Print

[Morgus]

'Crash, my wishes for good luck go with you and the move of your son. It was my turn last year when our landlord threw us out to renovate the place 'for family'. A loop hole a LOT of landlords are using in Ontario to get out of leases. We found something in eight days, a miracle on par with seeing my Uncle Ken pick up the cheque.

Okay, the Rudy Van Gelder story was way cool. I've loved his stuff with 'Trane. And who can forget the Miles Davis albums? There probably IS a bunch of those records hanging around somewhere. Like Bill Gaines once said; 'eBay ensured nobody would ever throw out any piece of crap ever again."

Yeah, 'Panther, the Hayes code was in effect then. But believe it or not, the later Comics Code was even stricter. It's funny how you get used to the codes and standards though. I was taken back with the blood shown and the live dissections the bad guy aliens wanted to do. It really was a different world back then.

[Morgus]

by the way, a sidebar; We were talking last week about the lure of South America and 'Panther mentioned the bossa nova craze. Well the lady that was at the crest of the wave Astrud Gilberto passed this week. She sang lead on THE GIRL FROM IMPANEMA, 1964. She was the last member standing of the group that made the record. Stan Getz, the sax player passed in '91. Antonio Carlos Jobim in '99. Her husband, Joao, also on the record in '19. She was untrained but her sincerity and tone made her an instant star. Jobim is worth looking up for some of his other works that used to amaze Henry Mancini. Astrud also did a record very much worth tracking down with Gil Evans. (You know; SKETCHES IN SPAIN...)

[The Australian Panther]

Morgus Thanks for this. I just posted links to what are probably Astrud's most well-known numbers down in 'Whatcha Listenin' to '    Including a live performance with Stan Getz. 

[The Australian Panther]

Exciting Comics 2 - Version 1
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85283
Two things interested me about this book.
Firstly, I was not familiar with the early Nedor/ Standard books, so the content of this one surprised me.
It seemed to me that there was a period when the ‘adventure’ comic book used the template of the comic strip and the pulps – and also the radio serials. Some of the dialogue and the words here could be straight out of the radio serials and the “B” movies.
And then came the costumes.
Superman debuted in the comic book Action Comics #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and published April 18, 1938).
Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (cover dated May 1939). Batman proved to be so popular that a self-titled ongoing comic book series began publication with a cover date of spring 1940.
It was first advertised in early April 1940, one month after the first appearance of his new sidekick, Robin the Boy Wonder.
The first appearance of Black Terror doesn’t happen till Exciting Comics 9 in early 1941. And he has a sidekick – Tim.
“Batman sales are going through the roof. Can we get some of that action?
But in #9, The Mask still has only a mask. As does the Sphinx.
So apart from Black Terror, the book hasn't changed much.
OK, just had a look at Exciting #1 which has ‘Captain Future’ on the cover but only a ‘Major Mars’ story on the inside. But I think these costumes were inspired by Alex Raymond and Flash Gordon. They are not, 'Long underwear.'
Your opinions, please?
Secondly, the character, the Sphinx.
The story in #2 seems to have been the first, so no origin. No explanation of his Super strength.
The character is the standard ‘Society Playboy’ turned crime-buster.
Even fights crime in a suit. Unusually, he has ID that identifies him as ‘a police operative’, And the story concerns ‘secret plans’ and ‘spies.’
Quite a few cliches here, but it’s fun and the art suits the story. I enjoyed it.
OK!
Now quite a number of character names from the Golden Age were repurposed during the Silver Age and later.
But the history of ‘the Sphinx' is a little different.
1/ This particular character is of course PD. AC comics reused him. I think Dynamite may have used him but not as one of the major characters in Project Superpowers.
Then there was this character,  who appeared in Flaming Carrot comics
as a member of ‘Mystery Men’ [Great movie, by the way!] 
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/the-sphinx/4005-121594/
and last but not least there is the version over in Big Bang comics – one of my Favorites – created by Jeff Weigel (now doing the Phantom Sundays)
https://bigbangcomics.com/store/tradepaperbacks/the-sphinx-2/

Anyway, that's all, folks!

[Morgus]

If the folks at Flash Gordon had wanted to, they probably could have had a pretty good infringement case. There is very much a Buster Crabbe vibe with that hero, and the serial went down a full four years before the issue.
For the The Sphinx you have to wonder if there would have been an origin story a couple of issues later if he had caught on. (‘Who is that mysterious, rich masked man in such a nice tux?”)

[The Australian Panther]

Actually, Gondwanaland comics have published a collection of the Sphinx and there were 11 stories published by Nedor, so there may have been an origin later. 
The Complete Sphinx: Gwandanaland Comics #1181 --- The Full Series From Exciting Comics
Since this book has been pulled from publication for legal reasons, it would be worth getting hold of.   
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/gwandanaland-comics-1181-the-complete-sphinx/4000-683497/
And Jeff Weigel's version has  has also been published as a collection.
The Sphinx (The Big Bang Comics Collection) by Jeff Weigel (2013-05-30)
https://www.amazon.com.au/Sphinx-Comics-Collection-Weigel-2013-05-30/dp/B019L4QB3U 

[The Australian Panther]

Lightning Comics v1 4
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=17746
'Lightning' and 'Thunder' are two concepts of power that are constant through-out human mythtelling and therefore constants in the powers and names of comic book characters.
Leggings on Flash Lightnings costume is a different idea for a modern comic character.
It gets monotonoous how many heroes get their powers from Egypt.
Why not Babylon, ancient china, early indian civilization, the etruscans or even ancient Zimbabwe or Ghana.
OK Atlantis does get used occasionally, oh and Tibet!   
Flash Lightning
First example I can think of where a Superhero becomes a Strikebreaker.
Also the idea of Cats with poisoned claws being used as a weapon is unique, I think.
Don't think the writer liked cats much.
Well told story for the time with lots of action.
The Raven
Another policeman superhero. And another LL girlfriend.
There is also an Australian RAVEN, as there is an Australian SHADOW.
  Page 21/22, so the chief knows Danny is the Raven?
And yet at the end of the story we find that he doesn't. Bit of an error by the writer.
well-constructed story.
X the phantom fed.
Worst disguise ever! 'The mystery man removes his hat. reveals himself as X the Phantom Fed.'!
If he's a federal agent, why does he need to have a disguise and another identity?
Not very well thought out.     
Ace McCoy
'Ace McCoy and his mechanical pal, Bill Regan' I think they mean, Mechanic Pal,since Bill doesn't appear to be a Robot.
Also that spectacular collision in Panel 1 doesn't seem to occur in the story. If it had, Ace would have died. 
Hap Hazard.
If Hap broke up a kidnapping gang and saved the mayor's daughter, I don't think his boss would treat him the way he does at the end of the story. 
Marvo the Magician and Toto
Wow, a magician who doesn't bother with spells, just punches the bad guy through a window. Mandrake could learn something from this guy.
Even better, how do you defeat a gang of thugs? Just have a monkey throw banana at them!
I think the writer was enjoying himself.
The face in the mirror is more a Mandrake gag.
And the girl gets tied to the Railway track?!  The writer really was having fun!
The train gags are fun too!
Nothing there to give the character longevity though!
Wizz Wilson and his future-scope.
We are 5 centuries into the future" and we are told, 'some of the oldsters tell crazy tales of great cities being where the jungle ruins now stand.'
And a few thousand years before now, they could say the same thing in South America.
Pretty Generic time travel story, Come to think of it, it very much parallels HG Wells!
So what comes across, is that the writers and artists had talent, but were probably paid peanuts and there was little overall editorial control, Apparently they were just churning them out at this stage and no one cared very much.   
Cheers!     

   
   

[Robb_K]

Exciting Comics 2 - Version 1

Ted Crane and The Leopard Men - drawn by L. North
I am disappointed in L. North's artwork.  His faces are not drawn very well (stiff, lacking expression, and detail; and his figures are also very stiff, an don't display motion very well.   I'm surprised to see 4-tiers in a 1940 Ned Pines-published book.  It seems to me that every one I've seen up to now has had 3 tiers.

However, the story plot provides some hope for a worthwhile reading experience. Villain's henchmen dressing up in leopard skins to have a power seeker's bidding done, using legendary superstitious fear among the people, makes for an interesting story plot.  And having the henchmen wearing them breath out dangerous knock-out chemicals adds yet another interesting highlight.  I always cringe at the lack of geographical and historical knowledge of the early comic-book writers.  Rubber plantations in Africa were all in the wettest rainforest areas on the Atlantic coast and south-facing coast of West Africa (Guinea Coast/Ivory Coast/Gold Coast), rather than  in the two tiny riverene belts of not-as-wet rainforest on the southern Indian ocean coast of Kenya and northern Tanganiyka nearest to Mombassa.

Ha! Ha!  The ex college athlete uses a North American Football-style kick to send a deadly snake flying out of danger to them!   . Of course a "Lost" tribe of natives, deep inside The African Rainforest is always an interesting plot device.  It seems as if Ted's party should have arleadyreached a point where horses became impractical near the beginning of the forest, not after hours of travelling inside it before reaching a clearing. Of course, Ted fights the ambushing natives alone, (one against 8-10!  Ted discerns that a large metallic idol statue is made of 100% solid gold, fro, perhaps, 50 paces away.  He must have Superman's X-Ray vision!.  The narrative describes a well-sized cargo ship as a "yacht".  At the end of Ted and Mombassa's local police's battle with The Leopard Men on the gigantic "yacht", thei latter's leader is unmasked, and turns out to be the rubber plantation owner, who kidnaps Konogo (lost rainforest tribe)'s men to use as slaves on his island plantation.  And, of course, in dramatic fashion, Ted and the released Konogo ex-captives, reach their village just in time to save The Professor's life, with the herbal antidote for the deadly knockout drug the villains used on him.  I think it is amazing (unusual, to say the least) that this "lost" tribe was only recently hiding  themselves from the evil plantation owner's kidnapping "Leopard Men", to avoid being captured to become  slaves.  They certainly have a good grabber for the reader to want to purchase the following issue, by having the Konogo chieftain offer to lead Ted and his party to "The City of Gold".

The Space Rovers
It is amazing to me that the writer of this story would believe that readers wouldn't mind the ridiculousness of a private non-wealthy scientist would be able to develop a space ship capable of inter-planetary travel, while not working for the government of a major World economic power, and before any such national government or international entity could do so.  I like the idea of foreign spies wanting to steal it for their government or evilly-run illegal international criminal organisation.  But that problem could have been avoided by having The Professor working for The US military or government "Space Agency".  This setting seems to imply that the Professor is a hobbyist, taking a great gamble, and finding a high-rolling financier, sinking all his resources into a such risky venture. 

And after seemingly, not even a single  day and night, their ship is nearing The Sun, 94 MILLION miles from where they started.  I guess the hobbyist professor invented a pretty good way to keep constant pressure in the cabin, given that the passengers don't even need to wear pressurized space suits to help withstand the astronomical G-force that would result from moving at that impossibly high rate of speed!  And, to add insult to injury, our Heroes land on the impossibly hot surface of daytime Mercury, reaches 800 degrees F! And, lo and behold! It has forests growing on it, and a river!!!  And as in almost all comics about Space, before the late 1950s, the Humans wear no space helmets provided with oxygen on an alien planet, assuming that the atmosphere on other planets is EXACTLY the same as Earth's.  

Even if I had read this in The Late 1940s, I'd have known that Mercury, with The Sun shining on it, would be way too hot for Humans, who would be completely desicated, and burnt to a crisp  in seconds, and whose atmosphere (IF it had one, at all) would be deadly toxic to most, if not all Earth life (certainly to Humans and all life more complicated than single celled).  They soon come across Mercurian "Cavemen"!  And the "civilised Mercurians live only 20 years and plan to dissect Ted and The Professor's daughter, to see why they live so much longer.  The alien dissector uses an electric knife.  ted spills water, which conveniently drains towards the former, and that tiny trickle of water electricutes him, before he can cut her.  That is very difficult for me to believe.  From the inside of his cage (conveniently on wheels), Ted pushes the wall towards the operating table, and ends up next to it.  He unstraps the woman (conveniently not very securely strapped).  An ridiculous amount of situations had to be set up for them to escape and get back to their spaceship.  NONE of the editors with whom I've worked would have accepted this script, and I'd never have been able to submit a script to any of their publishers ever again.

Son Of The Gods
7An archaeologist (seemingly of Greek heritage) looking for a valuable relic from the legendary period of Bronze Age Mycenean Greece!  As a history buff, I like that plot introduction.  After killing a boar in the woods, and  killing a villain's henchman, sent to kill him, to keep him from excavating King Minos' labyrinth of The Minotar, this story's hero, Thesson, finds the Immortal Ring of Poseidon; and so, local Greeks pay homage honouring him as a kind of "Savior of The World (the re-incarnation of the ancient hero, Theseus.  He accepts his calling as the reincarnation of the ancient Greek Hero (half immortal and half normal Human).  And he makes a pledge to fight against those who commit evil deeds.  We witness a new Superhero being born, just in time to read about his adventures as a Superhero in next months issue of "Exciting Comics".  I wish Ned Pines were still alive, so i could thank him for this wonderful opportunity (but also chastise him for abruptly ending his Canadian "Merry-Go-Round" comic book series in 1948 after only two issues!

Dan Williams - Private Investigator
This private dick sees some blood on the floor, and is already convinced there has been a murder.  H never read "Sherlock Holmes", who saves his definite conclusions for after seeing the final clue that proves what actually happened?  What a considerate and generous Private Eye!  He risks going to jail, and, at least, losing his detective license, by interfering with a police case, by assaulting the police officer guarding their chief suspect, and stealing her away from the crime scene, and hiding her from them.  The story ends with Williams, with the help of The Marine Police (Coast Guard unit or Harbour Police), following the gang of counterfeiters, led by the falsely-accused woman's cousin (who had tried to frame her for the two murders) to their island hideout, revealing their counterfeiting operation, rescuing the accused woman, and defeating the gang.

This is very nostalgic story for me, as it reminds me of a Donald Duck story from the 1950s, in which, as an amateur detective, he and his nephews discover the island hideout of a gang of counterfeiters, seeing a printing press and thousands of paper bills lying all over the floor.  There are no murders in Disney, butthe story is similar enough, including the kidnapping with the counterfeiting gang's island hideout.  I had originally also erroneously "remembered" The Beagle Boys kidnapping Donald's inventor friend, Gyro Gearloose, and taking him to their island hideout, and forcing him to invent a printing process which would make counterfeit bills completely indistinguishable from the legal tender versions, but that part must be from another Donald/Gyro/Beagle Boys story, from the 1960s, which is much more cloudy in my memory.

Sergeant Bill King
I have to say that I don't really like the artwork by ANY of the artists in this book.  NONE of them draw people's faces well, nor do they draw figures well.  And the backgrounds are much too sparse for my taste, and not at all realistic-looking.  Interesting that a US comic book in 1940, before they joined the war, wanted a soldier hero, so they chose to use a British soldier on the lines in the "Phoney War" between The British and Germans in Belgium, imagining it being similar in action and tactics to what happened there during WWI, because nothing different had happened on The Western Front, because The German army was busy administering the recent gains in conquered Poland, and was not yet ready for a serious effort in The West.  If the US comics publishers and writers wanted a US soldier hero before they officially entered the war, they could have told the story of a Yank volunteer fighter pilot in The UK's RAF.

This story is very matter-of-fact, and bloody boring.  The Sergeant rushes across the German's line, kills a few Gerries, and can't go back to his side because of a barrage of machine gun bullets heading his way from friendly fire.  So, he keeps moving forward until he can blow up a German pill box, and then enter their trench unmolested.  There he finds his own troop's captain, who he rescues and brings back to his own trench, again.  Later, he is decorated as a hero for his bravery and the rescue, and taking out most of an enemy troop, single-handed. 

The Grey Rider - Text Story
The one tiny drawing for this text story looks 100 times better to me than the art by ANY of this book's other stories.  And this 1-page text story makes the most sense, out of all this book's stories (although it is very mundane and not very interesting.

The Mystery of The Lost Mine
An interesting plot.  I wonder how that tiny mask hid enough of the geologist's face to keep his identity hidden.  Surely the tone in his voice, along with his body shape and mannerisms would have given him away to the ranch owner and his daughter from his previous dealings with them, EVEN if he tried to disguise his voice.  The many narrative comments on what was happening are not necessary, as the pictures and dialogue show what is happening.  That was a big no-no for writers and artists saccording to editors from the 1970s until now.  So, this appears to have been a newspaper strip adapted to the comic book format.  Can anyone here tell me if that is so?  The pacing of the story seems to be too even, providing several dull gaps - (e.g. no increase in tension, buildup of suspense, nor racing towards the finish line of the climax and revealing of the mystery and revelation of its solution in a short epilogue.  That fact also leads me to the conclusion that this was an adapted newspaper strip.

The Sphinx
I'm not familiar at all with this character.  Was he imbued with superpowers from the ancient Egyptian gods or Pharaohs?  -, at least having some connection with ancient Egypt?  It seems we have yet another Superhero who helps the police, like a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Superman.  Ordinarily, THAT combination would make this character as popular as most of the big superheroes - popular enough, even for laypeople (even folks who were around in the 1940s and 1950s to be acquainted with him, -EVEN if they didn't read superhero comic books.  At that time, almost EVERYONE read the Sunday newspaper comics section.  So, I'm wondering why he was not more popular, and didn't last long, like Superman and Batman.

The Sphinx MUST have super powers, because it would be impossible to leap many feet in the air, and land sure-footed and stationary onto such a narrow auto's running board, with his feet flush to its surface, and keep his footing, with the vehicle moving so fast.  I see, now that The Sphinx, at least, has super strength, as he punches a hole in a metal wall, to escape a locked room in a ship. However, the hole his punch left has sharp, jagged edges to it that would have ripped into the skin of his arm.  So, we have to guess that his super strength also provides protection for his body's surface and probably structure, too (e.g. keeps his bones from breaking, and joints from being pulled apart).  Again, as in the case of "The Mystery of The Lost Mine", the storytelling format has the narrative explaining exactly what the reader can clearly see in the panels' pictures.  So, I'm guessing this story was also adapted from a newspaper strip.

I don't understand why the "launch" (small motorboat) engine explodes, just because a much bigger ship collides with it.  I'd expect the smaller craft to be smashed to pieces, but not necessarily result in the smaller boat's engine exploding. THIS story has narratives describing what is happening over many, if not MOST of the panels.  It's very irritating to the reader.  It's so frequent that it makes The Western story seem palatable.And just at the heavy action of the story's climax, every single panel has a narrative at it's top, explaining EXACTLY  what is shown in it's picture.  That is incredibly bad form slowing down the action to almost a complete standstill.  I can't imagine an editor allowing this, EVEN near the beginning of The Coimic Book Golden Age, when editorial policies were first forming.  And why did the colourist paint the prototype tank blue and PINK???!!!  It helped to deliberately ignore all the narratives on the story's last several pages, and just look at the illustrations and read the dialogue.  Otherwise, the action cannot even be followed with all the narrative interruptions.

The Mask Returns
Being permanently, or even long-term disguised as a blind man is an interesting feature in the career of a superherolike mystery man.  Again, we have narratives over EVERY panel, describing exactly what is in each one.  I wondered how I missed that in this book's first few stories, and found that they, too use that format, except that they have, at least a few, scattered panels with narratives (the space story has quite a bit less, being almost acceptable). This story, with The Mask's crew infiltrating the villain gang, is a decent general story idea, but it's value is ruined by the narratives describing what the reader is seeing with his/her own eyes.

Book Assessment
Overall, I'm not impressed by Mr. Pines' editor, although most of the stories have decent ideas in the makeup of their heroes and plots (not so silly and objectionable to me as thge typical later Superhero genre stories and characters).  The artwork, however, is mainly weak to my taste, and the colouring is wrong in spots (colour of characters' clothing or room walls and other background items changing from panel to panel). Not the most enjoyable of reads, but still less objectionable to me than the typical later Superhero genre stories.

[crashryan]

Lightning Comics v. 1 No. 4

Flash Lightning-- or is it Lash Lightning? Or is it just Lightning? Who knows? I must admit this story barrels right along. Flash balances out Black Condor. The Condor fights for the workers and Flash for the bosses. What exactly are Flash's powers? The answer seems to be "whatever he wants." As for the poison-bearing cats, in 1939 (see Amazing Man #5) the very first Cat Man was a vengeful ex-con who dressed like an old lady and used a cat with poisoned claws to do in the people who framed him.

The art here isn't bad for the Golden Age, thanks partly to a guest appearance by Mr F. Gordon as our hero. He's swell.

The Raven is your typical Green Hornet type. Not bad, not great. Odd that Lola knows Danny is The Raven but she's never seen his secret headquarters.

X, the Phantom Fed: Generic but harmless. I like the armored car design. That must be one quiet elevator. It's barely twenty feet from a bunch of hoods yet they don't hear it.

The star of Ace McCoy is the nice Caniff-inspired art. Good airplanes.

Hap Hazard: Not great. Hap "solves" the case by buying an ice cream soda while the crook's ladyfriend happens to walk past. The serviceable art is familiar but I can't attach a name to it. This is the first time I've encountered "giving them hail Columbia" as a euphemism for "giving them hell."

Marvo the Magician was good for a few smiles. The monkey is definitely on a par with his boss. Mandrake must have been awfully popular considering how many comic book imitators he had. Today he's perhaps the least known of the Golden Age King Features heroes. In the USA, that is. He still seems to pop up in Europe.

Whiz Wilson is a bit different from other time travelling heroes. His machine can transport him through space as well as time, and he uses bouncing back and forth in time as a problem-solving tool. I like how he moves into the future to rot the ropes binding him. That sort of thing can generate a lot of time paradoxes, though.

In sum, I preferred Exciting Comics to Lightning, but there's enough here for a pleasant read.

[The Australian Panther]

His machine can transport him through space as well as time 

Gonna put on my 'pain in the rear, knowitall' hat here.
Been thinking about this for quite a while. A successful time-traveller would have to travel through space also.
See, where you start from is a point on the earth which is at that time at a specific point in space.
The Earth is moving, it's spinning and also moving in relation to the sun, which is also moving in relation to the galaxy, whicfh is also moving in relation to the universe.
You would want to end up somewhere on earth on a particular day. Unless yu had a way to accurately calculate where the earth would be on that particular day, you could end up in a mountain, in the sun or just in space kilomteres from anywhere.
But the positive from this? If you could time-travel and if you could calculate where you would end up: - INSTANT SPACE TRAVEL. 5 MINUTES TO MARS - 10 MINUTES TO ALPHA CENTURI. Mind-boggling!
I'll just go away now!                 

[The Australian Panther]

Bulls Eye Comics 11 (1 of 10)
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=39250
Cover - Quite Violent. Well-composed but the art looks washed out.
Yankee Doodle Jones
Excellent. Good Dialogue. Great Splash. Charles Sultan, like many artists at this time, is clearly channeling Eisner. The windows on page 4 make that chrystal clear, if it wasn't obvious by the 9 panel grid and the level of creative ideas.
[ Steve Ditko has stated that he learned a lot from Eisner and the iconic window in Dr Strange's 'Sanctum Sanctorum' is a direct quote from Eisner - something I did not know till recently.] 
This is what I like - a story where the artist elevates it and makes it something special. Something interesting in every panel. Lovely stuff.
Lady Satan - George Tuska
There is a scratchy look to the art here, which I've never seen Tuska use before [or later]
Lady Satan is overdressed for a superheroine! Not exactly fightin' togs.
What really fascinates me - the villain [ top panels page 17] is disguised as Charles De Gaulle.   
Down With High Taxes (4 pages)
Funny but out of place here.
Johnny Rebel
If this is Tuska, it's quite different from the Madame Satan work.
Interesting to see a 'Southerner' as a superhero.
Mother Hubbard
I don't know who Bill Madden is, but this one is quite interesting.
This is out of left field but I have a feeling that Kirby was aware of this character and used elements in creating THE DEMON.
The Demon is a traditiionally evil character who does good deeds and speaks in rhyme. And the rhythm the Demon uses is the same as Mother Hubbard.
EG, ' Go now, you are free my good men,
for I am about to destroy this evil den!'
For mine, the similarities are too strong for this to be a co-incidence.
The villains are particularly sadistic in this story, it's maybe not really kid's stuff.
The layouts are expressive but the artist leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to drawing anatomy.
K-9
Nice work again from Charles Sultan. A boy and his hero dog. Hard to go wrong with this one. 
The Coming of the Green Knight (7 pages)
Good work again from Sultan, but I don't think he scripted this because the script is sub-standard.
Why would you 'wander about the treacherous everglades.' Silly intro.
Not only that, but later Dale also goes for a wander into the everglades.
And the green knight and Lance arrive outside the old house just in the nick of time.
Really basic poor dialogue. But most disconcerting - Dale is rescued and then they both run away from her instead of waiting to be thanked! 

These have been fun, hope you enjoyed them.
Robb tomorrow! 

[SuperScrounge]

A successful time-traveller would have to travel through space also.

I can't count the number of times I've heard that idea. It's not a bad idea and someone could probably get some good stories out of it, but why should a time machine lose it's connection to the space it starts off at?

When someone jumps in the air the earth below them doesn't suddenly zip by at thousands of miles an hour because they are no longer physically connected to the ground, there are other forces holding them relative to where they jumped from.

[Robb_K]

Lightning Comics 4

Flash Lightning
Interesting that I wanted to find out the origin of The Sphinx's powers, and how he got his name, and the connection with ancient Egypt, but so far, I see no connection.  Ironic that I now learn that Flash Lightning got his powers of strength and speed were bestowed upon him by "The Old Man of The pyramids!  What a strange coincidence.  Did that happen in ancient times?  Or was Flash's mild-mannered, milque-troasty, chartered accountant alter ego merely on a travel holiday tourist trip to Egypt, when "The Man of The Pyramids" accosted him, and told him that he had the ancient blood of The Pharaohs coursing through his veins, and so, his destiny is to become the avenger of The Pharaohs of old as foretold in the ancient hieroglyphic scriptures???

I'm disappointed already! Why should The Egyptian, Old Man of The Pyramids care about having his chosen 'fighter for justice and right (as opposed to wrong in The entire World (i.e. new York, Gotham City, or Central City (or ANY US city), when conditions in modern-day Egypt invariably have dictators leading their country while putting more energy into staying in power than helping the struggling masses in the country from whence he emanated, and also from where the blood of this chosen crusader for justice came???  The premise and background to this series should have been better thought out.  It could have been a lot tighter, more relevant, and much more interesting, and still have the hero fighting for justice in USA, but he could still have better connections to ancient Egypt, too.  It seemed that the strip's or series' creator wanted to use the mysterious-sounding name of Flash's benefactor, WITHOUT doing the slight bit of work to tighten up the premise, hoping that the name, alone would invoke thoughts of mysterious powers from the ancient gods of The Egyptians as a way to cover the series' hero's origin, without spending any time on that effort.

So, "The Old Man of The Pyramids" appears as an ethereal spirit, wherever Flash is(i.e. his apartment in New York), to tell him about his next "assignment"). Why don't we see Flash fighting for better medical facilities so the poor in Egypt can get decent medical care???

Instead, we see Flash being advised that gangs of river pirates are robbing warehouses, and killing watchmen on the waterfront of the large US port city in which Flash seems to reside. The rampaging watchmen, tearing apart warehouse stock, see Flash come running and telling them to stop, and think he is just a trouble-making "agitator".  Why don't they wonder why a grown man wearing ballet tights tells them to stop?  And a gang member jumps about 15 feet from down below, up onto a platform.  The rampaging watchmen stop and listen to Flash telling them to meet peacefully with the warehouse owners, because Flash looked "so big and strong' to them.  So, bullets bounce off Flash.  He is like Superman (indestructible, super strong, and super fast).  Does he have extra-long vision and x-Ray vision, too?  And super hearing?  And super-distant smelling power?  I now see that he has the power to direct bolts of lightning wherever he wants it to go.

As expected, Flash conquers all the river pirates, and delivers them to the police.  Then, he flies up to the storm clouds to get his next assignment from "The Old Man OF The Pyramids", who, seems to be wearing a Greek-style white robe, and with a long beard, looks more like Zeus than an Egyptian.  Maybe he is the spirit of Egypt's Greek (Ptolomaic) dynastiy?

If Superman sued Fawcett over Captain Marvel, why Didn't they also sue Ace for Flash Lightning?  Was that because Fawcett was, by far the most successful Superman cloner, and winning against Fawcett would set the precedent needed to bring all the others into line?

The Raven
Ha! Ha!  Lola Lash!  Sounds like a prostitute or dancer in a strip club!  So, no one  but his ladyfriend, lola, knows that The Raven fights crime.  The police want to arrest him as a criminal.  The police chief has to arrest his own daughter for a murder for which she was framed.  So, as The Raven her detective lover free's her from her police captivity and they both try to find the real killer.  They catch the killer, and bring him to the police.  And The Rave slugs the chief of police for not believing his daughter, and runs away.  The police chief vows to capture him.  A so-so story with decent action, and a routine plot.  Just a run-of-the-mill  "mystery man" story.

X - The Phantom Fed
A story that takes place in The Spirit's Central City!  Another Ace FBI agent story involving spies who steal prototype military vehicles for sale to a foreign government.  Interesting that this, particular FBI agent has the special talent of being a master of disguises (like Lon Chaney).  THAT skill is great for developing a wider variety of stories and plots.  I would enjoy following a series like this, like I enjoy all Sherlock Holmes stories.
I guess Agent X is good at mimicking people's voices, too, given that everyone thinks he is Central City's Police Commissioner when he impersonates him.  I think it is funny and unbelievable that the Police Commissioner of a very large city would lead a police operation, and get involved in the physical battle, carrying a machine gun, and shooting at the criminals.  Police commissioners are businessmenCEO level top managers.  They don't get involved physically, on-site in street operations.  They wouldn't even be on-site to give orders.  The city's Chief of Police handles those tasks.  If they to "go upstairs" to get help with a ground decision, they'd probably be fired for inadequate capability.  In VERY unusual circumstances, a police Captain or Chief might telephone The Commissioner for advice in an extremely touchy situation.

This is a new, inventive plot for me.  Organised crime steals two military armoured vehicles and uses them to rob banks by driving right through their walls!!1. .  Agent X should have several broken limbs now.  A panel (P32 panel 2) shows him leap from a high tree branch from about 12 feet away from an open barn window at about a height of 16 feet from the ground and the window's bottom is about 17 feet from the ground.  He couldn't possibly land a foot higher that far away from his starting point, with gravity pulling him downward.  He'd likely fall onto the fence below, and break some bones.  Also, the perspective of the barn to the angle that Agent X is jumping is also incorrect.  He is jumping almost parallel to the wall with the window.  He wouldn't reach it even if he could fly that far.  Also, the tree changes position in relation to the window.  Bad mistakes. An okay story but some careless errors that draw the reader's attention away from following it.

Ace McCoy
Now we have a place where a lot of people live, called "City"!  Diamond thievessmugglers and a non-military dogfight with adventurous fliers!  Unusual plot, and some good action.  And the artwork is fairly decent.  It held my interest all along.  One of the less problematical stories in thse 2 books, so far.

Hap Hazard
I know this Ace character from comedy books.  He's a bit silly at times, but intelligent and resourceful when he needs to be.  In this story he fakes illness to pretend to go home from work as a newspaper gopher, so he can go out on a news reporter fact-finding mission to get the big story for his newspaper.  His carelless ending up as a prisoner of the state governor's daughter's kidnappers actually helps him save the young woman, and not only get the story, but become the story, himself!   A decent, fairly inventive plot for a character that needs to include a comedic element.

Marvo The Magician and Tito

Marvo runs into a casino where a brawl is occurring, grabs a trash bin filled with papers, and tosses them all out, making the illusion that they are green paper money bills.  Did he use mass hypnosis?  He didn't have time to paint every paper.  We didn't see him prepare to have a green-coloured lamp shine on them.  I hope this series doesn't have this magician be able to perform magical feats, which defy the scientific laws  of physics, chemistry, and biology.  The mayor's daughter in this story looks EXACTLY like EVERY blonde-haired woman in every story that had one in both the Better and Ace books in this thread, with the exact same hairstyle and facial features, and most wearing the same red or red-orange dress.  WOW! A magician who uses his fist to knock a villain through a glass window, instead of using a magic trick to subdue the blighter!  I'm impressed.  Dr. Alter is a plastic surgeon who changes criminals faces so they can keep from being caught by the police.  Couldn't the author be a little more inventive in name choices?  Marvo magically changes a criminal plastic surgeon's customer's face into the face of a donkey, so the customer will blame the surgeon.  After a fight between them, and the police arrive, Marvo quickly changes the face back to that of a Human, so the police don't see the donkey face.  Does that mean he really can break the laws of physics and perform truly magical (unexplainable and impossible) acts that are not just illusions, but defy science and nature?
The evil, crooked gambling casino operators who want to get even with their mayor for busting their casino, tie her to a railroad track, with a train soon approaching.  Marvo causes an illusion of another train sitting on the track in front of the approaching train, so it somehow gets stopped in time.  Then, he congers the illusion of another train, which off its track, chases the villains over a cliff to fall a few thousand feet, clearly to their death, into a deep riverine canyon.  I'm sorry, but I can't believe that mass hypnosis can be performed instantly at such a distance. 

Whiz Wilson and His Futuroscope
We were just discussing future time travel, and now we have a story based on it!  How convenient!  So now are lengthy tangential discussion is on topic for this thread.

Our hero uses his time machine to take him to South America in the year 2500.  Apparently he didn't read our discussion on time travel!  He finds a very backward people who are kept from progressing by evil thugs who have tamed dinosaurs as their pets and mode of transportation. Whiz takes a short break from 2500, to return to his lab in 1940 to grab some weapons to help defeat the evil tyrant, Gorok .Why wasn't he proactive, and just build a much larger time machine, big enough to bring a lot of weapons with him on his time trips???  This is supposed to be in tropical South America, and yet. ALL the native people are lily white!  No Amerind native blood, whatsoever.  And even if they were all people from Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Montevideo, Lima, Santiago de Chile, or Bogota, most of the European immigrants there came from Spain or Italy, and so, would tan in that tropical sun.

Whiz, trying to rescue the cave people's women prisoners of Gorok, is captured by the villains and tied up with vines, waiting to be fed to the prehistoric beasts (who couldn't possibly have evolved after a mere250 years after a nuclear world war in 1950.  Were they regenerated from ancient DNA preserved in amber?  Whiz sets the dial of his time machine to 100 years later, so the vines will have deteriorated and he can get free of his binding.  Then, he returns to 2500 and rescues the women, and destroys all the villains and their dinosaurs with hand grenades.  And so, he can return happily to his own time, confident that the cave people can now progress, and give birth to a new civilisation.  What silly tripe!

I am reminded of why I didn't like this type of comic book in the late 1940s and early '50s, when I had access to many of them, free of charge.

[The Australian Panther]

I will let someone else answer that one.
Brings up another interesting point too!
Were time travel possible, why would it also require space travel?
https://www.quora.com/Were-time-travel-possible-why-would-it-also-require-space-travel

The reason is quite simple. If I ask this question:- where are you? now, again I ask the same question where are you? The obvious but wrong answer is sitting here answering your question. Why? In the time it has taken for you to read to this point you have moved a considerable distance because the earth is spinning, the earth is also going round the sun and the sun is rotating round the galaxy core and very probably the galaxy is moving. So the correct answer to the second question is “a long way from where I answered the first question. So if I were to build an HG Wells time machine, going forward or backward in time would at best find me in the void of space, at worst buried deep in the earth. A similar problem exists in Star Trek with its transporter, here I am orbiting at several thousand miles per hour and I materialize with all that momentum on the ground. At best i go flying into the distance until friction takes over and stops me, at worst I go splat into a wall. That all said I really enjoy both time travel stories and star trek. Live long and prosper! 

When someone jumps in the air the earth below them doesn't suddenly zip by at thousands of miles an hour because they are no longer physically connected to the ground 

That's because they are still moving with the earth at the same speed. 
However, lets say you go through time only one day, the link with the earth is severed, because you are now in a different physical space to where the earth is.
If there are forces that would hold a time traveller to the earth, what are they? I'm genuinely interested.
And what happens if you go so far back that the earth was not in existence. Or so far ahead that it has ceased to exist.
With the Star Trek problem, there really needs to be a receiving station at the other end that can orient the traveler to local gravity and speed when they arrive.
Alan Moore did this successfully in Top Ten.
Addenda!
I just got a crazy idea!
Just reading through the responses on that site, [well worth it] i read this one.   
Cheers

As for space — yes. We are somewhere at some time and both will be different the moment you read the next word. Did you know that dinosaurs lived all the way across the galaxy? At least from our perspective.   

So, thinking that through, since the light that reaches us has to travel across vast distances at light speed, which means that when we look at the night sky we are effectively looking at the past, does that mean that we could be seeing the light from our own sun from the past?
I'm getting a headache already!
cheers! 

[Robb_K]

A successful time-traveller would have to travel through space also.

I can't count the number of times I've heard that idea. It's not a bad idea and someone could probably get some good stories out of it, but why should a time machine lose it's connection to the space it starts off at?

When someone jumps in the air the earth below them doesn't suddenly zip by at thousands of miles an hour because they are no longer physically connected to the ground, there are other forces holding them relative to where they jumped from.

Very true.  No matter how many orbits The Earth makes around The Sun between the time machine leaving its present time and moving to its future time, the time machine or, its former location will stay in its relative position to the rest of the planet.  Who is to say that the time machine does not remain in its position in the present, but when its passenger is transported to the future,m it is also there in the future?  Why should the machine not exist in the past, when it existed seconds before in that very spot?  If you were totravel to a future time, say 3 years ahead, your house would exist in both the past and the future, until it is destroyed by a future event from an outside source.  Once You travel to a future time, you are essentially in another dimension.  I think it is more likely that a "You" will still exist in the present, AND the future "You" will exist in that future year.  It is more the question of your consciousness.  IF you could travel into the future, perhaps it would be impossible for the conscious sentient "You" of today, to meet your future self.  You mightjust be inside the FUTURE "You", and have HIS memories and body.  But, IF that were the way things would work, we could make no interesting time travel stories.  Still, from what I learned in Physics, I even IF one could somehow survive the travel speed needed to break The Sound Barrier, he or she would just be in another time dimension.  Time is not a physical thing.  It is measure of relativity.  It is a measure of the relative distance from one position along a spectrum, to another.  So, I think it is more logical to assume that IF one could travel in time, one would just be "himself or herself" in a different dimension of time, and he or she would still exist in his or her original dimension.  The question is whether or not the person reaching the new dimension would have memories of his or her life in his or her old dimension, as well as a different set of memories in the new dimension, the two of which would likely drive the person mad.  So, we have solved it!  Time travel is one of those questions and ideas that should NOT be pursued by Mankind, for our own sake.  It makes for interesting stories.  But, they are, by definition, not logical.  But then, so many comic book fantasy stories have tonnes of holes in them, so why be a stick-in-the-mud?   

[Robb_K]

Bulls Eye Comics 11

Yankee Doodle Jones

[crashryan]

All the discussion of time travel made me revisit the Whiz Wilson story. This time around I saw a serious problem with the rotting-vine trick that had amused me before.

Whiz' wrists are bound with vines. He jumps 100 years into the future. To quote our hero: "Now these vine-cords are a hundred years old and rotted. I'm free!" Why did the vines age? If travelling into the future ages the vines on Whiz' wrists, it should also age Whiz and his clothing by the same amount. Since Whiz and his clothes don't age, neither should the vines.

The only way around this is to stipulate that items belonging to Whiz' "native" time, 1940, are immune to aging as they travel through time. He can carry stuff from his lab into the future without a problem. However anything he picks up in a different era isn't immune. Thus the "future vines" on his wrists age normally. Essentially this means Whiz can't move things from one time period to another. Yes, a rock wouldn't age noticeably if Whiz shuttled it 100 years into the future. But living creatures, vegetation, and the like wouldn't survive the trip. Then there's the question of taking things backward in time. If Whiz tries to carry a 2500 A.D. bird back to 1940, would it age in reverse? Turn to an egg? Cease to exist altogether?

I'm fine with fantasy concepts like time travel, but if I were to create a time travel series I'd want to develop rules for how time travel works, then work within those limits. I feel that playing fair and having time work the same way in every episode would add to the reader's enjoyment.

[Robb_K]

All the discussion of time travel made me revisit the Whiz Wilson story. This time around I saw a serious problem with the rotting-vine trick that had amused me before.

Whiz' wrists are bound with vines. He jumps 100 years into the future. To quote our hero: "Now these vine-cords are a hundred years old and rotted. I'm free!" Why did the vines age? If travelling into the future ages the vines on Whiz' wrists, it should also age Whiz and his clothing by the same amount. Since Whiz and his clothes don't age, neither should the vines.

The only way around this is to stipulate that items belonging to Whiz' "native" time, 1940, are immune to aging as they travel through time. He can carry stuff from his lab into the future without a problem. However anything he picks up in a different era isn't immune. Thus the "future vines" on his wrists age normally. Essentially this means Whiz can't move things from one time period to another. Yes, a rock wouldn't age noticeably if Whiz shuttled it 100 years into the future. But living creatures, vegetation, and the like wouldn't survive the trip. Then there's the question of taking things backward in time. If Whiz tries to carry a 2500 A.D. bird back to 1940, would it age in reverse? Turn to an egg? Cease to exist altogether?

I'm fine with fantasy concepts like time travel, but if I were to create a time travel series I'd want to develop rules for how time travel works, then work within those limits. I feel that playing fair and having time work the same way in every episode would add to the reader's enjoyment.

Excellent points.  I agree  totally.  Whenever things are handled inconsistently, the reader stops reading to think about those problems in the story.  That ruins his or her "living in the story", and thus, the feeling of being there, together with the protagonist(s), seeing the sights, hearing the sounds, smelling the aromas, tasting the tastes, and feeling the emotions.  In short, it ruins the readers' chance to fully enjoy the experience, (e.g. enjoying the adventure).  The author must establish the rules of his or her universe of the story, and be perfectly consistent in using them.

I'm working on a book series that deals with time travel, but luckily for me, I haven't had to deal with the biological effect on Humans yet, because my series is about a robot family that comes from The Earth hundreds of years from now, when Humans have died out, and only AI robots remain, and an eccentric rebellious male robot, who is bored with living in a World full of "people", almost all of whom act the same at all times, because they ALL have perfect mathematical logic. His wiring may be deficient in some way from birth.  He has a sense of humour.   Fed up, he kidnaps his family in a large time machine, disguised as a rented hall for a party he gives for them, and takes them back to the 21st Century Earth, just when the first AI Robots were starting to function as equals to Humans, and integrate into their society.  I do have a trip back to their old future time, but don't have to deal with the effect of time on any biological Humans, as none of them take that trip to the future (at least not in the first 4 books.  But, I plan to write 6 more.  So, I might have to deal with that issue.  I don't really have to deal with the robot family bringing machines or devices with them, as they didn't know they were going on a trip in time or otherwise.

[crashryan]

Late to the table again! Here's the last of the three early-GA books:

Bulls Eye Comics 11

Put me down as another Chesler fan. His comics had plenty of rough edges but they combined youthful energy with a willingness to throw anything against the wall to see what sticks. Some of the scripts are downright minimalist. Very little dialogue, very basic plots. But that sort of thing wasn't exclusive to Chesler.

Yankee Doodle Jones starts with a dynamite splash panel. Charles Sultan is still developing his art, but you can see he's gonna be good. It's interesting how he's influenced by Lou Fine during the period Lou Fine was still influenced by Will Eisner. Fine had a far-reaching influence. Both George Tuska and Murphy Anderson started out with heavy Fine influences. As did Bob Fujitani. All three developed quite differently, to say the least.

The story is no great shakes. The bulb that spurts the stonemaking chemical must be pretty powerful. The murderer is halfway across the room in most of the killings. I wonder why he bothers using the Medusa head at all. In each case he's the only one present besides the victim. Maybe he just likes the drama. Sultan cops out on a few backgrounds but his art is nice overall.

Lady Satan is one cold cookie. I was surprised when the Nazi she garrotes regains consciousness. It looked pretty final to me. Likewise when she shoots a guy in the shoulder. I suspect that an editor got cold feet about Lady S killing without remorse, even if the victims are Nazis. Even without a Comics Code, some Golden Age editors seem to be reluctant to show heroes stabbing, strangling, and so forth. Commandos get away with it, but even in wartime comics heroes usually kill only in self-defense. Except of course in open combat. There our guys may gleefully mow down a thousand men. It's the personalized violence that seems uncomfortable. Especially, I imagine, if the killer is a woman.

Anyway, back to Lady Satan herself. It's hard to believe that simple masks like hers can conceal her identity, especially if she has been--ahem--intimate with the Germans she vamps. I wonder where she hides her pistol and her fake knife. Maybe she has pockets on the inside of her cape. George Tuska sure came a long way from this early effort.

King Kole is a manic mess. I didn't like it.

Johnny Rebel doesn't look like Tuska to me. I could see some Tuska-ish faces in Lady Satan, but none of that here. Where Dandy had a thing for chocolate cake, Johnny has one for fried chicken. Everyone else has a young African American comedy sidekick; Johnny has a senior citizen. Rufus is no less stereotyped: of course he carries a straight razor. The poor guy is going to have a heart attack if Johnny keeps running him ragged. I can't figure out the bad guys in this story. They dress like 17th-century pirates. One of them speaks with a Cockney accent. What in the dickens are they doing lurking around a swamp in the Deep South working for Hitler?

At first Mother Hubbard looks like it would be an interesting oddity. Her first rhyme even scans! The poor art and the inconsistency of Mother Hubbard's magic torpedo the feature. Her poetry also goes downhill. I think this could be an appealing concept with more thought and better personnel. There are two funny moments. On our page 34, panel 2, it looks like the crewcut Nazi is urging his henchman into the witch's circle by prodding him in the butt with the branding iron. The last story panel is priceless. The professor babbles, "...and the old witch with her black magic rescued us and destroyed the leader and his gang!" and the policemen calmly reply, "Hard to believe...but if you say so, it must be true!"

K-9 isn't that different from all the other Golden Age Rin Tin Tin wannabes. Unfortunately the artist isn't much better than I am at drawing dogs. I was sure the unlucky mutt was being shot in page 42, panel 5. He certainly looks dead, or at least badly wounded, in panel 7. What a relief to learn he was "just winded."

The Green Knight has one of those minimalist stories I referred to. The Green Knight is meandering around the Everglades, discovers a vampire for some reason menacing a kid. After chasing away the vampire he "adopts" the kid and makes him a sidekick, even though the lad shows no particular talent for crime fighting. He does show a talent for getting in a jam, a prized quality in sidekicks. This looks like another Charles Sultan art job, and it's pretty good. I'm not sure why the vampire's henchman wears a bowl on his head, though.

In conclusion, this is an enjoyable oldie.

[Robb_K]

Bulls Eye Comics 11

Yankee Doodle Jones
Charles' Sultan's art is very interesting, but not pleasing to me.  But it provides an eerie mood.  Medusa's head plays no real part in the story, given that the deadly poison that turns living things to stone is a different source, and is shot at the victim from a different location.  I assume the murderer cut off the head of a woman he killed, and then affixed snakes to it. And this madman is hired by The Axis Powers to murder prominent people important to The Allies' war efforts. The story is disjointed and does not provide a setting and plot line that make much sense.

Lady Satan
This heroine is very intelligent and resourceful, and not squeamish when it comes to needing to kill adversaries. That mask of hers doesn't cover up much of her face, - just her eyes.  anyone would recognise her easily.  Kurt is supposed to really want her.  But he goes off willingly (seemingly too super easily) to give up his life, for his Fuhrer and Fatherland.  Kurt, disguised as Charles de Gaulle, has a much longer head.  Did the make-up man add that difference with plaster and cardboard?  How could that possibly fool people, at close range, into thinking it was his real face?  Still, this story was easier to follow, and although also too fantasy-like for my taste, more entertaining than The Medusa story.

King Kole
Comedy is my greatest love.  Yet King Kole is generally way too slapstick and vaudvillian for me.  But this so-called "story" has no reason for existing.  What it tells is already known.  And most important, it is not funny in the slightest.  A total waste of paper.  The artwork is of a definite style.  And the artist clearly knows what he is doing, and has talent.  But I don't like that style.

Johnny Rebel
Apparently, the Old South and slavery were still alive in the 1940s.  Certainly degrading caricatures of African-American characters, and Uncle Tomsmanship was.  The relationship Johnny Rebel had with his ultra-loyal, personal slave, Rufus made me dislike the rebel, strongly.  Rufus' line, "The South is sure doing its part for Democracy" is ironic enough.  And, Jean LaFitte's pirates are still around in the 1940s, eh, and working for The Nazis???  This book is full of weird stories.

Mother Hubbard
An interesting, unusual idea, for a traditional-style witch to wage a crusade against anti-social wrong-doers.  I can't remember seeing the word, "cruelness" used rather than cruelty.  The Witch's rhyming monologue gets old, after a while, though it seemed, at first, to be a novel, clever idea.  The witch uses a magic potion to rust her iron death trap quickly, instead of taking years is not visual, not clever, not dramatic, and too weak to be worth anything, so it slows down the action and fast-pace towards the climax, weakening the story's ending.  The author, weakly uses the witch to explain to the reader that she will use witchcraft for good to fight against evil.  That should be clear enough in the action in the panels.  It weakens the message if the author has to spell it out in words and show it as well.  The Witch chants a magic spell, and the villain's bullets are directed harmlessly off their mark.  Using magic to set a house on fire isn't very impressive, when that could be accomplished by pouring some gasoline on it and tossing a lit match on it.  Then, at the end, the author further ruins the story by explaining afterwards what the reader has already seen in the panels.  Aaargh!  Didn't Chesler have editors???  This story is a a primer for what NOT to do as a storywriter!

K-9
An animal story added in for the younger kids.  A moralistic tale about the dog getting vengeance on the car driver who mistreated him, and a superhero story of how the dog's super talents rewarded him and his new master, in his becoming a police dog, and benefit to his community.

The Green Knight
This story makes little sense.  A man wearing a medieval costume, carrying a bow and arrows wanders through Florida's Everglades during The 1940s, finds an old ramshackle house, with a Human/bat combo vampire in it. There he rescues a young boy, who he takes to his mansion, and shows him his secret identity as a modern knight fighting for the oppressed and champion of right against oppressors and wrongdoers. 
Soon, a young woman (who was warned against the vampires of The Everglades) takes a canoe trip in that very place, and comes to the vampire's house.  Of course, incredibly, The Green Knight and his new lackey arrive there immediately after!  The green Knight kills the vampire's ogre henchman, and follows the vampire to his bloodsucking room, where he has the young woman on a table. The Knight shoots the vampire with an arrow, and the three of them leave (no thrusting of a stake in his heart to assure the undead won't rise again!). The 2 heroes just walk off and leave the woman alone in The dangerous Everglades to be accosted by other vampires.

A book full of ridiculous stories with poorly thought-out plots, and lots of amateurish errors in story-crafting.  The artwork is passable for the time, but not much to my liking.  The colouring is weak, but, at least makes some sense, and is not random.  The reading experience was passable, but not terribly enjoyable.