Starr Flag - Undercover Girl 51) Mystery of The Stolen SecretsI understand that the author does not want to give away too much about his or her story too early, but the reader fully expects to see spies/secret agents steal secrets from their enemies. The author wants the reader to be interested in starting to read his or her story, and to continue reading it all the way through. The best way to get readers to become eager to jump into the story is to have their title seem interesting (a "grabber"). Despite the weak title, this opening story employs an unusual and inventive plot device, of having the original assignment be a red herring, by targeting a ship captain that was being framed by the actual lawbreaker as the prime suspect. Having the lighthouse keeper, who was the suspect's tailor, and also had access to the suspect's clothing when the latter went swimming, be the true criminal, provided more suspense than usual, and allowed the author to wait till later in the story to reveal clues to finally lead the little junior detectives among the readers, to guess who the real villain was. And so, THIS book already has a story as good as the best story in "Spy Hunters 3". And the artwork in this book, both penciling and inking, backgrounds, and especially the human figures, all drawn by Ogden Whitney, is two or three grades better than that of of "Spy Hunters". The one weakness I noticed was that although having the murderess also be a sword swallower, who hid the murder weapon, (a dagger), in her mouth, to escape the murder scene is a terrific, novel idea, it is not very credible, because most readers would realise that she wouldn't have been able to walk out of a building exit, because they would be guarded by police officers, who would ask her questions, and she would need to open her mouth. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading this story.
2) The House That Hate BuiltThe poetic rhyming parody of the classic Nursery Rhyme, "The House That Jack Built", is rather clever, and reminds of the lead in comment to several gothic-style horror films. The title, and the introduction information that no one who ever went to that house was ever seen or heard of again, and seeing the heroine inside, falling down into a trap door and finding a torture chamber forms a great first 4 pages. But all that great promise does not bear fruit, because there are only 2 pages remaining to complete the story. So, there is a tremendous let down, and disappointment. The author had to explain who the villain is, and what his goals were add in a climax, and have an epilogue, ALL within 2 pages. That is impossible to do in the first place, and IF one could accomplish that, the pacing would be so off of a natural path, and come so fast, it would send the reader reeling, and wanting to throw the book on the ground, jump up and down on it, and then burn it! Needless to say, it is frustrating to see a well-thought out, reasonably clever plot, with an effective eerie mood-creating introduction, being totally wasted by trying to cram it into only a handful of pages, when it is worthy of, and much better fit for at least 12 to 14, and even better to 20 plus pages, leaves the reader sorely disappointed, and angry for being cheated out of the expected pleasure.
3) Jeopardy In JadeThis sounds like we can expect an Oriental jade jewelry-festooned villainess! But given the teasing and failing to deliver from most of the other stories in this book, I am skeptical that I'll be receiving the reading experience this introduction promises. And then, we even get the news that we can expect the series' heroine to be killed off in this story (which is not even this book's last! About the island she will visit, "Peaceful and serene,
it holds ONLY DEATH and danger for Starr Flagg." One of my pet peeves is native speakers not having good command of their own language, and having very poor logic in trying to use it to communicate. That seems to be becoming worse and worse every decade. To me, if a person sets foot on an island that holds ONLY death for her or him, her or his death is assured. It has already happened, and the teller of this story is just recounting that fact. If the author will NOT have the character die on that island in this story, he or she should have written: "Peaceful and serene-looking, this island holds mortal danger for Starr Flagg", OR "If she sets foot on this peaceful-looking island to which she has been assigned, the odds of her escaping it alive are slim to none."
So, based on the first two stories, I fully expect not only that our heroine will complete her mission, and leave the island alive, but I also will be disappointed that the story live up to the great expectations created by the nice long titular panel drawing, and the introduction narrative's dramatic wording.
And sure enough, I am already completely lost because the writer has such poor command of his own native language, that I have no idea what he is trying to say.
"He is supposed to have invented a definite counter-agent, in the form of electrons, that will detonate an atomic bomb at a hundred mile distance --- making a perfect atom bomb defense".
That statement makes NO sense to me. A counter agent is something that works against some action occurring. That would indicate that the "electron beam" would literally keep the bomb from detonating altogether. The "at a hundred mile distance" is totally unclear as to whether or not the beam can keep the bomb from detonating if one sends it from 100 miles away? That does not jibe with the wording "electrons will DETONATE an atomic bomb. IF the electronic beam sets off the bomb, how can it be a defence against it?
Starr arrives at the house of the scientist/inventor, and sees him lying dead. She notices a man running away, and pursues him to the ocean shore and dives in after him. When she grabbed him from behind, his hand released a jade ring he was carrying, which falls to the ocean floor. A shark comes out of nowhere and attacks the man, who was looking at Starr. She saw the fin earlier, and so swam out of danger, while he was being killed. Once back at the scientist's house, Starr finds a paper containing 4 Chinese characters. She has it translated and finds out that "The Secret of The Sage" is on the face of the lotus drawing on his jade ring. Starr then hires divers to find the ring on the ocean floor. Her divers bosses are American crooks who want the ring to sell it to the nation who will bid the highest offer for it (presumably enemies of USA (to whom the scientist had promised it). They demand the ring from Starr at gunpoint, but she dives under their boat and places their boat's anchor inside a giant clam's jaws, and it clamps down, holding it fast. Starr escapes them by swimming under water out of rifle range and on to the jetty, and one panel later, the story ends with Starr giving the ring to The US Authorities (ostensibly a consulate office), which was conveniently located nearby to that island (or there was a time lapse not indicated in a narrative. It was China at just about the time when The Communists took over. So, she must have gone to Hong Kong. I don't think there is a US embassy or Consulate in Macao. In any case, this story suffers from the same problem of a nice introduction, and then a lack of much action, crammed into one or two pages, and a ridiculously abrupt, unexpected ending with a one or two panel story resolution.
4) Beauty and The BeastStarr is once again trying to obtain a secret steel rotting formula developed by a scientist in a far-off land, to get it into the hands of USA, rather than falling into the hands of evil foreign rulers, who would use it to extend their power, and allow them to enslave ever larger populations under their yokes.
There must be other plots that could be used in a spy story. She finds the scientist's house in a clearing in an African rainforest area, and is attacked by a giant gorilla (who is the pet of a crooked Russian woman, who lives with the scientist. The latter suspects Starr's mission there, and tries to kill Starr, who dresses like the Russian woman to sneak away from her captor. The Russian chases Starr, forcing the latter to fall over a cliff, but waiting just below is the gorilla, who, miraculously catches Starr, saving her. Before, he tried to kill her to save the Russian woman, and now, because she has a turban over her blond hair, and toned down her normal bright red lipstick, and is wearing The Russian woman's clothes, the beast thinks she is the Russian woman. Does he have no sense of smell? This is totally ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, Starr ran away from the Russian woman who was riding a horse, and wielding a long whip, and accompanied by fast running, fairly large dogs, over a fair distance, wearing high heel shoes. Not bloody likely I'd wager. After thinking Starr fell to her death, the Russian returned to the scientist's house, and killed him and his servant woman. She is about to leave with the formula (planning to sell it to The Soviet Government (calling it "Russia"), the Starr returns. When the Russian aims a gun at Starr, her gorilla jumps on the Russian and kills her. Starr thinks to herself that the woman was wearing Starr's clothing, and so thought she was Starr, and killed her as an enemy. That makes no sense to me. I can't imagine my dog thinking I am someone else if I am wearing someone else's clothing, and thinks someone else wearing my clothing is me. The smell coming from a person's body has to be a lot stronger than the smell on their clothing. Besides, after wearing someone else's clothing for awhile, one's scent would be on that clothing, mixing with the older scent. Animals know other beings not just from sight, but from smell, sound of voice, body language, facial expressions.
Lastly, I must complain that this author doesn't know the difference between the usages of the words "I" and "me". It is difficult for me to understand how an adult can live 20+ years in one country, be educated there, not learn any other language, and still not know the difference between those 2 words, having heard them spoken by others every day of their lives. But, even worse than that, how does such a person get hired to write stories to be mass printed and distributed commercially in that country?
I know from experience that the writer in question would say, "What's the big deal? Grammar is for professors. It's not important. People understand what I say. Nobody I know cares about that stuff!"
The question is, "How did that error get past ME's story editor?" The answer is that comic books had such a narrow profit margin that there was not money generated to pay for enough trained staff to handle such tasks. But really, I wouldn't have had the nerve to apply for a story writing job if my grammar in the language required were so very weak. That error is so basic, that I am sure there would be too much cost in correcting that writer's errors to warrant paying him for his stories. But, even by the early 1950s, it was difficult to get enough decent storywriters for all the comic book stories being published at so low a pay rate for that level of effort, and receiving so little prestige vs. writing short stories for literary journals or books.
All in all, it was worth it to me to read both books, just to get a slightly better idea of what early 1950s Spy stories and Spy comics were like, as I hadn't read many in my youth, and I'm becoming a bit of a comics historian.
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Topic: Reading Group #281 Spy Hunters 3 Undercover Girl 5 (Read 2821 times)
