 Hit Comics Vol 1 #21
 Publisher Indicia Publisher Brand/Imprint | ||||
Goodbye, Sir. I'll do all I can to help.
- -- Joe Hercules
Appearing in Stormy Foster: "King Korman's Castle"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Ah Choo, Stormy's co-worker
- Doc Vaughan, Stormy's boss
Villains:
- Count Manfred Von Grebe
- his henchmen:
- Heinz
- Manuel
- Ortiz
- Jose
- Hanz
Other Characters:
- unnamed elderly prospector
- Luke Taylor, elderly rancher
- King Korman, elderly organist
Locations:
Items:
- The Great Defender's paralysis gas pistol
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Stormy Foster: "King Korman's Castle"
Count Manfred Von Grebe, a ruthless Prussian engineer, with a monocle, has leased King Korman's Castle, on a barren canyon rim in Death Valley California, from its very eccentric, gnarled, wizened, prospector owner. While Korman stays around and plays an immense pipe organ and contributes virtually nothing else to the plot, Von Grebe has harnessed several natural steam wells in the vicinity, to generate five million kilowatt-hours per month of electric power, which he then, by a secret process, uses radio waves to transmit back to arms factories in the Fatherland.
-- Not far away lives elderly rancher Luke Taylor who one day orders a prescription delivery from Vaughan's Cut Rate Pharmacy; Stormy Foster and Ah Choo drive out into the desert to make the delivery. Along the way they find a wounded elderly prospector near King Korman's castle; he's been just randomly shot by the villains inhabiting that place, and he dies shortly after being found. Ah Choo drives on to complete the delivery while Stormy resolves to get to the bottom of this murder. He super-vitamins up and changes clothes, and loads his strange handgun with paralysis gas tubes, then invades the castle, encountering a series of armed thugs several spring-loaded iron gratings, a heavy machine gun, crazy old King Korman, two giant pumas, and Von Grebe himself, dealing with each in one way or another. Meanwhile at old Luke Taylor's house, Ah Choo has learned what a dangerous place the castle is, and he drives back there, to join the fight with his slingshot. One thug tries to whack Foster with two lightning electrodes, but these get flung into Von Grebe's generator, shorting out the apparatus and sending live steam and electric sparks all over the place. Ah Choo escapes from all this and finds Stormy waiting in the car, with tied-up Von Grebe in the back seat; closing dialogue indicates that Ah Choo still doesn't know about Stormy's secret identity.
- Based on its proximity to Death Valley, California, it seems likely that Stormy Foster's home town is either San Bernardino, California (166 miles away), or Las Vegas, Nevada (104 miles away). However, in the opening episode of this series, Foster's home base was shown to be a seaport, therefore it must be either Los Angeles (304 miles away), San Diego (350 miles away), or some third coastal city that exists only on Earth-X. So Stormy's boast, early in the story, "Don't worry about me, Doc, I'll be back before sundown!" either was made some time before sunrise, or should be taken with a grain of salt.
Appearing in The Red Bee: "Blacky Meyer Is Back In Town"
Featured Characters:
- Red Bee
Supporting Characters:
- Michael, the Red Bee's bee
- District Attorney Hawkes
Villains:
- Blacky Meyer, King of the Underworld
- Mae Floss, Gun Moll
Other Characters:
- unnamed department store manager
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for The Red Bee: "Blacky Meyer Is Back In Town"
Blacky Meyers completes his prison sentence, returns to Superior City, regains control of his old mob, and goes back into the extortion business, shaking down big department stores. Assistant District Attorney Rick Raleigh, accompanied by no policemen, waits around in one store's general manager's office until a thug arrives to make demands. He beats up the thug, who reports back to Blacky, then returns with Blackie and two more goons. They are met by the Red Bee, mayhem ensues. Blackie's girlfriend Mae Floss, posing as a frightened shopper, gets behind t.R.B. and knocks him unconscious; they handcuff him and bring him to the manager's office and resume where they left off shaking down the manager. Red Bee recovers consciousness and releases his trained bee Michael, who unlike normal bees is able to inflict multiple stings; meanwhile the manager uncuffs t.R.B., who pummels the bad guys until they flee. As they drive away, Michael the bee gets into their car and attacks the driver, causing the car to crash into a nearby laundry; police arrive and quickly apprehend all the criminals.
- The Red Bee receives yet another knockout concussion in this issue's story, his (at least) 11th, this one from a girl's fist.
Appearing in Hercules: "Three-Ring Chaos"
Featured Characters:
- Hercules
Supporting Characters:
Villains:
- Red Jake Mazola (mobster, behind the scenes)
- Serpente (circus ringmaster)
- Bozo (circus strongman)
Other Characters:
- Daniel Nichols (circus owner)
- Laura Nichols (trapeze artist, Daniel's daughter)
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Hercules: "Three-Ring Chaos"
Joe Hercules wanders into a circus side show, wearing his superhero costume, encounters a wrestling-ring strongman (Bozo), dislikes his attitude, accepts his $100 challenge, and easily defeats him. There's not even any discussion of him collecting the prize before a lovely young lady (Laura Nichols, trapeze performer) approaches him, and introduces him to her father (Daniel Nichols, circus owner), who tells him about his big problem, which is that the circus is being shaken down by a mob (Red Jake Mazola's gang) who collects 3/4ths of the gate receipt every night. The Ringmaster (Serpente) and Bozo are working with the gang; they try to take out Hercules by flinging a fuel-soaked rope net over him and igniting it. This problem is so trivial for Hercules that he escapes it off panel with no explanation, then runs into the big top just as Serpente orders a corrupt rigger, with a fire axe, to chop the support cable suspending Laura's trapeze; she hurtles toward certain death, but is caught by Hercules. Serpente runs away to a corner of the circus grounds where four elephants are practicing, grabs a prod and gets aboard Rogue, the lead elephant. After a short fight, Hercules has toppled the elephant onto the ringmaster. In Joe's opinion, the elephant is only shaken, and Serpente will survive to serve a jail term, and the owner can thank him by providing free circus tickets to local poor kids.
- This issue of Hit Comics features the final golden age appearance of Joe Hercules.
Notes
- Also appearing in this issue of Hit Comics were:
- Bob and Swab: (The Dutch Guiana Incident), by Klaus Nordling
- Betty Bates: (The Whissler Building Case), by Stanley Charlot & Al Bryant
- The valiant Lady at Law tangles with an amazing string of events buried in the evacuation of a glittering, modern skyscraper ...
- Ghost of Flanders: (Captured by Axel Kopf), by George Brenner
- Axel Kopf is the leader of the Axis spy ring in this country; he goes after the Ghost of Flanders and captures him, but does a very poor job of keeping him captured. Very quickly the Ghost escapes, defeats Axel's followers, and recovers all the plans and formulas that his spy ring had stolen over the previous weeks, plus beats them all up and leaves them for the FBI.
- Strange Twins: (The Top-Hatters Mob), by Jerry Iger & Alex Blum
- Lion Boy: (The Fluid of Fury), by Merton Holmes & Henry Kiefer
- This is Lion Boy's last appearance in Hit Comics
- Don Glory: (Cloud of Doom), by Lincoln Ross & Arthur Peddy
See Also
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- Images from Hit Comics Vol 1 21
Links and References
Footnotes
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