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No wonder they've never been caught ... There's not a sole survivor in the train!
- -- The Ray
Appearing in The Ray: "The Midget Train Robbers"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Adversaries:
- Miss White and her seven dwarfs all die
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for The Ray: "The Midget Train Robbers"
Happy Terrill rides on a train (the Western Express) carrying a gold shipment expecting it to get hijacked. On board he sees Miss White, a woman known to the police. When the train enters a mountain pass, Miss White and her seven dwarf henchmen (a band of old vaudeville freaks) stop the train and fatally gas the passengers, with pressurized jets of toxic gas built into the sides of a ravine. Then they escape with the gold shipment. As the Ray, Happy follows. The mastermind dwarf (inventor of the passenger-massacring gas system) and his cohorts then double-cross Miss White and kill her. The Ray invades their hide-out, a remote cottage in the mountains, but only one dwarf remains behind, and briefly fights the Ray. The others have gone to rob another train (the 12:15). The Ray saves the train and blasts the remaining dwarves into nothingness.
Appearing in Bozo the Robot: "The Return of Dr. Von Thorp"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Adversaries:
- Von Thorp (Death)
Other Characters:
Locations:
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Synopsis for Bozo the Robot: "The Return of Dr. Von Thorp"
- Synopsis not yet written.
Appearing in Espionage Starring Black X: "The Battle of Bermuda"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Batu
Adversaries:
- Axis military forces
Other Characters:
- Admiral Jepson
- Governor of Bermuda
- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Espionage Starring Black X: "The Battle of Bermuda"
Axis warships, plus a minefield, are blockading Bermuda. Aboard the unnamed U.S. flagship, on a moonless night, Black X briefs Admiral Jepson, then he and Batu sneak past the Axis ships in a small sailboat, and reach Bermuda. After a huddle with the unnamed Governor, Black X is authorized to assemble and command a long line of tied-together torpedo boats, small boats, and rafts, which he then uses to mine-sweep a clear path thru the Axis minefield. (Nobody local has thought of this; no Brit nor U.S. Navy man has thought of this; a secret agent has to come to Bermuda from Washington to make this happen?) Several heavy U.S. warships sail thru the gap to Bermuda and they engage the enemy fleet in an old-school naval gunfight, augmented by Black X & Batu in their torpedo boat.
Black X suddenly realizes, based on no new info seen by us, that enemy paratroops will soon be landing on the opposite side of Bermuda, so they scoot around the island and set up a machinegun nest next to a wharf where these paratroopers are assembled. The paratroops, inexplicably wearing paradeground dress uniforms, with jodphurs, plan to move in boats to their attack on the island's fortifications, but now here's Black X shooting up the boats, so they mass-attack the m.g.nest, at an absurd cost in mowed-down casualties, then they suddenly swarm the position but inexplicably none of these paratroops are still carrying the bayonetted rifles we saw on the previous page, so there's a fistfight, which goes on until Batu (sent inland earlier, to fetch grenades) shows up with a force of U.S.Marines. Soon the bad guys are routed and Bermuda is again secure. In the last panel, Black X seems to have uncharacteristically not yet returned to WDC, but is still in Bermuda basking in the accolades of the admiral and governor.
Appearing in Invisible Justice: "The Scarlet Death"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Adversaries:
- Dr. Moku
Other Characters:
- Professor Chase
- Mr. Lane
Locations:
Items:
- Moku's device for making the invisible visible
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Invisible Justice: "The Scarlet Death"
- Synopsis not yet written.
Appearing in Midnight: "The Origin of Midnight"
Featured Characters:
- Midnight (First appearance)
Supporting Characters:
Adversaries:
- Morris Carleton (First appearance)
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Midnight: "The Origin of Midnight"
- Synopsis not yet written.
Appearing in Magno: "Men Into Monsters"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Adversaries:
- unnamed mad scientist
- several fanged monsters
Other Characters:
- unnamed girl
Locations:
- an elaborate mad-science citadel hidden under a swamp
Items:
- Ray Gun
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Magno: "Men Into Monsters"
A grotesque figure sloshes through a remote swamp with a limp girl over his shoulder, and in turn is stalked by Magno. The ghoulish figure vanishes into a deep spot in the marsh, but Magno dives in pursuit, and finds a set of stairs down into the murk, then another leading back up. He emerges in a masonry tunnel, and is soon jumped by a second swamp ghoul guy, wielding a two-handed axe. Magno knocks him out with an electrified punch, then resumes trailing the wet footprints of the kidnapper, through narrow corridors, up steep steps, and over dangerous catwalks, to the brilliantly-lit throneroom of the boss of this place. The boss, dressed in medical whites, is delighted to see this pretty new girl servant, and in mid-gloat he’s leapt upon by Magno. Three or more of the fanged, half-human monster-men intervene, and are able to subdue Magno, who is thrown into a dungeon, with about a hundred other male prisoners. They’re all scheduled to get turned into monsters. Magno plays possum on the floor until the monster-men return, and when two of them try to move him out of the way they get jolted unconscious. But wait, when they recover consciousness, their normal features have returned and their hair has regrown and their old personalities reassert themselves. Magno recruits these two guys to set free the others, then heads to the throneroom, fighting a series of monster-men along the way, and electrically transforming them back into their human forms. The still-unnamed mad scientist in charge of all this flees to his laboratory, where he pulls a death-ray pistol and aims it at Magno, but from across the room Magno pulls it out of his hand, then punches out the bad guy. He examines the pistol, which goes off just from being in his electrified hand, and destroys a big piece of mad-science equipment. Deducing that the ray is more powerful because of Magno’s charged body, he puts it to use, destroying the diabolical laboratory as the prisoners all escape.
Notes
- The Ray:
- Though Miss White is shot by one of her seven dwarfs, we don't see which one, and all seven are present with none objecting; in any case the Ray blasts them all into nothingness.
- The Ray can switch back to Happy Terrill's clothing and appearance just by thinking about it.
- The Ray can eavesdrop or visually observe events at great distances.
- The Ray can stop a passenger train by diving into its headlight. It may be a factor that the brakes were already applied.
- Espionage:
- Based on internal and previous timeline evidence, this Black X story is thought to have taken place circa 1940-Nov. In the Quality Universe, the USA has been at war, officially declared or not, against the European Axis, since probably about July 1939, when the first Axis task force bumped up against the Pan-American Caldwell Line blockade, back in Smash Comics #7. The blockade has later been replaced with an Atlantic-spanning suspension bridge in Hit Comics #4, and the war has been interrupted with several bipartite and international peace treaties. In any case, this story opens with Axis warships, plus a minefield, blockading Bermuda, facing down a US task force commanded by Admiral Jepson.
- Magno:
- At the end of this story, the pretty girl is not visible nor accounted for, the mad scientist is unconscious but probably alive, and Magno has definitely confiscated that death-ray pistol for his own use.
- The unnamed mad villain's secret lair is a large subterranean masonry structure, accessible via a swamp, near Tom Dalton's home town. In Smash Comic #21, three issues later, Magno either finds a second large subterranean masonry structure, accessible via the swamp, or a second unnamed mad villain has adopted the abandoned base of this issue's monster-maker.
- Also featured in this issue of Smash Comics were:
- Purple Trio: (Seal of Justice), art by Alex Blum
- Chic Carter: (Crashing the Concentration Camp), by Vernon Henkel
- Abdul the Arab: (The Story of Sunyan Tse), by Bob Powell
- Scarlet Seal: (Tong War), by Duane Byrd Monroe
- Wings Wendall: (The Madness Serum), by Vernon Henkel
See Also
- Write your own review of this comic!
- Discuss Smash Comics Vol 1 18 on the forums
- Images from Smash Comics Vol 1 18
Links and References
Footnotes
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