Timely's second title is fairly similar to their first; an anthology of action-adventure stories that introduce new characters and promise further adventures with them, the lead feature being a colorful super hero. It's edited by Joe Simon, who allegedly created the Firey Mask on orders from Martin Goodman to make another hero similar to the Human Torch, then filled the rest of the issue primarily with already-created material by personal friends at Funnies Inc. Creators at the time did not get paid for their material until the finished story had actually been sold to a publisher, so this way he got them some sales. This would explain the rather odd turn this title is going to take, more about that later. The cover also feels bizarrely rushed - despite claiming the guy on there is the Fiery Mask, he doesn't look much like him, not even wearing a mask. Curiously, he looks a lot more like Simon's next hero, the Phantom Bullet, so I guess it's possible they were created around the same time and the Bullet was originally intended for this book? "Doc" Denton is also referred to as Doc Doyle on the cover, so it's a bit of a mess anyway.
The Fiery Mask, Chapter 1: A Complete Story - The Fantastic Thriller of the Walking Corpses
Physician Jack Castle has been called to the office of police captain Benson to analyze a strange case. When he opens the door, a ray of green light shines from... somewhere, hitting both Castle and a strange man with green skin. The green skinned man rises as Benson exclaims he's "coming to life" and starts choking Castle, saying his master is commanding and that Castle will do. The green light is paralyzing Castle, but Benson takes out his gun and shoots the green man dead. The dying man says he's glad, but that the doctor will be angry and they need to watch out for the ray. Castle diagnose the man and says he didn't seem to have any diseases despite his weird, zombie-like behavior and green skin, and Benson tells this is what he summoned Castle to check out. The man is Peter Johnson, a "harmless tramp" that disappeared last year, but that turned up again just now and committed a murder. Benson suspects some evil force behind it all, potentially a "man-made disease of the mind", and Castle takes the case.
Eight other people have disappeared recently, mostly bums, and Castle has a hunch they're connected to this. He asks around their usual hangouts, but nobody has seen them recently. Getting an idea, he goes to the electric company, flashes the police badge he now has, and asks to see the electric bills for the houses at the water front, wanting to know if any are unusually high. An old ramshackle house turns out to have a huge one, so he goes there to investigate, knocking on the door and telling the green, dead-looking man that opens he's there to read their meter. The green man says he's just in time, then pulls out a gun and leads him inside, telling him the doctor will be happy he just got saved a trip. Castle is lead through a fake panel in the kitchen and into an underground cave, past containers holding more green, dead-looking men that occasionally twitch. One of the containers contains a girl who, while just as dead-looking as the others, doesn't have green skin and is chained to the container. The green guide tells him she's a new experiment and needs more treatment than the others due to her strong will power.
Castle realizes this doctor the green man has mentioned is using the powers of hypnotism, and as he's led further down, he's touched by a "half warning, half appealing look" in the girl's eyes. As he and the green man continue, they're suddenly attacked by giant birds Castle takes for buzzards, but which the green man explains are their own breed that "take care of the useless ones". He fends them off with his gun, then takes Castle into the doctor's chamber. The doctor is a giant green-skinned man more than twice Castle's size, and he instantly realizes Castle is police, not a meter reader. Telling Castle he made a mistake coming alone, he says he'll make him a patient - one of his living corpses - before strapping him to an operating table and pointing an apparatus at him, telling him he'll send him to kill those who get in his way and eventually make him conqueror of the world. Castle explains that he's a doctor, not a policeman, and that he's interested in the doctor's experiments, and the doctor replies he's thousands of years ahead of their doctors, having already captured the elements, the wind, storm and lightning. His size made him ashamed to go out in daylight, so for fifty years he's made his own sunlight - and darkness: He makes death live!
After Castle mocks him ("Roses are red - violets are blue... I think you're screwy... sho 'nuff..."), the doctor activates the apparatus and sends a green ray at Castle - but it doesn't work. Castle tells him that unlike the weak minded bums, he understands hypnosis and simply refuses to submit, his will power being stronger than the doctor's warped mind. The enraged doctor sets the machinery to full power, and suddenly there comes a blinding, deafening blast. Everything seems to explode, and Castle feels a searing pain as though he was struck by all the elements. His body glowing, he rises from the broken operating table, surprised to be alive and feeling stronger and better than ever. The laboratory is ruined and the doctor attacks Castle, saying he'll kill him for this, but Castle simply picks him up like he was a piece of paper. It's rather unclear exactly what happens in these next panels, but the doctor ends up on the ground and Castle runs from the burning laboratory to save the girl. He reaches her and grabs her chains, wondering how to get them off, and finds that they simply melt when he pulls on them. The girl conveniently awakens from her state for some reason, and as Castle manages to defeat the giant birds that attack them as they escape the room by simply blowing at them to knock them to the ceiling, she explains that since the doctor had harnessed the elements, "when the explosion occurred, the electrical power must have surged through (Castle's) body, along with the ray of living death, and created a complete chemical change, giving (him) untold strength". ...sure, whatever.
As the burning houses crumbles, Castle makes a colossal leap from it with the girl in his arms, soaring through the sky. He then takes her home and tells her to rest. "Will I ever see you again?", she asks. "Who knows?", Castle replies and leaves without her even learning his name. That night he phones captain Benson for a meeting, and when he shows up for it, Benson notices his face appears to be sparkling. Castle tells him everything, including that his body now appears to possess all the power of the wind, the rain, the storm and even the sunlight, and that he will devote his life to use these powers to do good and help people. Benson realizes Castle's face flares up as if afire whenever he gets angry, and Castle weirdly segues into explaining how he'll wear a costume and a mask. "The wicked will learn to fear the Firey Mask!" And so is born the Fiery Mask, striking terror into the hearts of the wicked and bringing hopes to the needy. Follow the amazing adventures of the Fiery Mask!
Sorry Simon, but this story is a mess, and so poorly written it's hard to follow at times. The ray that sends commands to Johnson at the police station goes unexplained and is never mentioned again. Johnson acts fairly mindless while Castle's guide at the lab sounds like a person of normal intelligence. The green skin is never explained in any way and only half hinted at being a sign the person is completely hypnotized, which doesn't explain the doctor's skin color. Castle's battle with the doctor is an incomprehensible mess. The giant birds don't make much sense and play no role in the story. While you can probably assume the doctor and the hypnotized men burned to death in the fire, nothing is ever clarified. The powers Castle gains is a random mishmash mostly ribbed from Superman and the unnamed girl is only in the story to provide a nonsensical explanation for them. His superhero name is weird too - despite what the final panel shows, it's his face that's said to glow, not his mask. Would've been nice if the doctor had a name too. Yeah, I'm rambling, but this story just isn't good. For a comic written in the 1930s, it's surprisingly realistic for it to portray hypnotism as something you can just plain old refuse to submit to, though.
Soldier of Fortune: John Steele
It's war, and while "the allies" are throwing back "the enemy" in a terrific battle, an enemy soldier prepares to execute an unarmed nurse inside a hut. Allied soldier John Steel rushes into the same hut for shelter from a heavy barrage and spots the scene, then shoots the gun out of the enemy's hand before starting to punch him in the face for trying to shoot a defenseless woman. One of the punches sends the enemy crashing into a wall that gets hit by a shell shortly after, blowing him to bits. Steele tells the nurse they have to get away and asks what she's doing there, and she tells him she's on a secret mission for the allies and need to get an important message to the general immediately. Steele looks out the window and sees the enemy has retaken the area, and the nurse is positive they'll never get out alive.
But Steele has a plan - an enemy tank is about to drive past the house, and when it does so, he storms out, leaps onto the tank, opens the hatch and jumps in. After knocking out the two enemy soldiers inside, he throws them out, then crashes through the wall to the hut and tells the nurse to get in as well. She does, and the two of them ride the tank through the enemy ranks. The enemy doesn't suspect anything at first, but further up the road an enemy officer has received a message to stop all suspicious vehicles and persons and orders the tank to stop as it passes - no tanks are supposed to be there. The tank answers with a shot, so the officer and his three fellow soldiers open fire with machine guns before eventually toppling the tank with a grenade. Steele climbs out and throws a grenade of his own back at them, which hits the four head on and kills them all.
Steele then helps the nurse out of the toppled tank as she spots an approaching enemy motorcycle. Steele holds the two soldiers riding it up with his gun as they pass, then sends them running as he and the nurse steal the cycle. As they drive off, however, the two enemy cyclists dash for a hidden phone by the side of the road and call for help, explaining what happened. Soon an enemy plane appears and Steele swerves off the road as it drops a bomb towards the cycle. He ends up driving straight into a camouflaged enemy anti-air gun nest and gets thrown from his bike as the bomb blows a hole in the road a short distance away. After punching out the two surprised soldiers in the gun nest, he mans the gun himself and starts firing at the swastika-decorated enemy plane. His shot only passes through a wing at first, but when the plane circles around to drop a second bomb, he gets another chance. He fires as the plane drops its bomb, then grabs the nurse and pulls her into a shellhole with him as the bomb hits the gun nest and blows the gun there to bits. His last shot hit the mark and the two can watch the firey comet that was the enemy plane plummet to Earth.
They get back on the motorcycle and drive into a deserted, shell-torn village, where they hit a car as they round a corner. Steele starts yelling at the driver, but stops as he notices the general in the back. The general tells the nurse, Marie, that they've been looking for her, and she gives him the important message. After reading it, he realizes they have very little time and tells his driver Pierre to step on it. Marie joins him in the car, and Steele waves her off, then mutters to himself. "Just my luck! I find a girl with a lot of nerve that can take it, and then some general pops up! What I need is some excitement!"
There's not much story here, just a long string of action sequences, but it's not like it pretends to be more than that. The action is decent and the strip accomplishes what it tries to do. Can't fault it for that. The story never mentions who's fighting in this war, but the allied general's driver and the nurse both appear to be French and the enemy has swastikas on their plane in one panel and yell "Ach!" a couple times, so it's fairly obvious.
The Texas Kid: Robin Hood of the Range
Riding the ridge trail above Red Rim Canyon, the Texas Kid and his horse Spot find trouble! Raiders have lit a small cabin on fire! With sixguns blazing, the Kid plunges headlong down the rocky slope and drives the three masked men off, but stops his pursuit to check if there are still people inside the cabin. This is the third burned cabin he has discovered in only three days. He has Spot kick down the front door and finds an old man on the floor, but as he drags him outside he discovers the man has been shot. The Kid gets him some water as the man explains these raiders are trying to drive the small ranchers off the range. They stole half his stock yesterday and shot him when he tried to put up a fight today. He then goes on to explain that the mortgage was almost due on the ranch and that the raider had stolen the money he had prepared for that, but dies mid-sentence as he's about to tell who he thinks their leader is. Of course.
The Kid decides he's going to figure out, and after picking up the hat one of the raiders lost while escaping, heads for the nearby Placer City. He puts on the raider's hat and goes into the saloon, where he asks the barkeeper if he knows the owner. While he's talking to the barkeeper, however, the owner sticks his gun against his back, and the bartender tells the owner, Luke, to take the Kid into the back room. Luke turns his head and asks someone to send Comanche and Trent in, but since they're facing the mirror behind the bar, the Kid sees Luke turning and quickly spins around, shooting Luke's gun out of his hand. As Comance and Trent enter the saloon, the Kid escapes through an open window, leaving the three raiders shooting after him. They've recognized him as the man that attacked them that morning.
The Kid escapes the city and hides on a butte, where he stays until night falls. He then sneaks back into the city and locates the raiders again, spying on them through a window and seeing them sitting around a table with the money they stole from the rancher on it. We're not told where this is, but I assume it's the saloon from earlier. After hearing one of them mention they'll ride to the Humboldt Ranch the next day, he shoots the lamp above the table to plunge the room into darkness. When the raiders get a light going, the money is gone, Luke's hat lying on the table in its place.
The Kid rides for Humboldt Ranch and gets there early next morning, where he talks with Humboldt and explains the plan he's come up with. Humboldt decides to trust the Kid and goes along with the plan, and once the three masked men show up a couple hours later, Humboldt immediately surrenders to them, giving them all the money he has and telling them he'll do whatever they say. They order him to be off the ranch by sundown and ride off as the Kid watches from a distance, seeing that everything is going according to plan. And as the three men ride off, feeling a bit suspicious that Humboldt gave up so easily, the Kid follows after them, trailing them to their hideout, which he for some reason knows they're headed for even though they were just hanging out in Placer City the day before, stolen money on them and all.
Meanwhile, Humboldt follows the Kid's plan and rides to Placer City, where he throws a package through the open door of the city bank. The package is addressed to the banker, Mr. Wells, so the teller that picks it up hands it to him, and Wells starts opening it - then suddenly stops and hurries into his office. The package contains money bills worth a total of a thousand dollars, but half of each bill is missing, and they're wrapped in a note reading "Here is the money from Humboldt. We gone to the hideout. -Luke". While Wells is reading this, Humboldt has gone to the sheriff and told him to get some men together, they've got a chance to catch the outlaws that have been raiding the ranchers recently. The sheriff and his men come along and Humboldt leads them to the Quartz Creek Trail, where they hide and wait for "their man". They soon spot him and trail him at a distance.
At the same time, the Texas Kid is following the three outlaws, who have gone into the Lone Jack Mountains. He trails the into the box canyon where their hideout is, and where they're currently cursing the stranger that stole their money last night - the money they got from Humboldt was only half of what he stole - with Luke adding that he has a personal score to settle with him. And as the Kid spots the gang's horses, Comache spots him, holds him up and takes him to the others, where he's tied up and threatened by Luke to reveal the location of the stolen money. One of the outlaws then spot banker Wells riding up to the hideout.
Once Wells arrives, he asks what the meaning of the torn bills is and why they brought someone like the Kid to their hideout. The Kid, now knowing for a fact Wells was behind the gang, says he suspected him when he found out he had a mortgage on all the raided ranches and had been taking them over when the ranchers couldn't pay due to the robberies... which should have made everyone and their dog suspicious of him. He then tells Luke where the stolen money is: Half of it is what Humboldt gave to him and pretended was his, and the other half is the torn bills Wells got in his package. The other half of those torn bills are with the sheriff. Luke realizes the Kid tricked Wells into coming to the hideout and prepares to kill him, but the sheriff and his men show up, saying he heard everything. Both Wells and the outlaws are going to hang for his. Thanking the Kid for his help, he then asks him his name, but the Kid replies that folks just call him the Texas Kid. Read the "Texas Kid" again next month!
The plot has issues. We get the outlaws not making much of an effort trying to catch the Kid even though they know he knows who they are, discussing their plans openly near open windows in what seems to be a public saloon, continuing with their plan to rob Humboldt after they were robbed seconds after discussing it, not keeping much watch even though they know very well the Kid is after them... and then we have them riding to the hideout after robbing Humboldt and the Kid's entire plan hinging on magically knowing they'll do this, even though they didn't last time. Wells acts equally careless, and the Kid unnecessarily makes his presence known and only seems to follow the outlaws to the hideout so he can get caught and make the men talk so the sheriff can overhear it. And EVERYONE should've suspected Wells if the outlaws only robbed ranches that had due mortgages. Yet despite all these plotholes, it still manages to be more fun than the Masked Raider, with far more dynamic art (though the "Kid" looks like he's at least 40) and considerably better writing as long as you don't stop to think too hard about how little sense things make.
Monako, Prince of Magic
"A speeding car is bearing down rapidly on an unsuspecting girl crossing the street! Quick as a flash Monako gestures, and the girl suddenly seems to be crossing a bridge over the street!" Monako is a mustached guy in a full stage magician getup, and this is not the first time he has saved this girl's life. Her name is Josie, though we're not told how she knows Monako, and he didn't actually realize it was her when he saved her from the car. A small Asian man peers out of the car's window, then tells his driver Tashu to hurry on, his old enemy Monako has interfered. Both Josie and Monako spot him before he can leave, however, recognizing him as a Mr. Muro. Josie tells Monako that her brother Al has perfected a powerful new explosive for the government, but that Muro has learned about it and plans to kidnap Al to force the formula from him. She was on her way to warn Al, but Muro trailed her and tried running her down to prevent her from doing so. How she learned about Muro's plans is never said.
Monako and Josie hail a cab, but Muro and his men hae already arrived at Al's house. Al has just finished burning the secret formula and telling himself he'll make a batch for the government the next day when the henchmen sneak in and attack him, and although he actually manages to fight pretty well back, Muro eventually rushes in and injects him with a drug that knocks him out. Realizing Al has burned the formula, they take him into their car and speed off towards their headquarters as Monako and Josie's cab arrives, recognizing the car that takes off as Muro's. Monako pays the cabby fifty dollars to follow their car, then leaves the cab with Josie to check on the house, telling her he "sent his vision" in the cab. Josie and Monako find the house a wreck an Al gone, so Monako tells her they'll wait for his vision to report. In the cab, the driver is happy he just got fifty dollars for nothing, since he has no intent to follow any car, but Monako's "vision", a ghostly afterimage of the magician, tells him to hurry up. The driver is creeped out, thinking this see-through image of the guy he already dropped off is a ghost of sorts, but does as told. And at Al's house, Monako concentrates and eventually summons up a video image of his vision on the wall, watching it exit the cab and follow Muro on foot.
Josie and Monako watch the vision silently follow Muro and his gang, and eventually step in front of them and demands they free Al. One of Muro's guards pulls out a knife and throws it at the vision, but it passes straight through it to the shock of the guard, him also taking it for a ghost. Muro tells him it's just one of Monako's tricks and orders everyone through a door, as not even a vision can penetrate the wall to the room beyond. Even though it's not really clear, he's right about that, and the vision is left locked out. The scene on the wall in Al's house disappears, and Monako sets off to go after Mr. Muro himself, telling Josie to stay there until she hears from him. Monako makes it to the building and the "impregnable door", where he discovers a fatal flaw. Tying a small rope ladder to the door, he shrinks to mini size, then climbs up the ladder and enters through its keyhole. On the other side, he returns to normal size and finds himself in a room with multiple doors. Then he simply waves his magic stick and footprints light up on the ground, leading him to the one the men went through. He follows these footsteps through a dark passage, but suddenly a trap door opens beneath him and he falls into the room below, where Muro and his men are waiting for him.
Muro tells his men to tie Monako up, but Monako creates several illusions of himself to confuse them. Muro isn't fooled and somehow knows which is the real Monako, pointing the guards to him, but Monako then makes fists appear out of thin air and has them punch Muro's guards around, preventing them from getting close. Muro, however, waits for Monako to get into the right position, then pushes a button that causes a heavy steel cage to drop over him. The captive Monako is then moved to another chamber, where he's chained to the wall next to Al. Al recognizes Monako and asks what's going on, and Monako explains that Muro has tried to gain control over the world for years, and now he wants to force the secret to Al's explosive from him. That was short and simple.
Al is released from his chains and tortured with a cat o' nine tails for hours. Damn. He still doesn't talk, so Muro has Monako brought in and ties them both up on a table, with a swinging ax slowly descending towards them. But Muro and his men are dumb enough to leave the room, so Monako simply tells the ax to stop, then orders it to fly around the room and cut their bonds, which it does. Since all the doors are locked, Monako shrinks himself and Al to mini size, and they hide in a crack as a henchman comes to check on them, finding them gone. Muro orders his men to search the building, but they find nothing. Muro has a plan, though, and tells his men to come with him. They all leave, and Al and Monako are free to sneak out trough cracks and locked doors. But in the meantime, Josie has become worried and goes to the hideout to see why she hasn't heard from Monako for hours. She arrives just as Muro's car departs, and he spots her, has the car stopped and pulls her in before departing. Monako and Al exit the building just in time to see the car drive off with a screaming Josie.
Al and Monako hail a taxi, but lose Muro's car in the traffic, so they decide to return to Al's laboratory instead, knowing Muro will surely head there as well. Muro, however, has gone to another hide-out, an old tugboat on the river, where he has Josie tied up in one of the cabins. A can of gasoline is brought in and turned into an "ingenious" bomb by putting a lighter fuse in it and lighting it, and Muro tells her it'll explode and burn her to death in two hours. They then set off for Al's laboratory to get the formula, where Al and Monako already are. Monako fixes up a "few surprises" for Muro, then hide to wait for him. And when Muro arrives and reaches for a "can of the secret powder", whatever that is, the can talks back and tells him not to touch it. He grabs it anyway, but drops it when it turns red hot in his hand. A puff of smoke then emerges from one of the cans and displays an image of Monako. Muro says it's another of Monako's tricks and Monako's image repeats his line back at him.
Somehow, all of this makes all of Muro's men terrified, and they run screaming out of the house yelling about devils. With all his men having deserted him, Muro panics and runs for his car, driving off as well. Al and Monako follow him in their own car, but Muro makes it to the docks in time and throws himself into a waiting seaplane before the two others can catch him. He promises to be back and Monako worries about the same when Al hears screams from a nearby tugboat. It's the one Josie is captured on with the bomb! Monako enters it to investigate, finds Josie and carries her to safety before the bomb goes off, and as everyone praises their luck, Monako says he needs to watch Muro more closely.
As far as magician heroes goes, this isn't bad. There's some oddities in the plot, like that "secret powder" Muro is apparently after despite it already being established the formula was burned and only Al knows it, and the wall "not even a vision can pass through". We also get the abduction of Josie having no impact on the plot and various plot conveniences mostly centered around Muro's henchmen being awfully unfamiliar with Monako's magic for someone working for his old enemy. But the plot is okay, Monako displays a nice variety of spells in his debut, and he doesn't come across as so overpowered there's no sense of danger, Muro manages to outsmart him several times. I've never read any Mandrake, which all the magician heroes of the time were inspired by, but I've read and enjoyed a decent share of DC's Zatara. While this doesn't quite measure up to his stories, it's still an okay attempt.
Untitled Short Story
As another testament to how thrown-together this issue feels, this short story clearly has a white space on top of the illustration set off for its title, yet nobody got around to actually putting it there. If I were to guess, I'd assume the title is The Thundering Terror, the name given to the stampede a couple times in the story.
Hundreds of wild, mad horses rampage through the town of Gold Creek, not taking the natural route down the main street, but approaching it at an angle, crushing anything in their way, kicking down houses, causing a fire from knocking over a lamp and killing heaps of people, all as a few townspeople that managed to escape in wagons watch from a distance. One hour later, five of the survivors - Wade Duncan and his wife, bank president Hastings, blacksmith Hank Walls and cowhand Spud Clark explore the ruins, Duncan and Spud agreeing that horses just don't act like this, not even mad ones. Spud wants to leave the town, but Hastings and Walls thinks they should track down these horses and shoot them. Duncan tells them it's too risky, but that he suspects someone is behind this unnatural behavior, and when prodded, Hastings confirms the town getting wrecked is awfully convenient for "that bunch of crooks from Chelsa City" that have been wanting to buy them out for over a year, but for way too low prices. He writes it off as silly talk, though, since there's no way they could've made the horses act like this, but Duncan tells Hastings to take his wife to Chelsa for now while he and the two other investigate a bit.
Duncan, Spud and Walls eventually find the horses and Duncan tries lassoing one as the other two follow, ready to scare off the rest once he's successful. The horses are all scared, rather than mad, but after an hour Duncan eventually gets one and investigates it. Everything is normal apart from a cut behind its ear, where a piece of metal has been sewed in. The catch some more horses and confirm this is the case with them all. The three next head to Chelsa City, where they enter the radio station with guns drawn. A fight later and they present six well beaten men to Hastings, who confirms they're the ones he mentioned earlier. Duncan explains that they had directed the horses with radio beams by inserting a sliver of metal at the base of each horse's brain "that would drive him crazy if he didn't follow the beam these guys were sending out", and thus directed their radio controlled stampede through their town.
Kinda slow and plodding story, but the idea is at least original.
Flash Foster at Midwestern
Flash Foster plays football! He receives a pass and runs! It's a touchdown, and Midwestern wins another game thanks to him. After the game he's interviewed and asked if it's true he'll be playing pro football next year, and the coach congratulates him and tells him that they're a cinch for the Rose Bowl if they can beat Hale next Saturday. However, notorious gambler Nick Bruno that since Midwestern is such a heavy favorite in their game against Hale, they'll win quite a lot if they were to bet on Hale and win. His henchdude tells him Midwestern won't lose with Foster, and Bruno tells him that's just it - but WITHOUT Foster they're just another team. And Foster has a weakness. He pulls out a newspaper clipping announcing Foster's engagement to Boston debutante Connie Hodges. If they kidnap her, Foster will have to take orders from them, and since she's sure to be with Foster at the big rally dance being held this weekend, it'll be easy to grab her there.
Foster goes to the dance with Connie, and Bruno and his henchman are thee keeping an eye on them. At 10pm, the coach tells Foster he'll have to leave after the next dance to get enough sleep for the game. During that final dance, Foster tells Connie he'll go see the coach for a bit afterwards and then take her home, and once he departs, the Bruno's man approaches Connie, telling her her mother has been hurt and he's there to take her to her. He takes her to Bruno's car and they drive to their hideout, where Connie is left with another henchman named Blinky as Bruno and the first henchman go talk to Foster. Foster is in his room wondering why Connie stood him up when Bruno knocks on the door and strongly suggests it'd be a good idea if Midwestern loses the next day, since he probably wouldn't want any harm to come to Connie. Foster prepares to punch him as the other guy sticks a gun against his back, but Foster turns around and punches him, then hits Bruno and threatens him to reveal where Connie is. The henchman, Pat, manages to knock Foster out with the butt of his gun before anything else happens, though, and the two crooks get out of there.
The next morning, Foster is found on the floor by his friend Shorty, who he tells about Bruno. Shorty thinks he should go to the police, but Foster disagrees, and says he's just going in there and playing his best anyway. "That's the spirit, Flash!". The game starts, Hale kicks off and Foster gets the ball on his own 30 yard line, then runs for a touchdown, but gets jittery due to Connie and gets tackled by the safety man on the 5 yard line. He continues playing erratically like this, unsettling his fans, and when he misses an easy tackle and lets Hale get a second touchdown, he gets taken off the field and reprimanded by the coach. Shorty comes running over with news about Bruno, and the two go to the parking lot to drive somewhere 5 miles away. Shorty's out of gas, so they nab some from the coach's car and drive off. With one mile left, a police officer spots them going way over the limit and starts following them, all the way to the house Shorty told Foster about. Bruno is there with a gun and threatens to shoot Foster, but he calls his bluff and hits him with a running tackle. Pat comes running with a knife, but Foster throws Bruno into him to knock him out, and Connie comes running out of the house towards him. The officer finally catches up and wonders what this is all about, and Foster explains he's got a pair of kidnappers here, Shorty saying he's "got them both tied up". ...where did Blinky go?
Foster has to get back to the game, so Shorty stays to explain everything to the officer. Foster and Connie tune in to the game on the radio on their way to catch Hale score a third touchdown. The reach the stadium with 5 minutes left of the fourth quarter and the score 21-6 to Hale. Foster gets in there and asks the coach to play, and while the coach says it won't make a difference with them 15 points behind with 4 minutes left on the clock and Hale's ball. But he sends Foster in and as Hale passes the ball for a fourth touchdown, Foster intercepts it on the 1-yard line, then runs the entire field, knocking down tacklers and scoring a touchdown himself instead. He tosses a perfect pass into the end zone for the extra point, and it's now 21-13 with two minutes to go. Hale's quarterback gets the kickoff and runs the entire field with only Foster left between him and the goal, but Foster gets him. Midwestern recovers the fumble and Foster gets a pass, then completes a 70 year pass to another player for another touchdown. Midwestern fail to get the extra point, but get a turnover on downs right after kickoff. With 15 seconds left, Foster tries a placement from his own 35 yard line. The kick is good and Midwestern win the game 22-21, which gets them chosen for the Rose Bowl, "a king among sports, a spectacle of spectacles". Don't miss the next issue, folks, when Flash Foster leads Midwestern into the Rose Bowl against Central California, but a sinister character, "the Dip", enters our story!
That game was absolutely ridiculous and makes you wonder what the future plans for this series even was. The way Foster is written as near superhuman coupled with the way the first story spends most of its time on criminals keeping him away from the game makes it unlikely they were ever going to give him any fair challenges. The rest of the story is straight forward and fairly dull, not even explaining how Shorty found the kidnappers, and with zero tension beyond "can he make it back to the game in time?" and "can they still win with such ridiculous odds against them?" And after establishing Foster as THAT superhumanly good, you can't pull off that tension in another installment - the odds can't be much more against him than they were here.
Phantom of the Underworld
"Detective Denton is called "Doc" by his fellow police officers because he is also a master surgeon. He is called in by his friend, Inspector Flynn, to help him solve the Case of Perrone."
A doctor is operating on a gang leader as his henchmen watch, thinking the doctor could come in handy. At police headquarters, Flynn tells "Doc" he's going to have a tough job, Perrone - the gang leader - is leaving the hospital. "Doc" starts by visiting the doctor operating on him and telling him he'll take over his office for a while to get Perrone's gang. And in the guise of doctor Stewart, "Doc" takes over his office, filling in his nurse Andrus and getting her cooperation. A few days later Perrone shows up to thank Stewart and asks how much he gets paid. When "Doc" tells him he doesn't get paid, Perrone hands him a wad of money and tells him there's more where it comes from if he plays ball. "Doc" says he needs the money and will be around if needed, then visits the real Stewart, gives him the money and tells him the plan is working, he can take a vacation now.
In Perrone's hideout, the wound is bothering Perrone, so he tells his gang to get Stewart. The gang goes to "Doc" to pick him up, and "Doc" uses the excuse that he needs to grab his bag to go into the net room and instruct nurse Andrus to make the police captain raid 241 Melbourne Rd at exactly 1:30am. He goes with the gang to Perrone's hideout, but when he gets there, he tells Perrone this will be his last job, he doesn't want to take more chances. Perrone says he'll protect the doctor, just as the captain readies his raid, telling his men to shoot to kill and make sure to arrest "Doc" to make it look good. The crooks sense the raid and keep the police at a distance until Perrone has escaped, but a lot of them end up arrested, "Doc" included. The next day the papers report the raid and say Dr. Stewart has been suspended for aiding criminals, and "Doc" tells Andrus that now that Perrone thinks he's one of the gang it will be easier to get to him.
Some unmentioned clues lead "Doc" and nurse Andrus to the small and peaceful town of Louisville, where the sheriff tells them nothing ever happens. They then immediately spot a holdup. It's Perrone's gang, but the sheriff didn't bring his gun and can't stop them. "Doc" and Andrus have set up an office in Louisville and soon get one of Perrone's men on the door. Perrone got wounded and needs a doctor. He's happy to see "Doc" and takes him to Perrone, where he removes the bullet from Perrone's arm. After the operation is done, Perrone forbids "Doc" from leaving the house, not wanting to take chances, and "Doc" thinks that might be just as well, since this will let him find out more about their operation.
A few hours later Perrone complains about feeling dizzy and "Doc" takes a look, telling him his eyes are infected and he might lose his eyesight. Perrone gets scared and "Doc" says the infection is contagious, so he'll have to inject the entire gang with antitoxin. He sends a member of the gang, Mac, to nurse Andrus with a note about the solution he wants her to mix, and a few hours later Mac and the nurse are back. "Doc" tells her she shouldn't have come, but she wants to help. "Doc" then prepares to inject Perrone with the solution, but Perrone doesn't trust him and tells him to do it on the nurse first. He does so, both he and the nurse knowing the solution produces temporary blindness, and her lack of visible discomfort makes Perrone trust there's no trick here. "Doc" injects Perrone with the solution and tells him to lie down and close his eyes for 10 minutes, then moves on to the entire rest of the gang.
"Doc" and the now blind Andrus take the opportunity to run for a phone, but one of the gangsters opens his eyes early and notices he's blind. This leads the others to open their eyes and discover the same, and wild shooting follows. Meanwhile, "Doc" calls the police captain for assistance, but knows he'll have to handle Perrone himself. He doesn't have a gun, but he has a pipe, so he uses that as a pretend gun to hold up Perrone and his gang before they can escape. The police show up soon after and arrest everyone, and "Doc" explains: "I looked up Doctor Steward's prescription book and miss Andrus prepared the solution for temporary blindness. Nice trick, eh, Captain?" Andrus regains her vision a few hours later, "Doc" thanks her for her help, and she says she'll be glad to help again if he should need her. "It looks to me that my next job will be very pleasant!", Doc says. Another thrilling adventure with "Doc" Denton will appear in the next issue.
It's not an awful story in itself, but it's not very well told, with especially the start being awfully confusing. I assume the police intended to actually catch Perrone during the first raid and that the latter half of the story is just a second infiltration attempt, but the story half suggests the first raid was just "Doc"'s plan to make Perrone trust him more. Considering how most panels are just talking heads, this would've probably been better off as a text story.
Wartime Wonders
Here's Timely's very first interior filler page, featuring illustrated facts about war. The modern idea of airplanes firing cannons was actually tried out in the world war! England's new battleships are partially constructed from steel salvaged from the German world war fleet sunk in Scapa Flow! During war, a plane has a 5% chance a day of getting destroyed! During the world war a pilot was thrown from his plane and fell back into it, then landed! A broadside fired from a battlehip pushes it up to three feet sideways! And one of the ongoing war's new mystery weapons is a super explosive made from air and wood!
Yeah, this was written in 1939 and is an amusing enough read for that alone. Note how it refers to "the" world war in several entries. Beyond that, my reaction to the entries is along the lines of "I didn't know that, but don't really care either" for all of them, but I assume I'd have cared more in 1940. Not sure what that last bit about the mystery explosive refers to, though.
Barney Mullen, Sea Rover
Barney Mullen is in Lisbon, looking for cargo for his ship. He gets in touch with a guy that has a shipment of gold filigree he needs sent to Rotterdam, but warns Mullen that since Rotterdam is in the war zone, each faction will try to sink or capture his ship out of fear he's carrying supplies to the other. Barney still accepts the job, gathers a crew, and fills his ship with a sand ballast since the gold takes so little space. He then takes off in the night as a shifty eyed stranger is spying on them. The stranger then radios his allies, telling them to have a cruiser intercept the freighter off Cape Finisterro - the loaded bags he saw carried on board must be grain.
Some days later, Barney's ship is approached by an armored cruiser and told to stop, but fog rolls in and they make a run for it. The cruiser fires, but Barney gets into the fog before they can get into range. But when the fog lifts several hours later, Barney finds the cruiser lying right next to them! The cruiser radios Barney's ship and tells them to follow them to port, and Barney has no choice but to comply. Thankfully for him, an airplane piloted by a guy named Manfred appears just then, and they start bombing the enemy cruiser. The cruiser fires its anti-aircraft guns at the plane and drive it away, but the plane radios a submarine once it reaches safe distance. And so, as Barney's freighter gets escorted to the shore by the cruiser and Barney thinks he's failed, a periscope appears in the sea and the sub crew, one which is named Eric and the other which says "Ach!", torpedo the cruiser so fast nobody on board has a chance to get off before it sinks. The sub torpedoes Barney's freighter next, but even though it hits the ship, all the sand in the hold prevents it from doing any damage.
Barney prepares to get away, but is approached by a group of angry sailors that think the trip has got too dangerous for them and demand he heads for the nearest port. Barney refuses, telling them they signed on to go to Rotterdam, and they reply by throwing a knife at him. He and his crew beat up the mutineers, mostly off panel, and throw them in the brig, but some of the crew is hurt and a crewman tells Barney they have to go to a nearby port for a doctor. They pull into the next harbor, a small fishing village, where the French-speaking doctor they bring on board treats the men and says they'll be fine until they reach Rotterdam. Just then two town officials get on the ship and demand Barney's sailing papers. Learning that Barney's carrying gold, he says they'll have to detain him since he entered the harbor without permission from the government. Barney tells him they just came to get a doctor, and the official says they might be able to arrange a reconsideration, cough cough. Barney takes them to the deck to talk business. On the way, he asks the officials if they can swim. They say yes. "It comes in handy, doesn't it?", he says as he throws them both over board.
The ship then sets off at full speed as the corrupt officials swim to land, passing the straits of Dover as the ship strains under terrific steam pressure. But just as Barney spots Rotterdam, the boilers blow from the steam pressure, the explosion disemboweling the ship and sinking it. Barney and the crew get to their life boats and head for Rotterdam, where they're met by an agent from the shipping company that hired their ship. He's screaming about the loss of the valuable cargo, but Barney stops him and tells him it's all safe - he figured something might happen, so he stowed the cargo in the life boats instead of the hold. So it's all there with him, and considering what he's getting paid, he doesn't mind the loss of the ship.
This is actually pretty fun. Not some super memorable classic, but definitely one of the better stories in the issue. And I have to say, I doubt this would be able to get published even a year later. Barney and his client are entirely neutral and have to deal with both Germans, Frenchmen and presumably the British. Sure the Germans are the violent ones willing to sink the ship, but the story doesn't take any sides beyond that.
As a whole
Yeah, this isn't very impressive. Monako is the only feature that stands out as fairly solid, while John Steele and Barney Mullen are decent if forgettable. The rest is just barely okay at best. It's a monthly, so these guys will all be back next issue, hopefully with better stories then... right? Yeah, about that...
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