Story #2Death Loads the Bases
Writer: Jack Kirby. Writer: Joe Simon. Penciler: Jack Kirby. Inker: Joe Simon.
Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Riggley, owner of the
Brooklyn Badgers baseball team, is approached by a mysterious figure with an offer to buy the team. When Riggley refuses, the stranger departs with threats. At that evening’s game first a batter, then a base runner, die mysteriously. In the stands, Steve and Bucky realize the men where shot with poisoned darts. They change into
Captain America and
Bucky and investigate, discovering the hooded killer, the
Black Toad, hiding under the stands. The villain’s henchmen knock out Cap and Bucky and they get away. The next night’s game sees the team’s star pitcher refusing to play in fear of his life. Captain America volunteers to pitch, with Bucky as catcher, and the game goes on. Cap’s performance brings the team to an early lead but a bomb concealed in a baseball almost halts the game. Cap’s quick reflexes enable him to pitch the ball in the air where it explodes harmlessly. Cap and Bucky pursue the Black Toad and after a violent confrontation with his gang, unmask the villain as the team’s manager, intent on forcing Riggley to sell out. After his confession the baddie hurls himself from the top of the stands to his death.
Story #3Message From Captain America
Writer: Stan Lee.
Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Cap gives us the background of the characters in his comic:
Betty Ross,
Sgt. Duffy,
Father Time,
Headline Hunter, and the
Hurricane, as well as making a pitch for the
Sentinel of Liberty clubs for kids.
Story #4Horror Plays the Scales
Writer: Jack Kirby. Writer: Joe Simon. Penciler: Jack Kirby. Inker: Joe Simon.
Synopsis / Summary / Plot
A
Senator is listening to some sinister violin music on the radio when an explosion destroys his home.
Captain America and
Bucky investigate and find the Senator’s butler recovering a part of a bomb from the wreckage of the house. That evening, Steve and Bucky attend a concert where a creepy fiddler plays eerie music on his instrument. When a second Senator is killed in a blast at home, Cap again finds a suspicious butler on the scene. He trails another new butler to the home of a third Senator where he forces the fellow to listen to the radio. The terrified man reveals that the bomb in the radio is triggered by the Fiddler’s high notes; Cap in turn reveals that he had earlier defused the bomb. At the concert hall, the
Fiddler, a Nazi agent, discovers Bucky spying on him and captures the boy hero. He plays his music, intended to drive a victim to madness and death but Bucky does not succumb. The Fiddler goes higher and higher on the scales until he dies from his own music. Cap arrives, and Bucky reveals he was wearing earplugs, in accord with Cap’s warning.
Story #5Justice Laughs Last
Writer: Stan Lee. Penciler: Ken Bald. Inker: Bill Ward.
Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Cigar store owner
Speedy Scriggles refuses to pay off a couple of thugs running a protection racket and is beaten for his troubles. A disguised
Hurricane enters the store (looking for chewing gum) and finds the poor shopkeeper. Learning the facts of the case, Hurricane sets a trap for the hoods when they return and clobbers them at lightning speed, causing Speedy to guess that he is the Hurricane. When the crooks wake up, Hurricane and Speedy follow them back to their hideout where the hero and his new sidekick clean up the whole gang.
Story #6Dust of Destruction
Writer: Stan Lee. Penciler: ?. Inker: ?.
Synopsis / Summary / Plot
In
London,
Nazi agents murder a visiting American movie star and frame an Englishman, hoping to drive a wedge between the two allies.
Headline Hunter believes in
Reginald’s innocence and sets out to prove it. When he gets too snoopy for the Nazis they capture him and toss him in the river but Headline escapes and hides on the back of the bad guys’ car. Arriving at their hideout, the intrepid reporter overcomes the Nazis and unmasks their leader as Reginald’s cousin, who hoped to serve
Der Fuehrer and get his hands on an inheritance to boot.
Story #7Race Against Doom
Writer: Stan Lee. Penciler: Al Avison. Inker: Al Gabriele.
Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Larry Scott hears on the radio that his old friend
Hal Saxson is on trial for murdering a ship’s crew and making off with its cargo of gold—and the chief evidence, a tape recorded confession, is damning. Larry visits Hal in prison and learns how the poor man was manipulated into making that confession (idiot) and later he discovers that the jurors were bribed to convict Hal—with counterfeit gold coins. Larry traces the phony money to the shady bank which is distributing it and from there to the counterfeiters’ secluded hideout, deducing it is made from the stolen gold. As
Father Time, he threatens the crooks and takes the evidence to the D.A., who also turns out to be one of the gang. The hero convinces the superstitious crooks that the captured D.A. is really a ghost and scares them into confessing to the state police (idiots). Hal Saxson is cleared. Father Time vanishes as mysteriously as he came.