Daring Mystery Comics (1940 series) #8

In May 1940, Lieutenant John Watkins of His Majesty's Army volunteers to cover the Allied retreat to Dunkirk. During the evacuation, a Nazi Stuka strafes the rescue boat and Watkins is shot, left for dead in the channel. A French fisherman named Pierre discovers he is still alive and nurses him back to health. Weeks later, Watkins crosses back to England in disguise. Recovered, he is recruited by a British captain who needs a man to go behind enemy lines and rally the occupied peoples against the Axis. Watkins volunteers, adopting the identity Citizen "V"—his symbol a "V" for Victory—and dons a brown uniform bearing the letter. 

Back in occupied France, he begins his campaign: beating a Nazi soldier who abuses a peasant, locating a German munitions dump and marking it with luminous paint visible from the air, then transmitting its location to London so that RAF bombers can destroy it. He spreads the V symbol throughout occupied territories, inspiring citizens to paint it on walls, cannons, and aircraft. Disguising himself as a Nazi colonel named Franz von Wehrheit, Citizen V bluffs his way into Germany, drives to Berlin's Chancellery on the Wilhelmstrasse, and paints a V outside Hitler's council room, driving the dictator to fury. He then gains access to Hitler's private garden, tricks him into signing what Hitler believes is an autograph, punches him squarely in the face, and escapes, leaving a V marked on Hitler's uniform.

Terror Reigns On the High Seas!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

A Nazi submarine commanded by the sadistic Captain Erich Von Wolff, who fancies himself "The Barracuda," terrorizes the North Atlantic, torpedoing civilian ships and machine-gunning survivors in lifeboats without mercy. One such attack sends the freighter Robin O'Dare to the bottom. The noise of the sinking draws the attention of The Fin — Lt. Peter Noble, U.S.N., a cadet-engineer assigned to submarine patrol duty who swims the ocean floor. Noble surfaces, spots the Nazi U-boat, and dives in pursuit as it submerges. 

He climbs aboard the sub's hull, pries open the sealed escape hatch after five minutes of wrestling with it, and slips inside through the air-lock. He fights his way through the crew quarters using jiu-jitsu, locking the off-watch crew behind a steel door, then works his way aft along the corridor to the Barracuda's cabin. He overhears Von Wolff and his lieutenant laughing over the massacre of the Robin O'Dare's passengers, including a mother and her baby. Enraged, the Fin bursts in. A savage fight follows: the Barracuda draws a Luger and empties it at close range, tears loose high-voltage wires from an electrical panel and lunges with them, and the two men wrestle in spilled gasoline as fire breaks out. 

The Fin smothers the flames using the Barracuda's own body, then lifts him overhead and hurls him into the sealed hatch, knocking him unconscious. He drags the commander to the wireless room, transmits the sub's position identifying it as the raider Neptune, and slips overboard as a British cruiser closes in. A boarding party captures Von Wolff and the crew. The Fin, his mission complete, swims silently away.

Death Rides the Air Waves!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

A series of murders is sweeping the city, each victim killed the moment they encounter a radio signal — a dash and two dots, the Morse code letter "D" — delivered through poisoned telephone earpieces, electrified radio sets, and rigged guns. Jerry Carstairs, a Federal Communications listening-post operator, detects the killer signal cutting across the regular broadcast band and deduces it is connected to the killings. In a matter of moments he transforms into The Thunderer, a red-costumed hero, and heads to the radio station where Mary Graham, a famous stage, screen, and radio star, is about to broadcast — certain she is the next target. He trails her home, and sure enough a gun hidden in her apartment fires when she switches on her radio, shooting her.

Enraged, the Thunderer follows the getaway car of two hoods named Slim and Mark, beats them in the street, and forces them to lead him to their hideout. There he confronts their boss, a deformed dwarf called Gore, who feigns surrender before triggering a trapdoor that drops the Thunderer into a basement cell. Gore sends his men downstairs to finish the job, but the Thunderer dispatches them one by one, locks them in the cell, and races back upstairs. He interrupts Gore at his transmitter as the killer is broadcasting another death signal. Gore pulls a knife, the two men grapple, and during the fight Gore trips over a transmission line, short-circuiting the equipment and setting the room ablaze. The Thunderer knocks Gore unconscious with a final blow, carries him out through the flames, and hands him to police. Gore confesses before dying that pure hatred of mankind drove him to kill. The closing panel shows Jerry Carstairs back at his listening post the next morning, coolly accepting a colleague's thanks for missing a party.

The Groom Strikes

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

The Li'l Professor demonstrates his latest invention to his nephew Oswald: a thought-controlled robot named Rudy, steered by a keyboard strapped to the Professor's waist that responds to mental commands. The Professor's wife is skeptical and unimpressed, but before she leaves for the movies with Oswald, she dares the Professor to prove Rudy's worth by painting the dining room. Meanwhile, a gang of criminals led by a dapper thug known as the Groom has spotted the Professor and the robot and hatches a plan to steal Rudy, intending to use him as a remote-controlled tool for robberies. 

That night, two henchmen break into the house. The Professor, still up painting, spots the intruders and triggers Rudy's built-in burglar alarm. When the crooks threaten him at gunpoint, he commands Rudy to fight; the robot grabs a blowtorch and menaces the gang, forcing the Professor to instead activate his indoor super-sprinkler system, drenching everyone. In the chaos the henchmen are knocked out by Rudy's wild swinging. The Groom then confronts the Professor directly and demands to know where the robot is hidden, but Rudy has quietly crept behind the Groom — armed with nothing more than little Oswald's water pistol. Police arrive in response to the burglar alarm and cart the gang away, with the Professor crediting Rudy as the best man of the evening.

Mahomad, the Sinister Spiritualist

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

At the studio of Effendi Mahomad, a self-styled spiritualist, a wealthy widow named Mrs. Danting begs the medium to contact her late husband Miles Danting, a famous stockbroker, for investment advice. Mahomad enters a theatrical trance, conjures a glowing apparition of Miles's face — produced offstage by a movie projector and a stooge speaking through a filter microphone — and uses the "spirit's" voice to instruct Mrs. Danting to hand over $10,000 for Mahomad to invest on her behalf. She agrees to let him collect it at midnight through the side door of the Danting mansion. When Mrs. Danting tells her son Dennis what she has done, he dismisses Mahomad as a fraud and goes to hire a private detective to investigate. At the detective's office he encounters Betty Barstow, the sleuth's secretary, who volunteers that someone will be on the job tonight. That someone is the Silver Scorpion. 

At midnight, as Mahomad is admitted to the mansion's study and begins reassuring Mrs. Danting that her money will be well invested, his gang of three armed men bursts in through the windows, pistol-whips Mahomad aside as a formality, and orders Mrs. Danting to open her wall safe. The Silver Scorpion enters through a window and takes on all three holdup men with jiu-jitsu, hurling them across the room one by one. Dennis arrives in time to warn her that Mahomad is creeping up behind her; she sidesteps his attack and flings him across the room. She ties the gang up, calls the police, and slips away before they arrive. Police inform Dennis that Mahomad is in fact Eddie Lorey, a West Coast confidence man who has been running the fake medium racket across the country for two years. The Silver Scorpion vanishes into the night.

The Thirty-First Century Blitzkrieg!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

In the year 3050, the war-weary nations of the world have at last assembled in Washington D.C. to sign a permanent peace. Captain Daring dismisses his soldiers and tells them to return to their homes — but before the ink is dry, a terrific explosion destroys the Congressional building, killing scores of delegates. A rocket ship hovering above carries the attackers: Hitler, Goebbels, and a scientist named Von Schalz. Captain Daring scrambles his fleet and shoots the vessel down. He pursues the three parachuting survivors on foot and captures them. Hitler, stalling for time, explains how they come to be alive in 3050: in 1942, with Germany facing defeat, Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Von Schalz pooled the looted wealth of the conquered nations, hid it in a cave deep in the Black Forest of Germany, and plunged into a chemical ice pool of Von Schalz's invention that suspended all life processes for over a thousand years. 

Three months ago the cave was discovered and opened, thawing them back to life. Now, armed with that buried fortune, Hitler intends to bribe new armies and conquer the entire universe — and he wants Captain Daring to lead them. Just then Goering arrives with bribed soldiers, guns down Captain Daring from behind, and Von Schalz places the unconscious hero under a hypnotic spell. Captain Daring revives fully enslaved, saluting Hitler, as Goebbels launches a propaganda campaign and Hitler's blitzkrieg begins anew — with Captain Daring commanding the invasion forces. The story ends on a cliffhanger, with a note directing readers to the next issue.

Characters
Good (or All)
Captain Daring.

Antagonists

 

Adolf Hitler

Plus: Nazis, Von Schalz.

Eagle-Eye Detective Agency

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

Tubby and Tack run a backyard detective agency called the Eagle-Eye Detective Agency, operating out of the garage. Their assistant Fuzzy reports having surveilled the neighborhood for suspicious characters and found none. Tubby complains they need a case. Just then Tubby's Mom arrives with exactly that: she left a full jar of jelly and a loaf of bread on the kitchen table, stepped out for an hour, and returned to find both gone — no fingerprints, no clues. Tubby declares this is not in their line — they handle bank robbers and counterfeiters — but Tack spots a jelly trail on the ground and insists they follow it. The trail leads directly into the boys' own garage detective office. Tack realizes with dismay that the thieves used their agency as a hideout while disposing of the loot. Mom then enters to find both boys sitting in dunce caps, having been caught red-handed — she reveals they still had their disguises on when she caught them, meaning Tubby and Tack themselves ate the jelly and bread.

The Hypnotized Ghosts

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

Late one night at a big city museum, anthropologist Professor Elton Morrow works alone, making plaster casts of preserved Mongolian aboriginal bodies laid out on a draped table. The story pauses to recap his origin: on an Antarctic expedition, Morrow's party discovered the largest diamond ever known; on the return voyage a Nazi submarine torpedoed the ship, shattering the gem and embedding hundreds of particles into Morrow's near-lifeless body, which gave his flesh the hardness of a diamond. Rescued by a British destroyer, Morrow became the Blue Diamond, bullet-proof crime-fighter. Back in the present, radio reports warn that prominent citizens — all active in national defense work — have been vanishing without trace. As Morrow listens, the bodies on his table suddenly rise: four gaunt, hollow-eyed men in a trance lunge at him. He fends them off with his trowel, notices one bleeds no blood when cut, and the men bolt through the museum's Egyptian room and into the interior of a large pyramid model. 

Blue Diamond changes and gives chase through the labyrinthine passages, crashes through a hidden wall panel, and corners the four in a vault of the Federal Reserve Bank adjoining the museum building — where frozen Nazi gold is stored for safekeeping. The surviving man confesses: their master is Doctor Eric Karlin, a mental specialist and Nazi agent who used his hypnotic power to drain the blood from their bodies, leaving them supernaturally strong yet unable to resist his commands. Karlin had exploited access to study the museum pyramid to construct a secret tunnel into the bank vault, intending to recover the Nazi gold. That same night Blue Diamond smashes through Karlin's bulletproof windows, confronts him, shrugs off both hypnosis and gunfire, and forces him to reveal that he dissolved the missing citizens in a vat of acid. Karlin flees to the basement, tries to trip Blue Diamond into the vat, slips himself, and falls in. The next morning, back at the museum as Professor Morrow, he reads the newspaper account of his own night's work with a quiet smile.