June 1937: More Fun Comics #22

Cover by Vin Sullivan

 

I'm usually quick to praise the work of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, but not everything they do is great.  Case in point: the latest installment of 'Radio Squad'.  The long-running storyline here has involved policeman Sandy Keane just flat out arresting all of the organised crime bosses in town and hauling them off to court.  We've had months of court room drama, where it's become obvious that the court itself is so corrupt that Keane is never going to win.  And then it just ends when, without any previous set-up, the local governor just walks into the court, declares everybody corrupt, then tells them they're all going to jail.  With no evidence and no real trial.  It's a particularly egregious example of how abruptly and nonsensically some of these stories end.

'Doctor Occult' on the other hand is a lot more interesting.  He was killed in the last story, and this one opens with his funeral.  And yes, he is actually for real dead.  Then of course the villainous Lord of Life brings him back with a ray gun, with the threat that he'll die again without regular monthly zaps.  Which makes Doctor Occult the first ever DC character (and possibly the first ever comics character) to die and then return to life.

'Jungle Fever' by Ed Winiarski has made the jump over from New Adventure Comics, but it needn't have bothered, because this is the last installment.  The main characters were still wandering around the island and getting shot at by the locals, and as usual I like to think that they were brutally murdered and never heard from again.