Story #2The Order of the Hood
Writer:
Stan Lee.Penciler:
Al Avison. Inker:
Al Gabriele.
Synopsis
Members of the sinister Order of the Hood, a gang of crooks who wear purple robes, are robbing banks in
Los Angeles in an armored car. Young playboy Dan Lyons excuses himself from his pals Pat Casey and Mary Nash to change into his secret identity as…the
Black Marvel! He heads to the reserve bank where a gold shipment is expected today and waits for the Hoods to arrive. Sure enough, the gang makes a play for the gold and Black Marvel launches himself into action and overpowers them, then vanishes as mysteriously as he came. The Hood leader has henchmen break into the newspaper office and plant a phony item about a jewelry display at a local shop to set a trap for the hero. Black Marvel arrives on the scene and is conked on the head and taken prisoner. Back at the hideout, the helpless hero is trapped in a ray machine so his death by slow burning can be televised to the nation. Instead Black Marvel uses the ray to burn through his bonds and overpowers his foes, pursuing the leader to a nearby mountain where, after a battle, the villain tumbles to his death in a rockslide.
Story #3The Case of the Hollow Men
Writer/Penciler:
Jack Kirby. Inker:
Joe Simon.
Synopsis
Late one night in the Bowery, a zombie stalks and kills a police officer; this is the final test for the Lord of Death that his zombie-making experiments are a success. He contacts Adolf Hitler directly (!) and offers his services to the Third Reich; Der Fuhrer orders him to sabotage ships carrying Lend-Lease material to the British. At the docks Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are on guard duty when an army of the living dead arrive to burn the ships. They change into
Captain America and
Bucky to assist the troops in driving the zombies into the sea. The heroes recognize one of the monsters as a panhandler they saw earlier in the day so they go undercover as Bowery bums to get a lead on the villains. The Lord of Death’s next assignment is to destroy trucks carrying Lend-Lease materials and the bridge to the docks; the truck-driving zombies cause a massive pileup on the bridge and begin attacking vehicles and pedestrians. Again, Cap and Bucky arrive and use grenades to drive away the monstrous hordes but a stray bomb ignites a cache of explosives and the bridge is blown up. Later, the Lord of Death approaches the disguised Steve and Bucky and takes them back to his mad laboratory where they discover how he can turn living men into unkillable zombies. Steve and Bucky change into their hero costumes and defeat the villain. When Hitler phones for a progress report, Bucky blows him a raspberry!
Story #4The Torpedo Boat Terror
Writer/Penciler/Inker:
Bill Everett.
Synopsis
Swimming off the
Atlantic Coast, Namor the
Sub-Mariner heads in to a cove near
Virginia for a rest. There he discovers a secret Nazi base where they are building torpedo boats to attack American ships. Namor boards a boat and sabotages the weapons and tosses the crew overboard and takes the boat to ram another. He falls overboard though, and decides to head back to the base and mop up the Nazis, then he goes after the boat that was running free. As he comes upon it, the boat rams a pleasure craft causing a blaze. Namor dives to rescue a sinking woman but he is hit by the propeller and knocked unconscious. The woman ends up saving him and he places her safely on an island, seizes the last remaining Nazi boat, and returns to take her to shore, stopping off to warn the authorities.
Story #5The Case of the Mad Gargoyle
Writer/Penciler/Inker/Letterer:
Paul Gustavson.
Synopsis
American passenger planes have been disappearing over the
Yucatan Peninsula so the costumed adventurer known as the
Angel decides to look into the matter. Chartering a plane to take the same route, the craft is seized by a magnetic ray. Angel parachutes overboard and watches as the plane is taken inside a huge pyramid. Angel enters and is captured by the natives who are led by the brutish Gargoyle. Locked in with prisoners from the earlier flights, Angel learns that on the nights of the full moon, one of the prisoners is catapulted over a volcano to slam into a native as part of a sacrifice. Angel fights with the guards to make sure he is the next chosen one to provide a distraction while the others escape. Launched over the volcano, Angel manages to land safely and engages the Gargoyle (who was capturing the planes to prevent the Americans from converting them into warplanes) in battle which ends with the villain falling to his death from the top of the pyramid. He then joins the prisoners as they take the planes back to the
USA.