Sin Fang's hideout is quite amusing, as they very politely play cat and mouse games with each other, Sin Fang pretending that every deathtrap is an accident, and Batman going along with each ruse. As usual there are some unpleasant undertones when non-Caucasian villains are used, but this was quite fast-paced and enjoyable.



Gun Watch: Batman is holding a smoking gun on the title page, but never uses one during the story.

'Spy' (by Jerry Siegel and Maurice Kashuba): Bart infiltrates a submarine from the fake country of Luxor, which is blowing up cruise ships from the equally fake Boralia. The story ends in unsatisfying fashion when Bart is saved by a Boralian spy who comes into the story with no prior warning. The most notable thing here is that the strip has a new artist, Maurice Kashuba. His work has a similar tone to that of the previous artist, Mart Bailey, but his use of shadows gives it a more foreboding atmosphere.

'Buck Marshall, Range Detective' (by Homer Fleming): Buck stages a fake robbery on a stage coach before the "hooded gang" can get there, then spends the rest of the strip exposing their identities as respectable men of the community. This is quite good for a Golden Age western.

'Steve Malone, District Attorney in The Kidnapping Racket' (by Gardner Fox and Don Lynch): Steve investigates a gang that is involved in kidnapping, as well as a retailing protection racket. He hires private detectives to start up their own racket and infiltrate the crooks, and his plan goes off without a hitch. It's a solid "I love it when a plan comes together" type story, so long as you can stomach the good guys winning with no trouble at all.

'Mystery With Music' (by Richard Lawlor): In this prose story, a thief turns out the lights in a cabaret nightclub, steals a necklace, and tries to hide it in a musician's trombone case. It's pretty lifeless.

'Speed Saunders Ace Investigator and the Voodoo Vengeance' (by Fred Guardineer): Speed Saunders goes after the Snake Master, chief of a Cuban voodoo tribe, and killer of the dancer Rhumba Rita. There's not much of interest in this story, besides a hilarious panel of Speed Saunders shooting a snake's head off.

'Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise' (by Sven Elven): Cosmo's old enemy Gaston Dupre fakes his death to escape from prison and Cosmo tracks him down. I quite liked this one, it had a nice sense of tension during the series of deathtraps that Cosmo must navigate.

'Bruce Nelson' (by Tom Hickey): Continuing from last issue, Bruce has escaped with the White Goddess, and her native captors are in hot pursuit. Most of the strip is a chase through the jungle, followed by a dose of exposition as the White Goddess explains her story. It's livened up by some very good art, and a couple of large action shots that are quite impressive.

'Slam Bradley' (by Jerry Siegel and Mart Bailey): Slam and Shorty enlist in the French Foreign Legion to track down two murderers. This is another in a long line of cracking, humorous adventure stories. It's almost brought low at the end, when Slam is saved by a commander who just happens to be his biggest fan. But it works because it's played for laughs, and the rest of the strip is enough fun that it doesn't matter.

December 1939: Pep Comics #2, Top-Notch Comics #2, Action Comics #20, More Fun Comics #51

Cover by Irv Novick

'The Shield, G-Man Extraordinary' (by Irv Novick): The Shield goes up against a fleet of "Nordic" ships that is raiding US oil rigs near Porto Rico. This is pretty bland stuff, except for one scene where the Shield beats some sharks to death with a chain. But he's still very boring, and completely immune to harm. Hell, even Superman can be hurt.  The Shield needs a weakness of some sort.

'The Comet' (by Jack Cole): In the city of Tampa, a giant devil face has been appearing in the sky, uttering threats to those who disobey it and drawing cars full of loot into the sky. The Comet investigates, and finds a gang of crooks who have set the whole thing up with blimps, magnets and projectors. The Comet uses his disintegrator eyes to destroy the blimps and end their plot. This one had an intriguing set-up and some good action, but it wasn't quite as much gonzo fun as the first chapter.

'The Press Guardian' (by Abner Sundell and Mort Meskin): The Daily Express newspaper is threatened by a Moronian bundist group, and the Press Guardian puts a stop to them. This is fairly average, but the strip has been improved greatly by switching its hero's identity from the Falcon to the Press Guardian. At the very least his costume (now a suit and mask) is much better than the weird rainbow bird outfit he had before.

'Fu Chang, International Detective' (by Joe Blair and Lin Streeter): Fu Chang is targeted by devil worshippers who are trying to take over Chinatown. They summon an actual demon, but Fu Chang's magical chessmen defeat it. I enjoyed this one, mostly because it's got a premise that is so far unique.

'Sergeant Boyle' (by Abner Sundell and Charles Biro): This is a fairly stock standard tale in which Boyle exposes a messenger who is actually a German spy. It's all fairly boring until the last page, which is an impressive double page spread of a sprawling battle scene. I think it might be the first double page spread that I've seen in this blog so far, and it certainly had the desired impact.

'When the Red Men Rode' (by Creators Unknown): This prose piece about the death of the Apache chief Geronimo is closer to non-fiction than anything else. I rather enjoyed it. Geronimo sounds like a pretty bloodthirsty character, and I'd like to read more about him. (Admittedly, this story does not have an unbiased portrayal.)

'The Midshipman' (possibly by Bob Wood): Midshipman Lee decides to put himself ahead of the Navy in an army vs. navy race. But he has to turn back to help an injured team-mate, and the race ends as a draw. Lee learns a valuable lesson about teamwork, and I learn a valuable lesson about the crapness of sport-based comics.

'The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds' (by Abner Sundell and Lin Streeter): A villain named Retlek wants the Rocket out of  the way, so he injects him with dope and pushes him at the queen with a knife in his hand. The Rocket is thrown in the dungeon, but once the drug wears off he escapes and wrecks the bad guys. The Rocket has lost all of the humility he had last issue, and now he's just another typical Golden Age hero.

'Kayo Ward' (by Bob Wood): Kayo Ward quits boxing to please his girl, but goes back after everyone starts calling him a coward. There's a great dirty trick played by the opposing trainer, when he sends Kayo a telegram telling him that a guy he punched in the street is now dying. But apart from that little bit of subterfuge I didn't find much to enjoy here.

'Bentley of Scotland Yard' (by Sam Cooper): A man is killed by a vampire, and Bentley has three suspects - his uncle, his fiancee, and his cousin. The story stops and asks the reader to guess who is the culprit (it was the uncle, who loved the fiancee, and is also not really a vampire) but to solve it you'll need a knowledge of the properties of leech saliva. This was alright despite some slight cheating with the mystery.

Cover by Edd Ashe

'The Wizard' (by Will Harr and Ed Ashe): The army of Sybernia (a stand-in for Japan) is massing to attack Alaska, and the Wizard must hold them off single-handedly until the US fleet arrives. This involves page after page of the Wizard just tearing through troops, tanks and a battleship. I had thought he was just super-smart, but when he tore the ship's mast down I figured he's got a bit of super-strength to go with it. I was all set to give this story a pass mark based on its crazy action sequences, but it ends with the Wizard leaving a calling card that says, "Our country, right or wrong our country", which to me is just a reprehensible sentiment.  (Actually, it's not so bad now that I look at the origin and meaning of it in context.  Knee-jerk anti-patriotism retracted!)

'Scott Rand in the Worlds of Time' (by Jack Binder): Scott Rand, with his new allies Thor and Princess Elda, travel to the super-futuristic year of 2000 AD, where New York is besieged by a martian army. They help turn the tide, and I enjoyed this if only for the scene of Thor piloting a spaceship and blasting martians.

'Swift of the Secret Service' (by Creators Unknown): Swift tackles a gang of counterfeiters in a story that couldn't be more generic.

'Dick Storm in the Foreign Legion' (by Harry Shorten and Mort Meskin): Dick Storm is asked to join the Legion to ferret out some spies that are giving information to a local tribe of hostile Arabs. This is okay, but the action scenes are a bit stiff.

'Air Patrol: Sky Raiders of the Western Front' (by Joe Blair and Ed Smalle): Ben Johnson is still seeking revenge on German U-boat captain Von Schiller, and he gets his chance when the captain starts sinking Allied ships. There's a terrific full page aerial dogfight, and the conclusion is reasonably satisfying. It's hard to see where this strip can go now that Von Schiller is dead. (Although, there was no body...)

'Drum Language' (by Creators Unknown): A college graduate is sent to an island of hostile natives to replace the current person in charge of dealing with them. It's a classic "experience vs. education" set-up in which experience supposedly wins out. In truth, all it's saying is that being shockingly racist is the best way to deal with native tribesmen. Actual dialogue from our hero directed at the native chieftain: "Make one cry and ketcham bang-bang from gun! March, you imp of Satan!"

'The West Pointer' (by Ed Wexler): Keith Kornell is contacted by a spy trying to get a look at his new rifle, but foils the plan with the help of some friends. It might have worked if there was any chance at all that he would take their offer, but that sort of moral ambiguity is foreign to the Golden Age.

'Stacey Knight, M.D.' (by Lin Streeter): Stacey Knight is a doctor and a detective, which I'm sure keeps him busy. In this story, he infiltrates a gang that is smuggling dope into the USA. The story isn't particularly interesting, but it does have some decent action scenes.

'The Mystic' (by C.A. Winter): The Mystic exposes some fraudulent psychics, who send some thugs after him. I'm quite amused by the way he uses simple magicians' tricks to battle them, but the way he refers to them as "boys" in every single panel is beyond camp. Also, the Mystic has his phone set up to ring police headquarters regardless of the number that is dialled, which is absurdly impractical.

'Manhunters' (by Jack Cole): In this true story, the police track down a kidnapper and cop killer. The action scenes that bookend this are quite good, but the actual police work in the middle is beyond tedious. When even the narration is telling you it's boring, something is wrong.

Cover by Joe Shuster

'Superman' (by Siegel and Shuster): On holiday in Hollywood, Clark Kent saves starlet Dolores Winters from an assassin. He's invited to her house for an interview, but when he gets there she gives him the cold shoulder. Things get weirder when she announces her retirement, and during a yacht party kidnaps all of the stars and holds them to ransom. At this point in the story I was getting bored, but things perk up when Superman goes to the rescue and discovers that Dolores Winters is actually the Ultra-Humanite, revived from the dead and transferred into her body. One wonders what perversions drove the Ultra-Humanite to pick her body in particular. Anyway, he escapes, still in the body of Dolores Winters, so when the Ultra-Humanite inevitably returns I expect him to still be a hot girl.

'Pep Morgan' (by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer): Pep saves a pilot from a burning plane, and ends up becoming his co-pilot in an airshow race. A gambler spikes the pilot's drink, and Pep has to win the race and land the plane alone. Looks like Pep is back to being insufferably great at everything, except starring in good stories.

'Chuck Dawson' (by Homer Fleming): Chuck finds a dead body, and the real killers blame him. There's a shootout, but Chuck escapes and vows to deal with them later. I seriously doubt he will, given how self-contained Fleming's work has been of late.

'Clip Carson, Soldier of Fortune' (by Bill Finger and Bob Kane): Clip is still hauling a load of ivory through the jungle. Last issue he befriended some cannibals by giving them harmonicas. In this issue, after being captured by the evil Wolf Lupo, Clip asks to play his harmonica as a last request, and the cannibals come to his rescue in a fairly brutal battle. One can only assume that Wolf Lupo and his cronies are eaten by the cannibals afterwards.

'Tex Thomson and the Zombies' (by Bernard Baily): Tex and his buddies are still captives of an African tribe that tries to turn them into zombies. It turns out that salt is a cure for the zombie formula (which ties well into some zombie mythology), so Tex revives the zombie army and they all escape. It's not bad, but doesn't do a lot with the premise.

'Five Star Trap' (by Frank Thomas): A kid newspaper salesman who witnesses a murder is used to flush out the killer. It's very dull.

'Three Aces' (by Bert Christman): Gunner, Whistler and Fog come across a distress signal written in the snow. Gunner bails out and finds an old man and a girl who were shot by fur trappers. Because no planes can land in a blizzard, Gunner and the girl are forced to survive for a week in the snow, fighting off wolves with bullets and gun butts. Eventually they're rescued, and just when I was setting myself for a good survival horror story.

'Zatara the Master Magician and the Moon Men' (by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer): When a mysterious mist arises on coasts all over the world, killing anyone who inhales it, Zatara is led to the culprits by a winged girl named Nala. Alien Moon Men are to blame, and Zatara kills them with their own gas before unleashing deadly winged snakes on the survivors. He is very ruthless for a man in a top hat. This is tons of fun, as usual, and next issue's story promises to see him on the moon with his new winged girl ally.

Cover by Sheldon Moldoff

'Wing Brady in Paris' (by Tom Hickey): Wing and Frenchy get something of a peaceful interlude, as their section of the French Foreign Legion is in Paris to take part in the Bastille Day celebrations. As the two of them lounge around in a bar they get into a brawl with a purse snatcher, talk to a pretty American girl, then foil an ambush from the same purse snatcher. It doesn't hold together as a story at all, and it doesn't seem to be leading into anything. But despite that, I enjoyed this as a change of pace. This strip is almost always some sort of life-and-death struggle, and it's nice to see the characters get to relax once in a while.

Also, I have learned that an Apache is what they call ruffians or gangsters in Paris, and not just a Native American tribe. It would have saved me a lot of confusion if I had known that before reading this story.

'Biff Bronson' (by Al Sulman and Joseph Sulman): Biff and Dan investigate the hatchet killings of seven Chinese men, and manage through dumb luck to find the culprit: the mayor of Chinatown. The protagonists display a very unpleasant racist streak throughout this story, culminating in Dan's mocking line of dialogue: "And that goes double, my fliend!"

'King Carter' (by Paul J. Lauretta): King and Red go to a South Seas tropical island to take pictures of the volcano-worshipping natives. As is the way of things in the Golden Age, said natives are vicious savages who try to kill the interlopers, and then out of nowhere the volcano comes to life and the whole island sinks. King and Red exchange quips with the ship captain while presumably hundreds of people drown to death no more than a few hundred metres away. Luckily for this story King fights a shark with a knife, and I'm always a sucker for a good bit of shark-fightin'.

'The Buccaneer' (by Bernard Baily): This strip spends a lot of time setting up a storyline about a man found cast adrift, and his treasure map, but then it veers into an unrelated plot in which Dennis Stone must rescue his love Regina's father from the pirate Jorgens. After the rescue, Regina's father says that he will pardon Dennis and allow him to marry Regina if he gives up his life on the seas. He happily does so. This would have been a fitting end to this series if not for the superfluous treasure map stuff at the start.

The final panel of the story is a promo for the Spectre. "Who is he?? What is he??" I'm happy to see that More Fun Comics, the last DC hold-out, is finally getting its own super-hero.

'"Kit" Strong' (by Maurice Kashuba): Kit Strong is a private investigator, supposedly the "greatest manhunter of all times". In his debut story he is called in to investigate the kidnapping and ransom of a wealthy man's daughter. Having been billed as a great detective, Kit starts his clue-gathering impressively, but in the end he triumphs mainly through dumb luck and punching. Kashuba's art is cursory, and only comes alive when he's drawing women, particularly women being manhandled or tortured. I don't hold high hopes for this as a series, and luckily for me this is its only appearance.

'Gambler's Luck' (by Jack Anthony): In this prose story, Truck Farel goes after a gambler called Ace Tripone to get him to stop dating his sister. During their scuffle Ace is accidentally shot and killed. I'm really not sure what the author was going for here. Ace is presented as the bad guy, but all we ever see him do is defend himself, and on his deathbed he doesn't tell the police that Truck shot him. I've yet to see anything particularly nuanced from Jack Anthony, so I'm going to assume the straightforward approach: that Ace was a bad dude who got what was coming to him. If that's the intended story, then it's an utter failure.

'Lieutenant Bob Neal of Sub 662' (by B. Hirsch and Russ Lehman): Bob and the crew of Sub 662 find gold at the bottom of the ocean, and must mine it while avoiding foreign spies. It's fairly dull as a spy story, and the main antagonist never really gets an ending to her story.

'The Flying Fox' (by Terry Gilkison): Rex Darrell investigates the disappearance of a wealthy aviator, and finds a plot involving a gang of crooks, an island, and some buried treasure. The villain, Bayou Borg, escapes with the treasure at the end, with the dreaded To Be Continued. This would have been adequate, but the deluge of exposition at the beginning sucked all of the life out of it.  And despite the cliffhanger, this is the last we see of Rex Darrell, who I'm going to assume is killed in his attempts to capture Bayou Borg.  Given the villain's name, I expect that Darrell's corpse will be dumped in a swamp somewhere, missed by no one.

'Detective Sergeant Carey and the Wheels of Death' (by Joe Donohoe): Carey and Sleepy are called in to investigate death threats against a champion race car driver. If only they had seen that one of his rival drivers was a baron they could have solved the mystery before he got murdered.

'Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol' (by Jack Lehti): O'Malley goes up against a gang of gold thieves in a lacklustre story. Lehti pretty strongly establishes a realistic setting, then expects us to believe that a man thrown off a cliff can be lassoed to safety by an Indian.

'Bulldog Martin' (by Bart Tumey): Bulldog investigates a haunted house, and discovers that it's really the work of someone trying to scare off potential buyers while he looks for the treasure inside. This one pulls out all the cliches, but it does have an amusing conclusion when Bulldog tries to knock a secret door down with a sledgehammer and clobbers the crook standing behind it.

November 1939: Smash Comics #6

Cover possibly by Gill Fox

'Espionage starring the Black X' (by Will Eisner): Absolutely nobody can set the scene as effectively as Eisner. Admittedly he uses the exact same technique every time, a gripping World War 2 montage, usually accompanied by a burning map of Europe. But it works, and I'm certainly not tired of it yet.  In this story the Black X goes undercover in an Alaskan gold mine, trying to stop foreign agents from stealing the gold for their own purposes. It's pretty good stuff, with an amusing subplot wherein the tough miners think that Black X is a sissy because of his monocle. Speaking of which, we learn that he had his eye put out during a torture interrogation, so all accusations of sissiness are false.

'Clip Chance at Cliffside' (by George Brenner): Clip fails an exam, and has to pass the re-examination to be allowed to play in a basketball match. Of course he does so, and wins the game with seconds to spare. There's also a subplot about the teacher's stolen watch that doesn't ever intersect with the main story.

'Chic Carter, Ace Reporter' (by Vernon Henkel): Chic is accompanying the king and princess of Moravia to inspect a border garrison. When a sudden attack cuts them off, Chic dons an army helmet and starts killing the enemy with abandon. This is standard behaviour for Golden Age heroes, but it's still a little jarring coming from a guy I'd pegged as a high society reporter.

'Flash Fulton, the Ace of Cameramen' (by Paul Gustavson): Flash investigates a group that is deliberately setting fire to oil rigs. He displays a similar facility for violence to Chic Carter above, but even that can't hold my interest.

'Hugh Hazzard and his Iron Man' (by George Brenner): Hugh Hazzard modifies his robot so that he can pilot it from the inside, and goes up against a gang of jewel thieves. The highlight is a panel right near the end, where the robot stands amidst the wreckage of a car, surrounded by corpses, and smilingly declares "Dead! Every one of them!!"

'Captain Cook of Scotland Yard' (by Stan Aschmeier): Cook investigates a group of spies that is trying to stop England from buying helium gas to use in its new dirigible. Now these guys are stupid. Their whole plan involves lighting the dirigible on fire, for which they need it to be full of hydrogen. But they seemingly haven't bothered to find out that England bought and used the helium despite their best efforts. Then they escape by parachuting away, only to land in the middle of the ocean where they are destined to drown. Cook didn't even need to do anything, because these guys killed themselves.

'Abdul the Arab' (by Vernon Henkel): Abdul is framed for murder, by a plan that hinges on him being the only Arab guy around who is named Abdul.

'John Law, Scientective in The Sound of Death' (by Harry Francis Campbell): The Avenger still has wealthy businessmen in his sights, and this time it's Roger Carlin, manufacturer of the ointment Vitasav. People have been dying after using Vitasav, and it turns out the the Avenger has discovered a way to make the ointment sink into a person's bloodstream when a specific sound is played. It's all fairly implausible, and not terribly exciting. And there are still nine businessmen to go, which is not an enticing prospect.

'The Master of Mu' (by Robert M. Hyatt): This prose story is an intriguing beginning. When a scientist investigates some plane disappearances, he is kidnapped by an evil mastermind and rocketed to the moon with his many other captives. I've got no idea where this is going, but I liked it. And it's always charming to read old-school sci-fi that has only the vaguest idea of what the moon is like.

'Invisible Justice' (by Art Pinajian): Invisible Justice goes up against a gang of helium smugglers in an unremarkable story. I suppose that helium was in the zeitgeist at the time.

'Wun Cloo - Him Velly Good Detective' (by Gill Fox): I don't quite know what to make of this. Wun Cloo is a laundry shop owner, but also a detective, and he rather cleverly stops a counterfeiter. His speech patterns aren't horrible, as the title above would suggest. There are some good jokes in here, and none of those are racist. It's just that title that's skewing things. If it wasn't for that, this would be perfectly acceptable.

'Wings Wendall of the Military Intelligence' (by Vernon Henkel): Enforcing the president's strictly isolationist policies, Wings goes up against a group of smugglers trying to take weapons to Europe. Henkel tries a patented Eisner war opening, and doesn't do a bad job of it, but the rest of the story is nothing special.

November 1939: Feature Comics #28

Cover by Ed Cronin

'Captain Fortune in the Days of the Spanish Main' (by Vernon Henkel): Fortune gets into fight with some pirates in a tavern, and his crewman Pierre is killed. For the rest of the strip he chases the pirates and their leader Captain Clegg, then kills them for revenge. It's as rudimentary as it gets, but at least Fortune has a believable motivation.

'Ned Brant' (by Bob Zuppke): This month Ned is playing ice hockey, and loses the game for his team when he is sent off for punching another player. Isn't punching other players kind of the point of ice hockey these days? Anyway, this was not good.  The only thing I liked about it was that ice hockey hasn't really been touched on before this.

'Rance Keane, the Knight of the West' (by William A. Smith): Rance stops a gang of bank robbers who had staged a diversion to get all the men out of town while they committed their crimes. His new sidekick Pee Wee sleeps through the whole thing, which is hardly the best argument for his introduction.

'The Clock Strikes' (by George Brenner): When D.A. Dan Nolen spends a page promising his wife that he'll retire, there's only one possible outcome:

The Clock proves that Nolen's assistant was bribed to kill him, in a story that I got little enjoyment out of aside from the gleefully cliched death at the start.

'Jane Arden' (by Monte Barrett and Russell E. Ross): Jane is still undercover as a jewel thief's partner, but he's starting to suspect that she's double-crossing him. I honestly can't believe that this story is still going.

'The Dollman' (by Will Eisner): Dollman goes up against Dr. Rodent, a crook who is blowing up cargo ships with bombs carried by rats, then collecting the silver and gold from the bottom of the ocean. This is okay, and it does feature a scene of the Dollman fighting against said explosive-laden rats that looks great.

'Reynolds of the Mounted' (by Art Pinajian): Reynolds deals with some crooks who are smuggling weapons into Canada. So, so boring.

'Barrel Rolls and Tail Spins' (by A.L. Allen): This prose story begins promisingly, with the meeting of a cautious boy and a reckless pilot, but the second half devolves into cliche, with a gang of smugglers. The two halves of the story never really mesh together.

'Slim and Tubby' (by John J. Welch): Benton is booked into another boxing match for the money he needs to save the ranch. It's well worn material.

'Charlie Chan' (by Alfred Andriola): When heiress Donna Grant is kidnapped, Charlie must go undercover as a cook to infiltrate the gang. I was already thinking this story was too long when I got to the "to be continued" caption.

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.

November 1939: Superman Daily Strip #163-258

This story ran in the newspapers from July 24th to November 11th.  In it Superman must protect the visiting royalty of Rangoria from assassination by terrorists from their own country.  It's a basic set-up, but where this succeeds is in the myriad subplots it introduces.  Not only must Superman stop the assassination of Princess Nadia, but he ends up saving her publicly as Clark Kent as well.  This leads to him being forced by the assassins to help them, and of course the usual misunderstandings with Lois Lane result.

Speaking of Lois, she's acting almost like a normal human being in this story.  She even goes so far as to invite Clark on a date, which is a startling turnaround from her usual attitude, but things go quickly back to normal when he has to duck out in secret as Superman.  There are added complications from Princess Nadia, who is also madly in love with Superman.  The romantic entanglements are enough to fill a decent-sized story, but thankfully there's also time for Superman to punch terrorists and throw tree trunks at cars.

If I have one criticism, it's the same one I levelled at Siegel's 'Red, White and Blue' story in All-American Comics earlier today: his women can be completely irrational.  When Superman tells the princess that he has no time for romance in his quest for justice, she flips out and tries to stab him with a knife.  And then, well...  I'm going to have to post this one.

Superman's forgotten power: super-spanking.  And of course she's still in love with him afterwards.  Yes, the past is an alien landscape, folks.

November 1939: All-American Comics #10, Double Action Comics #2

Cover by Sheldon Mayer

'Red, White and Blue' (by Jerry Siegel and William A. Smith): With the aid of machinery that can create lightning anywhere in the city, a mysterious figure known as the Master takes over New York, and places it under the rule of fascists and Nazis. Red has to infiltrate the city, and together with Doris capture the Master.

This strip is quickly becoming a vehicle for Red to be the action hero, with the others just hanging around while he does everything. There's also an incredibly chauvinistic attitude running through the whole thing, as Red dismisses everything that Doris says. Admittedly she says some stupid things, but it's weird that such a formerly cool and competent character is suddenly wanting to look at hats in the middle of a war zone. The story almost redeems itself at the end when she defeats the Master, but then undercuts it when she claims she'd have been helpless without Red.  I was enjoying this for its apocalyptic atmosphere, but the sexual politics going on here are pretty awful.

'Wiley of West Point' (by Lieut. Richard Rick): Wiley is exonerated of his court-martial, and then goes on to fight Baxter in a boxing championship. I can't quite figure out why I don't hate this strip anymore.

'Hop Harrigan' (by Jon Elby): Last issue Hop had to fly a sick sailor to hospital, leaving Gerry behind on the ship with a poet. Hop my young man, here's a nugget of wisdom for you: never trust a poet with your girl.  He succeeds in his mission and returns for her, only to find that he has to take the poet back with him as well. Again, Hop is angry, and all the more interesting for it. It's a sad state of affairs when I'm more interested in the romances than the action.

'Ben Webster' (by Edwin Alger): Ben and Professor Mattix are still trying to teach reform school kids to be good, and Ben's latest idea is to give them classes in boxing, wrestling and baseball taught by world champions. The idea works, and everything is going well until the neighbours decide they don't want young crooks in the neighbourhood. It's alright, but I don't buy that the kids would use their free time to study reading and maths.

'Popsicle Pete' (by Sheldon Mayer): Pete and his friends draw in lots of business playing music in an Italian restaurant, and the owner offers to buy them the radio broadcasting license they want. I was amused by the owner continually jacking up the price of his spaghetti as more people came in, but that's about it.

'Adventures in the Unknown: A Thousand Years a Minute' (by Carl H. Claudy and Stan Aschmeier): Ted and Alan are still in prehistoric times, where they help a caveman recover from a leg wound, shoot a triceratops in the eye, and throw a poisoned piglet into a giant snake's mouth. There's not a lot of cohesion to what's going on, but I'm still enjoying it well enough.

'Scribbly' (by Sheldon Mayer): Scribbly's editor sends him to a farm for his Christmas vacation, and his brother follows by air mail. Again, this is just mildly amusing.

'Death's Playground' (by George Shute): Phil and Jimmy go undercover in a factory to root out a saboteur. This is fairly uneventful, and the gripping cliffhanger is a description of how a lie detector works.

'The American Way' (by John Wentworth and Walter Galli): As Martin Gunther and his wife celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, their grandson decides to join a Nazi youth movement. When Martin goes to stop him, one of the young Nazis hits him on the head and kills him. I was all set to compliment this tragic ending, until the last panel ended with a rendition of 'The Star Spangled Banner'.  Too much cheese and patriotism for my tastes.

'Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man' (by Jon L. Blummer): Gary Concord is trying to find the secret of his father's formula for peace, but his enemies are after it as well. He's outfoxed by a very sexy lady named Stella Tor, and when he goes to retrieve the formula she attacks with poison gas. This was slow to get going, but the cliffhanger is a good one.

 Cover by John Richard Flanagan, reprinted from

Adventure Comics #37

Double Action Comics #2 is something of a curiosity.   First off, I have no idea where the numbering continues from.  DC did a good bit of retitling of books in their early days, but their line was very stable by 1939.  I don't have a copy of this comic, but a bit of research tells me that it's a reprint book featuring some strips that were cancelled a fair while ago.  I'm talking about things like 'Sandra of the Secret Service', 'Dr. Occult', and the interminable cowboy strip 'Jack Woods'.  There are things in here that I can barely remember, and I was only reading this stuff six months ago.  And given the intensely serial nature of early DC comics, I have no idea what the audience for this one-off reprint book would be.  What do you do with a single part of Sven Elven's adaptation of 'The Three Musketeers'?  It's baffling.