Marvel Mystery Comics (1939 series) #14

A bomb crashes through the bay window of Ronald's estate at night, and nearby police officers — the Torch and his partner Pete — race toward the explosion. As they approach, two robed figures flee toward a clump of trees. The Torch throws a fireball to flush them out; the men catch it and throw it back, astonishing the Torch. The suspects vanish as Ronald's mansion goes up in flames. The Torch flies inside, sandwiches a mysterious blue flame between sheets of fire from the cellar and the rooftop, snuffs it out, and emerges to find Ronald — shaken — begging for help. Ronald explains he was lost two years earlier on a scientific expedition in the hills of Tibet, where he stumbled upon an ancient cult called the Fire-Men. They taught him their secrets of fire control, but when he threatened to use those powers against his own civilization, their leader Kalif declared he had broken their sacred laws. Kalif steps from the shadows and swings a double-laced fire-whip at the Torch and Ronald; the Torch ignites to snap the whip and free them both, but Kalif escapes — and leaves a note in Pete's cap directing them to the Temple of Flame.

The Torch suspects a trap but insists murderers must face justice. He leaps from the moving police car, melts through the Temple's chemically reinforced stone wall, and enters to find Kalif waiting calmly. Kalif claims the Fire-Men have battled half-human fire-monsters for centuries and that Ronald — who freed the beasts from century-old traps — must pay with his life; moreover, only the Torch can stop the monsters from overrunning the world. When the Torch tries to arrest him, Kalif proves immune to fire, overpowers him with a grip the Torch cannot break, and orders a chemically treated sand machine deployed to suppress his flame. Immobilized, the Torch is dropped into a deep stone pit and faces his "final test": a massive green fire-monster emerges through an opening in the wall. The Torch, with his flame restored, bursts into a fan of fire that corners and incincerates the creature. He subdues his own flame and, reconsidering Kalif's story now that Ronald has admitted his betrayal of the Fire-Men's trust, agrees to join Kalif in hunting down the remaining fire-monster still on the loose.

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Story #2

The Gool Strikes!

Writer/Inker: Unknown.
Penciler: Ed Winiarski.

Synopsis

On a peaceful Pacific island, a Captain and a scientist wrap up a research mission and prepare to head home. Their calm is shattered when what appears to be a strange raft rising from the sea stands upright and reveals itself to be a massive, grotesque creature — the Gool — which charges the island's military garrison. Heavy cannon fire has no effect, and the Gool melts the weapons with its touch as it blazes a path of destruction across the island. Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Professor Clark Dane and his colleague Doctor Kirby have been monitoring bizarre seismic tremors originating from deep within the earth's core, far beyond the reach of their instruments. Dane deduces the disturbance is converging on Bikini Atoll and fights to secure passage there, but Major Sardon of Washington blocks him, citing a military restriction on the area.

Defying orders, Dane boards an Army plane headed to the South Pacific. The story then flashes back to reveal the Gool's origin: a blind, instinct-driven creature hidden since the earth's formation, it stirred after centuries of dormancy, boarded a great screw-shaped burrowing vessel, and drove upward toward the surface. It emerged precisely as the United States military detonated an atom bomb test at Bikini Atoll, and the blast supercharged the creature with radioactive energy, making it invulnerable and lethally destructive. When Dane arrives on the devastated island, the Gool suddenly halts its attack — it has sensed Dane as the only remaining living presence, and telepathically projects four words to him: "I am the Gool." The creature then turns and walks into the sea and vanishes, leaving Dane and the Captain to wonder where it will surface next. The final panel warns that at that very moment the Gool is already rising from the ocean again, driven by hate and destruction.

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Story #3

Step Into the Mirror of Madness!

Writer/Penciler/Inker: Unknown.

Synopsis

In a garret room in Milan, Pietro D'Amico lies dying, writing a confession of the events that destroyed his wife and are now killing him. Two months earlier, Pietro and his wife Camille wandered into the antique shop of Bergo, where Camille became fixated on a large, shrouded mirror. The shopkeeper refused to sell it at any price, warning that its history was too sinister for human eyes. Camille stormed out calling him a fool, but that night Pietro hired two men with a truck, broke into the shop, knocked the shopkeeper unconscious, and stole the mirror. Once home, the mirror immediately changed their lives: Pietro glimpsed something evil in its reflection and dared not look at it, but Camille fell under its spell, sitting before it for hours as though paralyzed.

A week later, Pietro awoke to hear Camille's voice and a man's voice in the next room; he rushed in to find her sleepwalking toward the mirror as an unseen voice beckoned. He pulled her back and she fainted. Pietro covered the mirror with a sheet, but another week passed and the voice called again — this time Pietro was paralyzed and helpless as Camille said goodbye and stepped through the mirror's surface. On the other side, a demonic figure welcomed her as queen of his realm, but the assembled creatures laughed wildly at her beauty and a pool revealed her true reflected face, shattering her vanity. Camille cried out to Pietro for help. On his side, Pietro could see only the demon in the mirror; in desperation he smashed it, but Camille's voice screamed as the mirror shattered, and shards slashed Pietro fatally. His final written words acknowledge that Camille is locked forever in the broken mirror, and that he is doomed as well.

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Story #4

Beware of the Cat!

Writer/Penciler/Inker: Unknown.

Synopsis

p>In the peasant village of Kanghao, China, young Kai-San discovers a picture of a cat in an American picture book and shows it to his Grandfather, who reacts with horror and forbids the sight. He then explains why cats have been banned from the village for fifty years: the handsomest youth of the village, Chi-Mi, chose Lotus Flower as his bride from among all the girls who loved him. One girl, Sano, vowed revenge and climbed the forbidden Lagahao Mountain to seek help from her mother, the banished witch Mongo-Lo-Kai, who kept a great cat at her side. The witch agreed to help, sending a mysterious dancer to the betrothal feast — a beautiful woman with glowing green eyes who hypnotized Chi-Mi and drew him away from Lotus Flower. The dancer vanished in the rain, leaving Chi-Mi enchanted and indifferent to Lotus Flower's grief.

Lotus Flower followed the dancer home and brought her as a houseguest, suspecting the truth but knowing Chi-Mi would not believe her. The dancer refused all food except milk, sunned herself away from the chained dog, and was seen chasing a mouse into the woods, returning with a satisfied smile and blood-red nails. That night the dancer slashed the dog nearly to ribbons. On the morning of the wedding, Lotus Flower confronted the dancer directly, accusing her of being a cat in a woman's form sent to doom Chi-Mi. The dancer only smiled. At the ceremony, the Lotus Flower's dog — freed by her last hope — leaped at the dancer, who instantly transformed into a black cat and fled into the arms of Mongo-Lo-Kai, who had come down from the mountain to witness her triumph. The villagers condemned both witch and cat to death. The spell broken, Chi-Mi came back to himself and married Lotus Flower, and the grandfather concludes his tale by telling Kai-San that this is why cats are forbidden in the village to this day.

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Story #5

The Man Who Fled from the Future!

Writer/Inker: Unknown.
Penciler: Gene Colan.

Synopsis

On a deserted Bulgarian road shortly after World War I, the battered figure of Arnold Borgasia lies groaning in the dust. He begs a passing doctor to listen to his story before he loses consciousness. Borgasia explains that he is a medical student who had written to the celebrated recluse Dr. Hagg, renowned for his research into blood and experimentation, asking to assist him. Hagg replied immediately, summoning him at once. That morning Borgasia arrived by train, where the cadaverous, bullet-eyed Hagg met him and drove him in tense silence to Hagg Manor — a gloomy old house set deep in the woods where Hagg lived entirely alone. After showing Borgasia to a room and dismissing his attempts at conversation, Hagg woke him in the middle of the night and led him down to a hidden cellar laboratory: a gleaming, metal-walled room utterly unlike the rest of the house.

Inside, Hagg revealed two extraordinary claims: first, that the laboratory existed four hours in the future — that the moment Borgasia stepped inside, he was now at six o'clock rather than two — and second, that he intended to bring the dead back to life. When Hagg unveiled a body on the laboratory table and demanded Borgasia identify it, Borgasia was struck with cold horror at what he saw. Convinced Hagg had gone mad, he panicked, demanded to leave, and when Hagg refused and attacked him with the strength of five men, Borgasia fought free, burst through the bolted door, and fled into the dark woods with Hagg crashing through the brambles behind him. He finally lost his pursuer and crawled to the road, where he collapsed. Now, finishing his story to the doctor, Borgasia realizes the full truth: Hagg needed him dead by six o'clock so he could use Borgasia's own corpse as the subject for his reanimation experiment — for the body on the table had been his own. The doctor removes his hat, revealing himself to be Hagg, and smiles: "Yes, Borgasia… I will take care of you."

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Story #6

Attack of the Subterraneans

Writer/Penciler/Inker: Steve Dahlman.

Synopsis

Buildings are sinking into the earth in Fairbanks, with hundreds killed. Professor Zog dispatches his wonder-robot Electro to investigate, monitoring the descent via television-screen from his aerial craft overhead. A mysterious suction force seizes Electro mid-descent, pulling it toward a vast metal building underground. Before Zog can regain control, Electro is dragged inside, where a monstrous one-eyed creature — the King of the Onees, a subterranean race — commands slave workers feeding iron into a giant furnace. The King fires a strange ray-gun that encases Electro in a transparent protective film, freeing it from the suction force, and explains his plan: by pulling all the iron from the surface world he will make the Earth lopsided, forcing it away from the sun, plunging everything into total darkness, and enabling his army to overrun the surface. Zog, having regained control of Electro, refuses to cooperate. The King calls his Onees to attack, but Electro's iron fist floors the King. The King then threatens to destroy Electro unless Zog agrees to join him; Zog appears to submit and is invited underground in his sub-surface ship.

On the surface, Zog privately reveals to the crowd his true plan: to descend and learn the nature of the suction force so Electro can destroy the factory entirely. Underground, the King leads Zog to a brilliantly lit room — bright white light that sends the Onees screaming in terror. Zog deduces the Onees cannot withstand white light. When the King seizes Zog's throat, calling him a traitor, Zog flings a capsule-bomb that demolishes the suction-ray machine, then frantically activates Electro via the control panel on his chest. Electro charges in; the King pins the robot with a massive steel-block piston, but Electro's titanic power hurls the block back at the King and flings him into his own furnace. Zog boards his sub-surface ship and fires capsule-bombs at the factory, shattering it, and the blast propels the ship up through the chasm to the surface. The people of Fairbanks cheer Zog's return. Back at the hotel, a long-distance call arrives from the mayor of Titan City: the city is threatened by a mysterious menace called the Green Terror, and Zog is needed at once.

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Story #7

Escape from New York

Writer/Penciler/Inker: Ben Thompson.

Synopsis

Ka-Zar and his lion Zar have come to America from the Belgian Congo jungle, but their inability to adapt to civilized life has landed them in constant trouble. The story opens mid-crisis: Ka-Zar has broken Zar out of a zoo cage, tearing the iron bars apart, and both are fleeing under police gunfire. They take refuge in bushes, then slip away to the home of their friends, the Wilsons — Mr. Wilson and his daughter — who turn away the police at the door while Ka-Zar hides inside. Ka-Zar declares he wants to return to the jungle, and the Wilson daughter produces a newspaper announcing that a cargo ship is loading for Africa. The Wilsons race Ka-Zar and Zar to the waterfront in their car, arriving just as the gangplank of the freighter Westwind is being hauled up. Ka-Zar and Zar dash across a warehouse rooftop and leap aboard just as the ship departs. The girl presses a package into Ka-Zar's hands as he goes; aboard the Westwind, he opens it to find his knife and jungle clothes, changes into his leopard skin, hides Zar under a lifeboat cover, and conceals himself alongside the lion.

Two days out at sea a sailor notices the loose lifeboat cover and discovers Zar. Sailors rush with guns, but Ka-Zar springs out brandishing his knife, vowing to kill anyone who harms the lion. The Captain intervenes, hears Ka-Zar's story, and — sympathetic, though noting his British ship is at war — agrees to put them ashore in Africa if Ka-Zar keeps Zar under control. Days pass as the ship nears the African coast. One night a dark shape rises out of the water and the observer shouts a submarine warning; a torpedo slams into the Westwind, and the munitions cargo explodes. Ka-Zar and Zar are hurled into the sea and swim for their lives as the stricken ship sinks. The submarine surfaces and its searchlight finds them in the water.