Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Absalom" 3/7/53

A young man is shooting up the town. When Dillon arrests him, the man's powerful father steps into the picture. This does not end well.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Somebody's Stealing the Silk!

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #164

Dan Fowler's second appearance was also written by Geroge Fielding Eliot (using the house name C.K.M Scanlon). Dan's first case was an action-packed adventure against armed bandits. This time--well, I didn't count bullets fired or corpses found while reading it. I have an impression that "Bring 'em Back Dead" has a little less action than "Snatch." But if so, the difference isn't much. Much like the Robert Stack version of Eliot Ness, Dan burns through enough government-supplied ammo to probably contribute to the federal deficit.

It's another great story. Dan and a few fellow G-Men are assigned to stop a gang that is stealing valuable imported silk. We join Dan aboard a train, where he and his team are guarding a shipment of the stuff.

If I were to criticize any aspect of the story, it would be the inclusion of Jimmy--a newly minted, very eager agent who hero-worships Dan. That the kid is going to get killed is obvious pretty much from the moment he's introduced. To be fair, though, he gets a chance to save Dan's life before he goes down.

Jimmy's death and the theft of some of the silk despite the presence of G-Men shows Dan that this will not be an easy case to crack. Soon, he's up to his armpits in corrupt businessmen and several more murder victims. Dan's girlfriend, Sally, is not an agent herself and goes undercover as a receptionist at a silk importing business that might be involved.  It's also predictable that Sally will get kidnapped at some point, but she conducts herself with courage and intelligence even when this happens.

The case unfolds logically, with much of the novel having a police procedural feel to it. I like that Dan is isn't the only smart person among the good guys. When investigating a lead in San Francisco that takes Dan to Chinatown, he allows a local cop who knows the area to take the lead. One of Dan's fellow G-Men helps save the day at the end by acting on his own initiative. Dan Fowler stories aren't meant to be a realistic portrayal of detective work, but the story generates the veneer of "realism" necessary to make the story work.

The action scenes are uniformally great, especially a brutal fist fight Dan has with a bad guy and the book's final showdown, in which Dan is alone on a boat with an unknown number of villains, making use of an improvised gasmask and a captured tommy gun to hold his own. It's all great stuff. 

Rumble in the Swamp!

 

cover art by Rich Buckler

First of all, let's give major props to the cop who, on the first page of Incredible Hulk #199 (May 1976) tries to calmly talk the Hulk into coming down off a statue.

Of course, as writer Len Wein and artists Sal Buscema (layouts) and Joe Staton (finished art) soon show us, this doesn't work. Hulk objects to being bothered, wrecks a fire truck and sits down atop a theater marque.

It's here that a SHIELD unit (working with General Ross) finds him. Doc Samson has come along as well. The Doc jumps on Hulk and the ensuing fight moves into the surrounding swamp. (The story takes place in the Everglades.)

This is pretty much an all-action issue. And its a good, solid all-action issue. The Buscema/Staton art looks great; SHIELD gets to use several kinds of sci-fi vehicles and weapons; and the fight progresses in a manner consistant with Comic Book Logic. We also learn why the federal deficit is always so darn high--how many millions of dollars of government equipment does the Hulk wreck THIS time?

The idea is to zap Hulk with super-powerful knock-out gas. But the gas keeps not-quite working and Hulk keeps wrecking stuff.

Finally, Doc Samson, while once again duking it out with the Hulk, orders the SHIELD agents to open fire with their gas guns. He knows he'll be knocked out as well, but if the Hulk goes down with him, he's okay with that.

It works. Hulk claims he's stronger than the gas, but collapses himself a few minutes later.

The story ends with Hulk a prisoner. But we also got a scene, partway through the story, that reminds us Glenn Talbot, recently rescued from the Soviet Union, has had his personality and memories taken away. This scene sets up the next story and the reason an extra effort was made to capture the Hulk. The big green guy is needed to cure Talbot. We'll see exactly how this works next week, when we look at the next issue.

Cover Cavalcade

 

September is Rafael De Soto Month!

A creepy cover from 1935.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Escape: "The Red Forest" 8/11/1950

Murder adds to the already appreciable danger of a forest fire. William Conrad and Georgia Ellis give fantastic performances in this story of tense excitement mixed together with themes of redemption and responsibility.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Death Watch

 

cover art by Rudolph Belarski

A couple of months ago, I reviewed one of J.D. Newsom's excellent Foreign Legion stories. That particular story had been published in the October 1940 issue of Foriegn Legion Adventures. I've been periodically reading through the other stories in that issue and ran across yet another really good one.

"The Death Watch," by Theodore Roscoe, is narrated by a retired legionaire named Corday, who recounts a particular adventure he shared with a comrade years earlier.

That comrade was not your typical legionaire. He was small and Corday tells us he looked like a wax doll. He was nicknamed "Jack the Goat," because of the goatee he sported and was regularly bullied by others in his unit.

The bullying stopped when the unit attacks a hill occupied by Arab bandits. Jack not only performs bravely under fire, he also gets five Arabs to surrender. Cut off from the other legionaires, Jack uses the body of the Arab chief as a shield and somehow makes the dead man talk--ordering the others to give up.

Jack doesn't provide an explanation for this, though I don't think that I'm spoiling anything when I reveal one of the twists at the end of the story. If you don't realize Jack is a ventriloquist the moment this happens, you aren't really trying.

Corday and Jack are later part of a small Legion unit being shipped to Somalia to put down a rebellion there. They are put aboard a rusty steamer along with a large unit of colonial troops. These troops prove to be unhappy and perhaps prone to rebel. Soon, the officer in charge of the Legionaires has been murdered.

A new officer is brought aboard-- a man strong on discipline but who makes the mistake of bringing his pretty wife on board as well. It's here that the racial attitudes of 1940 come into play--when the colonial troops do mutiny, one of the reasons given is that the black men immediately want to rape the white girl. Also, the legionaires had been contempteous of the black troops from the get-go. I don't know if the author shared this attitude (because good art is often produced by flawed people) or if he's simply giving his characters the mindsets they would have had. Also, to keep it all in proper story context, the troops were acting rebelious before the woman came aboard AND rampaging mutinous soldiers (even if you sympathize with their reasons for rebelling) don't have a great record with women, regardless of respective skin colors.

But if you are a fan of old pulp fiction, as am I, you know that you'll run across racial bigotry from time to time and either enjoy the story in proper context or walk away. This is a story worth sticking with, because the action scenes are great. Both the battle on the hilltop early in the story and the fighting on the ship are exciting set-pieces.

On the ship, Corday, Jack and the girl are soon the only survivers other than the mutineers. The crew has run out on them, taking the only lifeboat with them. They have a machine gun set up on the bridge and are desperately holding off the mutineers. 

It's Jack that comes up with a plan. They are close to shore and know of a Legion platoon that's supposed to be nearby. Jack will hold the bridge and protect the girl. Corday will swim ashore (a long and dangerous swim), try to contact the platoon, find a boat and come back.

It takes Corday many hours to get ashore and, by the time he has found the platoon and they commandeer a boat, over two days have passed. They have to then search for the ship in foggy weather.

When they finally find the ship, Jack is still holding out. Using skills as a puppeteer and ventriloquist, he's turned his dead comrades into apparently "alive" soldiers.

That's a bit of a spoiler, but as I said, if you don't figure out that Jack has relevant show-biz skills during that initial action scene, you simply aren't paying attention to what you are reading. If I were to take points away from this story, it would be that this twist and a twist involving the identity of the girl are immediately predictable. But the overall ambiance of the story--the superbly described action and the high tension inherent in Corday's journey to find reinforcements--is great.

You can find this one online HERE. 

Willy Schultz, Part 12

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman

Fightin' Army #88 (November 1969) has writer Will Franz and artist Sam Glanzman tossing Willy Schultz into a new chapter in his complicated life.

Remember that Willy had escaped from the Germans while in Italy. In this chapter, he's found by Italian partisans fighting the Nazis. 

And this seems like a good thing. The leader of the partisans is an OSS officer named John Daurio, who knows about Willy's murder conviction. (By the way, its an effective ironic touch regarding the inherent confusion of war AND Willy's background fighting for both sides that Daurio is dressed in the uniform of an SS officer.)

Anyway, Daurio doesn't really care that Willy is a convicted murderer or whether Willy is actually guilty. He can use someone with Willy's skill in an upcoming mission. Also, he has (or at least claims he has) the pull to get Willy a pardon if Willy does help.

The mission? Willy will take command of a captured Tiger Tank, using this to get close enough to a German stronghold to blow it to pieces. Willy's knowledge of German and his experience in German tanks make him the perfect man for the job.

While preparing for the mission, Willy catches the eye of a pretty lady partisan named Elena. But is Willy tough and brutal enough to survive partisan warfare?

That's an open question. The mission is successful and a town is liberated from the Nazis, but only after brutal combat. Then the partisans start executing German prisoners. Willy is repulsed by this to the point where he is going to intervene, only to have Daurio stop him and explain that this is the way it is in partisan warfare. There's no prisoners taken.

Franz and Glanzman pile yet another irony on top of this. Elena is delighted not just that Willy survived, but that her father--a prisoner of the Nazis--was rescued. So the partisans are committing what can be defined as a war crime for killing prisoners. But an innocent man was saved from Nazis and a town was liberated. And, to be fair to everyone, is there a practical way to for partisans to take prisoners even if they wanted to do so?

This is yet another powerful chapter in Willy's saga. It's probably a bit of a stretch that the OSS officer happened to have been at Willy's trial, but it helps effectively give Willy a reason for agreeing to join up. He seems to be stuck being a soldier no matter what happens to him.

Next week, we'll begin a look at a three-part Incredible Hulk story.

Cover Cavalcade

 

September is Rafael De Soto Month!

This cover is from 1941.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Michael Shayne: "The Hate That Killed" 10/19/49

A gangster's will leaves his fortune to one of his four relatives. Which ever one lives the longest gets the dough.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Skip Day!

 

I used to never miss a Wednesday or Thursday post. But now that I'm happily married and often have family members I enjoy being with visiting, I'm forced to occasionally skip a day.

Sigh. No post today. I miss the days when I was pathetic, lonely and unbothered by other human beings. I had time to get stuff done, by golly!

Where the Heck is the Stag?

 

Cover artist unknown

The unidentified writer and artist who brought us the story "The Enchanted Stag," which appeared in Let's Pretend #1 (May/June 1950), have left me a little confused. Charming art and a script that effectively generates a proper fairy tale ambiance leave us with an entertaining little tale. But where the heck is the stag? Despite the story's title, there isn't a stag to be found.

We also seem to start in the middle of an ongoing story. Perhaps the publisher used the second part of a longer tale, knowing we'd be given enough information to follow along. Perhaps the stag was involved earlier in the story. That's just a theory. It really doesn't matter, because what we have is fun.

Anyway, we start with the girl Daray and her younger brother on the run in the woods. Helpful expository dialogue tells us they are running away, because a witch had put a spell on their father and turned him against them.

 They stop to get a drink from a brook. This brook, though, talks, warning them that anyone who drinks from it will turn into a faun. The young brother discards this warning, drinks, and promptly turns into a faun.

They eventually find an abandoned house and move in. Daray cleans the place up, while her brother openly regrets that he can't help much because he's now a faun. Hey, kid! Can you still walk? Got two hands? THEN YOU CAN PUSH A BROOM, CAN'T YOU?

Eventually, the faun is spotted by a hunting party led by the king. They trail the kid back to the house. The king, fortunately, turns out to be a good guy. He takes in both the kids to care for them.

Seven years later, Daray is grown up and marries the king. But remember the witch who originally drove her into the woods? She's still around, with a plan to dispose of Daray and get her daughter to marry the king. (How this ties into her driving the kids away from their dad years later isn't explained.)

The witch's daughter, in disguise, enters the castle and gets into everyone's good graces. Then, while Daray is resting after giving birth to a child, the witch and her daughter drug her and toss her out of the castle to her death.

But NEVER MATCH WITS WITH A DRUGGED QUEEN WHEN DEATH IS ON THE LINE! Daray returns as a ghost. The king figures out what's going on and brings Daray back to life with Love's True Kiss. The witch and her daughter are arrested, which also breaks the spell on Daray's brother, who returns to being human.

Which is the first indication that his original transformation was because of the witch and not some random enchanted stream. The point of the transformation isn't addressed.

It sounds like I'm making fun of the story and it IS flawed in terms of story construction. Even a fairy tale should proceed from Point A to Point B in an internally logical manner. But, as I said, the art is charming. Heck, even when it's creepy (when Daray is tossed from the castle), it's still charming. And the story is a nice one despite the sloppy plot. Heck, maybe the story problems do result from shortening a longer tale. 

Decide for yourself. You can read this one HERE. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

September is Rafael De Soto month!

A cover from 1936.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Nick Carter: "Strands of Murder" 12/17/44

The lead actor in a play is stabbed to death... and every woman in the cast wears a dagger as a part of her costume. So there is no shortage of suspects.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Visit Mars and Venus

 A few years ago, I had an opportunity to write (or co-write with my wife, in one case) a couple of old-fashioned Space Opera tales for a new publication. But that publication never got off the ground. 

So now I have a couple of short stories just sitting there being useless. So, I've decided to subject my blog readers to them. I hope you enjoy them:

A New Sheriff in Town, by Tim and Angela DeForest:

Algernon Fitzhugh had been hired as Town Clerk for the remote and often violent Martian town of Ares Landing. But he was soon to learn that the town leaders, in a effort to save money, has assigned law enforcement duties to Algernon as well. Unqualified and terrified, the young clerk has to very rapidly learn how to tame a wild town on a new world.  

Click HERE to download the story

The Fire Jewels of Venus, by Tim DeForest

Hank Allard is an expatriate Earthman who owns a steamboat carrying cargo across the oceans of Venus. But when one of his crew wins an ancient map in a poker game--a map drawn on the skin of a Venusian tyrannosaurus--that supposedly leads to an ancient treasure... well, it might be worth a look. What Hank didn't expect were encounters with cyborg dinosaurs and killer robots. 

Click HERE to download the story. 

Willy Schultz, Part 11

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman

Chapter 11 of "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz" (written by Will Franz and drawn by Sam Glanzman) appeared in Fightin' Army #87 (September 1969). 

Willy has been a prisoner in Italy for the last few chapters. But when the prisoners are being transported north by train, British planes mistake it for an ammunition train and blow it up. Many of the POWs are killed, but Willy survives.

This leaves him free, but without food. In a brutal scene, he attacks a German soldier, killing the man for a piece of moldy bread.

He's ambushed soon after, but Lt. Newberry (another escaped POW) kills that German. 

The sequence is very powerful, with Franz and Glanzman using it to show how war brings out the most barbaric aspects of men. The story isn't condeming Willy or Newberry as heartless monsters--but it starkly shows that war can strip good men of a part of their humanity.

Soon after, Newberry steps on a mine. He's killed and Willy is wounded. Willy wakes up in an American aide station. When he sees a pair of MPs arrive, he assumes that he's been identified and is going to be arrested on the old murder charge. So he makes a break for it.

The irony is that the MPs weren't there to arrest him. They simply happened to be nearby and the medic caring for Willy had asked to give Willy a ride to the rear area. Willy had run for nothing.

In terms of the entire story arc, this is a gateway chapter taking Willy into the next phase of his life. But the scenes involving Willy and Newberry, succinctly but effectively examining the effects of war on people, makes it very powerful.

Next week, we'll leave behind war and take part in a fairy tale. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

September is Rafael De Soto Month!

This atmospheric cover is from 1934.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Philo Vance: "Johnny A Murder Case" 8/16/49

Philo Vance is pursuing a murderer named Johnny A. When Johnny is himself killed, Vance shifts his focus to find THAT murderer.

Click HERE to listen or download.