Marvel Mystery Comics (1939 series) #12

The Human Torch, currently a fugitive from the police after burning down plague-infested tenements in a prior case, vows to hunt down a mysterious crime boss known only as J.B., who controls the city's criminal syndicate and is responsible for the Torch's predicament. He intercepts an officer in an asbestos suit, borrows the suit as a disguise, and uses it to reach the Captain at police headquarters. Inside, the Torch removes the helmet and reveals himself, throttling the Captain until he agrees to share what the department knows about J.B. The Captain explains that J.B. runs a legally airtight organization behind every major racket, but his men are too frightened to talk. He offers the Torch a deal: smash the ring and earn reinstatement on the force.

A spy named Cinalli — revealed as J.B.'s criminal lawyer — overhears the conversation through an open dictaphone and alerts J.B. before raising a cry against the Torch in the corridor. Escaping police through a wall of smoke and a melted elevator shaft, the Torch identifies Cinalli, runs him down, scorches his shoe to stop him, and knocks him cold. He frisks Cinalli and finds a pocket dictionary and a coded message reading "WARFARE ROAST PLAIT TOP TEMPRESS KRANTZ" — signed J.B. Using the dictionary as the key, the Torch decodes it as "Waterfront robbery planned for ten tonight Krantz J.B." He leaves Cinalli for the Captain and flies to the Krantz Metal Company on the waterfront. There he disrupts a $100,000 payroll robbery by J.B.'s gang, melting their guns and fighting them off. He discovers the gang used a motorboat for a water entrance and spots Jane Bradley — daughter of a convicted grafter — at the helm, identifying her as J.B. The Torch pursues the fleeing boat, but it swerves and his fireball sizzles out in the bay. He then swoops down and wrenches the wheel from her accomplice Slim, capsizing the launch. A police boat closes in, fishes Jane and Slim from the water, and the Captain confirms that Cinalli confessed and exposed Jane's plan to rob the Krantz payroll. Jane Bradley — J.B. — is captured, and the Torch is officially reinstated on the police force.

Three-Sided War

Synopsis

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

Namor's mother, the Princess, chides him for releasing the three Americans — Luther Robinson, Lynne Harris, and Micky — who escaped his ice-castle by seaplane. A scout reports their plane was forced down fifteen kilometers from lookout No. 203, and the Princess urges Namor to recapture Lynne. Namor assembles his grenadier squadron and launches in his amphibian aerial-submarines. An hour later, hovering over the crash site, Namor's men dive to search the wreck but find only a blanket and a handkerchief on a nearby ice-floe; concluding the survivors must have drowned and drifted off, Namor turns for home. En route his lieutenant Folma spots a white man's submarine in Antarctic waters. Namor orders a dive and crashes his amphibian through the hull of the submerging U-boat, then pushes the vessel to the surface with his bare hands. His grenadiers pour through the hatches using steam-guns and overpower the Nazi crew. Namor seizes Lynne among the prisoners, entrusts her to Folma, and confronts the U-boat commander, telling him he only wants the girl and will leave the rest alone.

Namor departs with Lynne as prisoner, but a British destroyer suddenly appears on the horizon. The Nazi submarine torpedoes the destroyer while Namor watches; the destroyer's guns make a direct hit on the U-boat, and Namor's amphibians are caught in the crossfire as the British anti-aircraft guns mistake them for a Nazi convoy. Both the destroyer and the U-boat go down. Namor races back to the dying destroyer, where Luther Robinson and Micky — who had survived by contacting a rescue cruiser from the wireless shack — escape the sinking ship before a British cruiser arrives to collect survivors. With two of his amphibians lost, Namor heads home. Aboard, Lynne accuses him of being responsible for Luther's apparent death; Namor coldly replies that Luther brought his fate on himself. Back at his castle, Namor announces to Lynne that his mother wishes her to become his mate. Lynne refuses, pleading the Antarctic cold would kill her. Namor has Folma — described as a doctor — administer a drug to numb her to the cold, then brings her inside and introduces her to the Princess and his cousin Dorma. Sub-Mariner doctors strap Lynne to a table, operate to allow her to breathe underwater, and place her unconscious body in a weather-immunity machine — leaving her fate unresolved at the chapter's end.

Characters

Good (or All)

 

Lady Dorma

 

Sub-Mariner
(Namor)

Plus: Fen (Princess Fen), Folma, Luther Robinson, Lynne Harris.

Antagonists
Nazis.

The Enchanted Marsh

Synopsis

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

The Angel follows Shirley Smith into the dreaded Enchanted Marsh surrounding the Southern estate of Piedmont, determined to get her out before she shares the fate of all others who have entered. As if drawn by a strange power, Shirley moves across the small patches of solid ground while the Angel is struck down by a huge shadowy form and plunges into quicksand. His hand breaks the surface one last time — then a gorilla-like creature called Antone plunges in, drags the Angel's limp body out, and carries him slung over one shoulder into the treetops. The Angel wakes to find himself in a stone castle, revived by a powerful hose. A cackling old hag orders Antone to wash him clean and put him in chains. When the Angel tries to leap for a ceiling beam, Antone dashes him to the floor and chains him to a wall alongside other prisoners — the heirs to Piedmont — who were lured there by hypnotism and refused to sign the estate's deeds over to the old woman.

The hag declares Shirley Smith the last heir and threatens to feed her to the hungry vultures caged in the tower's upper room unless she signs the deeds within the hour. Desperate and helpless in his chains, the Angel watches Shirley break down and sign. The hag then reveals she has no intention of releasing them, ordering Antone to release the vultures. The Angel strains and snaps his chains just as Antone enters the room. He hurls Antone into the stone wall, then leaps to intercept the attacking vultures with his chains, beating them back and driving them up into the tower. He dives for a rope below, swings to the ground with Shirley, and scales the castle wall ledge by ledge to safety. Returning alone to find the hag, he pursues her as she flees through the marsh — and she falls into it herself, killed by the very horror she used to destroy others. The Angel assures Shirley that the horrors of Piedmont and the Enchanted Marsh are ended forever.

Characters

Good (or All)

 

Angel
(Tom Halloway)

Plus: Shirley Smith.

The Mystery House

Synopsis

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

Terry Vance, the young detective, is caught in a rainstorm while returning from a news assignment with his reporter friend Deadline Dawson and his pet monkey Dr. Watson. They spot a large, foreboding mansion and pull over for shelter. A butler admits Terry and Deadline but refuses entry to the monkey; Terry sends Dr. Watson to snoop around outside while the two go in. The host — identified only as the master of the house — is entertaining business associates and their wives. Deadline tries to pump the butler for news, is rebuffed, and Dr. Watson suddenly finds a body lying on the grounds outside. He alerts Terry through a window, and the group discovers the dead man is the Gardner. The master has the body brought inside and calls the police. When they arrive, the coroner examines the body and initially declares heart attack, noting a small wound near the heart but dismissing it as old. Terry insists it is murder and is thrown out.

Outside with Deadline, Terry reasons that because the master's private secretary Gregory — a ten-year veteran — was in a room that contained a hidden microphone wired to a wall-safe in the library, he must have overheard the safe's combination every time it was changed. Terry returns inside just as a man in an orange suit confronts the assembled guests, reveals himself as the killer, and announces he uses an untraceable "ice gun" that fires bullets which melt inside the body. He intends to shoot Terry next. Dr. Watson seizes the moment and knocks the gun from the killer's hand; Terry and Deadline wrestle him to the floor. The mud on the man's shoes clinches his identity as the prowler seen earlier. The master confirms that Gregory — his private secretary — had been stealing business information from the safe and killed the Gardner when the Gardner got in his way. Gregory confesses. The police take him away and the master thanks Terry, joking that perhaps someday Terry will be a "real detective."

The Shark

Synopsis

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

A submarine pirate who calls himself The Shark has been looting and sinking ships of every nation, demanding tribute from the United States on pain of blasting every ship off the ocean. The President calls in Professor Zog and his wonder-robot Electro. The plan: a U.S. destroyer will sail to the designated drop point and lower a boatload of tribute into the water. When the Shark's submarine surfaces alongside the treasure boat, Electro — riding on the aft pole of the destroyer — is cut loose into the sea to follow the sub down. The Shark's men fire a torpedo at the destroyer; Electro is blasted by the explosion but survives and boards the submarine. Professor Zog observes everything through Electro's built-in television lens and speaks through the robot's televisor face-screen. The Shark's cowardly pirate captain dives the submarine, abandoning his own crew on deck to face the robot alone. Electro subdues the crew with ease, then clings to the sub as it plunges deeper than any vessel has gone before — finally locating a dome-shaped base built atop a submerged mountain, more than a mile beneath the surface.

The submarine enters the base through an airlock, and Electro is pulled inside with it. The Shark — seated on a throne in his underwater throne-room and calling himself the future Emperor of the Seas — is alerted that a monster has come aboard. Electro fights through the base's guards, battering them aside. Professor Zog, watching through the television feed, directs Electro deeper into the facility. The Shark attempts to flee but Electro corners him, and Zog's image appears on the robot's screen to confront the pirate directly. The Shark is captured and his underwater empire is destroyed, with the story closing on Zog's declaration that Electro has put an end to the menace of the seas.

Characters

Good (or All)

 

Electro
(Robot)

Plus: Philo Zog (Philo Zogolowski), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Franklin Delano Roosevelt).

Antagonists
Shark.

The Plot against Texas

Synopsis

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

The Masked Raider and his white horse Lightning are investigating rumors of gun thefts from Army posts on the Rio Grande. Hiding outside an outlaw cabin, he overhears two of the conspirators — Breed and a French-accented gunman called Angelita — plotting to steal enough Army weapons to help Texas secede from the Union, with the stolen guns to be sold to local Indians to drive out the government. Spotted, the Raider escapes on Lightning under fire. He reasons that the gang is expecting a contact named Gidden who has never been seen by the outlaws, and intercepts Gidden on the Rocky Creek Trail — knocking him from his saddle, sending him to the Army fort with a warning message via Lightning, and searching his coat. The coat contains a map of the fort and a note identifying the meeting place; the Raider dons Gidden's coat and papers and presents himself to the gang as their contact.

Accepted, the Raider is taken inside the outlaws' cave and learns the full plan: strike the ammunition storehouse that night while Breed and Leek draw the soldiers away with a diversionary gunfight. Once inside the storehouse with the gang, the Raider steers them toward barrels labeled "Abbot's Powder" and quietly punctures one, letting the contents spill on the ground. The outlaws load cartridges with the powder and head out — but the Raider's identity is exposed when the real Gidden arrives at camp. Overpowered, the Raider is tied to a powder barrel with the fuse lit. At that moment, the Army soldiers summoned by Lightning ride up to the cave. The outlaws try to shoot but their guns misfire — the Raider reveals that Abbot's Powder is fertilizer, not explosive. The barrel won't blow, the guns won't fire, and the soldiers take the entire gang into custody.

Characters

Good (or All)

 

Masked Raider
(Jim Gardley)

Plus: Lightning (horse).

Ka-Zar in America

Synopsis

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

Ka-Zar, guardian of the wild animals of the Belgian Congo, has stowed away aboard a steamship to rescue his lion companion Zar, who was captured by big game hunter Bradley and is being transported to the United States. Hiding until dark, Ka-Zar stands on the open deck and roars the call of the lion so that Zar knows he is near. The crew panics, believing the lion has escaped his cage, and Bradley is baffled — Zar is still locked up. Ka-Zar eludes detection for two more nights but then descends to the hold and speaks to Zar in jungle language, promising to free him. A sailor discovers Ka-Zar, teases Zar through the bars with a pole, and Ka-Zar attacks him. Armed crewmen arrive and force Ka-Zar to surrender at gunpoint. Bradley recognizes the name Ka-Zar — a legend from the jungle — and rather than put him off the ship, sees profit in exhibiting this wild jungle man alongside the lion in America. Ka-Zar is put in irons.

When the vessel arrives in New York Harbor, Ka-Zar strains against his chains and breaks them with his great strength. He rushes to Zar's cage, forces the iron bars open, and together they reach the open deck. Knowing they cannot stay aboard, Ka-Zar dives overboard with Zar and they swim for shore as the crew lowers a pursuit boat. Ka-Zar whirls in the water, grabs the side of the rowboat, and capsizes it, spilling his pursuers. He and Zar reach a dock and race through the city streets of New York, scattering pedestrians in panic. Police cars give chase while Ka-Zar knocks aside an officer who tries to stop him. Following his senses to Central Park, he locates the zoo and declares he will free the captive animals. He overpowers a zoo keeper and moves toward the cages, but the police converge with guns drawn. Faced with the threat that the officers will shoot Zar if he does not surrender, Ka-Zar is cornered — and a young woman in another part of the city hears his name on a radio news bulletin and resolves to help him, having recognized Ka-Zar as the man who saved her life in the Belgian Congo the previous year. The story ends to be continued.

Characters

Good (or All)

 

Ka-Zar
(David Rand)

Plus: Ruth Wilson, Zar (lion).