The Education of Ben Cartwright

 

In the early 1990s, twenty years after the TV series Bonanza had ended, a writer named Stephen Calder (well, actually that's a pen name for Frank Roderus and Preston Lewis) wrote a half-dozen novels set in the Bonanza universe. I've recently acquired three of them at used book stores, including The Pioneer Spirit--the first in the series.

This book picks up in the 1840s, with young Ben Cartwright serving as an officer on a merchant sailing ship. The first few chapters effectively introduce us to Ben, showing that he's already developed the rigid moral code he would have in later years and that he's already tough-as-nails. In fact, over the course of those introductory chapter, he deals with a sailor who murdered a shipmate and attempts to murder Ben. The ensuing brawl does not go well for the killer.

We learn that Ben has quite a reputation, becoming known as "The Devil of Boston" because of his accomplisments. I actually found myself wishing this book had been more focused on his career as a sailor, since some of the adventures that are merely mentioned in passing would have been pretty awesome to read about in detail. For instance, when the crew of a ship on which Ben was serving were arrested on trumped-up charges in a Central American port, Ben broke them out of jail and--to make sure the ship could escape the harbor--blew up the powder magazine in the local fort. THAT would have made a fun chapter in the book.

But the story moves on. Ben falls in love with the daughter of his captain and opens a chandler's shop in Boston. The story drags a bit while we learn how deliriously happy he is, especially after his son Adam is born. But this serves a purpose in highlighting the tragedy of his wife's death when Adam is still a toddler. Ben becomes so detached from life emotionally that he allows his business to fail and eventually decides to move west with Adam to start fresh.

The TV series covered much of this ground in a flashback episode early in its run. The details are different enough to place the events of the novel in an alternate Bonanza universe, but the author catches the strength of Ben's basic character and I can easily imagine the story of the novel as a legitimate path that eventually brings Ben to be the loving patriarch of his family and a successful rancher. He's got stuff to learn about life--particularly in dealing with loss. But he'll get there.

While heading west, he meets a Swedish woman named Inger, saving her from being beaten by her brother. They get married, though Ben does so at first to protect her and because Adam likes her. But eventually, he falls for her. Their relationship strengthens Ben to the point where, when Inger dies after the birth of Hoss, he's able to accept that life moves on after we mourn our dead. After Elizabeth died, he had allowed his sorrow to turn into self-pity. Now he has learned better.

But before he can move on with his life, he needs to survive a blizzard while alone in the mountains and separated from his sons. 

Once again, the details of his marriage to Inger are different from the two flashback episodes involving her, but the personalities are spot-on. I especially like the way Adam is portrayed. As an adult, he was the most thoughtful and well-educated of the three Cartwright brothers. So, when we see him as an intelligent and perpetually curious kid, it fits perfectly.

As I said, there are a few points in which the prose drags a little. And, of course, I'm not worried about giving away spoilers because if you are reading a Bonanza novels, you know what happens to his wives. It's the beginning of the Cartwright Curse, which was the one aspect of the TV show that annoyed me. The tragedy of losing (eventually) three wives was appropriate to Ben's background. But over the course of the 14 seasons the show was on, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe each seemed to fall in love about 12, 864, 937 times apiece and the girl ALWAYS ends up dead. If you turn on a Bonanza show and they are doing a Western drama, watch it because it will be at least good and quite likely excellent. If they are doing one of their occasional comedy episodes, watch it because it will be gut-bustingly funny. If one of the Cartwrights falls in love, turn the channel and find an episode of Gunsmoke or Maverick to watch instead. The flashback episodes about Ben are an exception to this rule--those are good. But if Adam, Hoss or Little Joe falls for a gal, give up on it. It'll be filled with manipulative, treacly emotion and you know that the girl might just as well have a target pinned to her back. She's doomed.

But I digress. The Pioneer Spirit is an excellent Bonanza novel and gives us a strong and appropriate-to-the-character version of Ben's early life. It's worth reading. 

Herculoids!

cover artist(s) uncredited

 

The Herculoids are awesome. In addition to the three humans who live on the planet Amzot--one of whom fires explosive rocks from his slingshot--there are:

Zok--a dragon who fires lasers out of his eyes and tail

Igoo--a super-strong ape-like creature

Tundro--a sort-of triceratops who first explosive rocks out of his horns.

Gleep and Gloop--protoplasmic creatures who can shape-change.

The original cartoons (1967-68) are more fun than a barrell of space ants and their first comic book appearance--in Gold Key's Super TV Heroes #1 (April 1968) largely capture the fun.

We never get any hint about the origin of the Herculoids (though I theorize at length in this blog). Individual episodes often involve battling evil aliens who come to Amzot to steal its natural resources.

That's what happens in that first comic book appearance, brought to us by an unidentified writer and (almost certainly) artist Dan Spiegle. A spaceship crashes on Amzot and, when Zandor and Zok investigate, they discover that a huge horde of giant ants has beenr released from the ship. The ants spit lava and have already undermined the ground around them with tunnels.

Soon, Zok is trapped under an avalanche. Igoo and Tundro arrive, but also end up trapped in uncomfortable positions.

In the meantime, another ship lands and begins mining ore. The talkative alien pilot happily explains he's going to use it for war material. Tara quickly takes Gloop and Gleep to the others, where the shape-changers are able to rescue their fellow Herculoids.

Then they all gang up on the alien ship, quickly forcing the alien to recall his ants and flee.

Like the 11-minute long original cartoons, the story jumps right into the action without prelude and runs with its bare bone plots. Spiegle's artwork captures the unique charm of the Herculoids. The alien bad guy proves to be a wimpy mama's boy when directly threatened, but with only 6 pages to work with, the story had to be promptly brought to an end one way or another.

That's it for now. Next week, we'll return to The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz.

Cover Cavalcade

 

August is Second-Tier Villain Month!

A Joe Kubert cover from 1980.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Crime Classics: "The Final Day of General Ketchum" 7/27/53

In 1871, General William Ketchum falls ill and needs medicine.  He would have been better off, though, if his landlady--in charge of giving him that medicine--wasn't likely to be a serial killer who likes to use poison.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Martian Sherlock Holmes

 

The Martian crown jewels have been loaned to Earth for study and display at the British National Museum. It's time to bring them home. They are loaded onto a robot spaceship. But when that ship arrives at the spacedock on Mars' moon Phobos, the jewels are gone!

The technician who loaded the jewels aboard the ship while it was in Earth orbit had been searched after completing that job. So the jewels were DEFINITELY on the ship. If it had been found and boarded while in flight, that would have changed its course enough to detect. So NO ONE messed with the ship or the jewels in flight. The police were present when the cargo was unloaded on Phobos. Everyone, including the cops, were searched. The spacedock facilities were searched. An embargo is placed on Phobos, so there's no chance to get the jewels off the moon if they did somehow arrive. But where did they go? How could they have possibly disappeared from a robot spaceship while that ship was in flight? It's the ultimate locked room mystery. 

This is the premise of "The Martian Crown Jewels," by Poul Anderson, first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1958 and reprinted a year later in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story is Sherlock Holmes pastishe and it is a load of fun.

When Inspector Gregg can't find the jewels, he travels down to Mars to consult with Syaloch, the famous consulting detective. I love how effectively Anderson takes the character of Holmes and translates him into an alien from a non-human culture:

The Inspector flet a cautious way into the high, narrow room. The glowsnakes which illuminated it after dark were coiled asleep on the stone floor, in a litter of papers, specimans, and weapons; rusty sand covered the sills of the Gothic windows. Syaloch was not neat except in his own person. In one corner was a small chemical laboratory. The rest of the walls were taken up with shelves, the criminological literature of three planets--Martian books, Terrestrial micros, Venusian talking stones. At one place, patriotically, the glphs representing the reigning Nest-mother had been punched out with bullets. An Earthling could not sit on the trapeze-like native furniture, but Syaloch had courteously provided chairs and tubs as well; his clientele was also triplanetary...

...Syaloch was a seven-foot biped of vaguely storklike appea\rance. But the lean, crested, red-beaked head at the end of the sinuous neck was too large, the yellow eyes too deep; the white feathers were more like a penguin's than a flying bird's, save at the blue-plumed tail; instead of wings there were skinny red arms edning in four-fingered hands...

Syaloch takes the case, of course, accompanying Gregg when the policeman returns to Phobos. What follows could very well have been a mystery from the Holmes Canon in how Syaloch acquires information, asks a few questions which don't at first seem to be related to the case, then deduces the solution to the case. The solution involves understanding orbital mechanics, so most of us poor non-engineer readers probably won't get it. But it's a fair solution to a great mystery. And Syaloch is a great creation, perfectly straddling the line between being alien and being Holmes-like.

And the story has one of the best final paragraphs ever written as Syaloch takes on another case:

Somebody, somewhere in Sabaeus, was farnikng the krats, and there was an alarming zaksnautry among the hyukus. It sounded to Syaloch like an interesting case.

The story has been reprinted a number of times in anthologies. If you have an account with the Internet Archive, you can read it HERE. 

Willy Schultz, Part 10

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman

Fightin' Army #86 (July 1969)  brings us the 10th chapter of "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz," written by Will Franz and drawn by Sam Glanzman.  It pickes up right where the previous chapter left off. Disguised in German uniforms, Willy and a slightly buggy British prisoner named Newberry are about to make a break for it, cutting through the wire during the night. Newberry's escape is essential--it won't be long before the Germans discover the body of a guard he killed. 

But things go wrong before the escape even begins. Willy's leg crashes through a rotten floorboard. His ankle is badly sprained and he's now out of it.

Another officer, MacRoberts, volunteers to step in. Unlike Schultz, his German isn't fluent, but he thinks he can bluff his way through a few sentences if necessary. The "forgery" depertment quickly makes up some documents for him as he shaves off his mustache and puts on the German uniform.

Before leaving, he gives Schultz a letter. MacRoberts and Newberry then cut through the wire and crawl out of the camp.

And that's as long as the escape attempt lasts. They're spotted almost immediately. MacRoberts is shot and killed, but the Germans take Newberry alive. 

The letter left by MacRoberts is a false confession, taking the blame for the murdered guard. That saves Newberry from being punished.

The story works well as a fast-paced escape tale with a lot of realistic detail. It works superbly in its emotional touches--the decision by a German not to kill Newberry because the German's conscience won't allow it; MacRoberts' decision to replace Schultz in the escape attempt because Newberry had once saved his life; Schultz's realization that if he hadn't hurt his ankle, he'd be dead. This is yet another strong chapter in this brilliant series. 

Next week, we'll head off-world to visit the Herculoids.

Cover Cavalcade

 

August is Second-Tier Villain Month!

A Jack Kirby cover from 1968.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Westbound" 1/3/53

Dillon and Chester arrive in Abeline by train and soon arrest a man wanted for murder in Dodge City. But it's four hours until the train back to Dodge leaves and the prisoner's two brothers are in town...

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Scarlet Coat (1955)

 

In real life, John Bolton was a code name for Benjamin Tallmadge, an espionage agent for the Continental Army who ran the Culper Ring, a spy network that operated out of New York City. Tallmadge briefly met British officer John Andre when Andre was a prisoner waiting to be hanged as a spy.

In the 1955 movie The Scarlet Coat, directed by John Sturges, Bolton is the real name of a ruthless spy working for the Americans. He's not a bad guy, but he doesn't blink at--for instance--back-shooting a courier to get the message being carried. 

Bolton is played by Cornel Wilde, who brings an admirable subtlety to the role. We can instantly see that Bolton is a man doing his duty, not a psycho, and who must forceable turn off his emotions to get his job done. 

While staying at a tavern, he discovers a Continental officer also staying there is really a British spy. In the ensuing struggle, the Englishman is killed. Bolton is briefly arrested for murder, which serendipitously sets him up for a dangerous mission. He can "escape" and defect to the British who currently occupy New York City. His specific goal is to discover the identity of a spy known only as Gustavos.

He meets John Andre and fools him. The two soon become friends. A Tory doctor (George Sanders) is perpetually suspicious of Bolton, but the American spy manages to tread a thin line. He sets up some British troops to march into an ambush, but in such a way that it looks like he was warning the British against the manuever.

There's also the beautiful Sally Cameron (Anne Francis) to consider--she seems to side with the British, but Bolton has reason to think she might sympathize with the rebels. 

Eventually, Bolton is able to uncover that Gustavos is Benedict Arnold. Normally, I try to avoid spoilers, but we all know that Arnold gets away and Andre is caught and executed as a spy.

Bolton never risked his cover or his mission, but he sincerely liked Andre and had done what he could to protect him. For instance, when Andre is about to secretly meet with Arnold, Bolton tells him to wear his uniform. Circumstances, though, force Andre to change into civilian clothes before he's caught--so now he's a spy rather than a soldier. After his capture, Bolton unsuccessfully tries to arrange an exchange with the British--but Andre's honor won't allow him to agree to this.

The movie looks great in terms of costumes and cinematography. It tells a superb story, mixing some fun action scenes in with the character drama. Wilde and Michael Wilding as Andre play well off each other and we really believe this is a case in which enemies can become friends.

There is an attempt to squeeze in a love story between Bolton and Sally Cameron that doesn't quite work--it's obviously there because its expected rather than being organic to the story. Sally does play an important part in the plot and Anne Francis is the perfect actress to bring her to life. But the movie would have been served better if Bolton and Sally had simply been two professional spies who needed to work together without shoving in the contrived romance.

But this is a minor glitch in a great movie. Though the movie is highly fictionalized, it does hit the mark historically in showing the courage and dignity that John Andre showed when he went to his death in real life.

Ringing the Bell

 

Annie Oakley ran for 81 syndicated episodes from 1954 through 1957, giving us a fictionalized version of the young sharpshooter as she lived in the equally fictionalized town of Diablo, Arizona. Dell Comics ran a 15-issue tie-in series featuring photo covers of the pretty actress (Gail Davis) who played Annie.

The 8th issue of the series (July-September 1956) features a story titled "The Ambushers." The writer is unknown and the strong artwork is by Dan Spiegle. Annie, her younger brother Tagg and deputy sheriff Lofty Craig stop at an abandoned mission for some water while returning to town. 

While they are resting, Annie sees someone pointing a rifle at them. She objects strongly, which means she shoots the rifle out of the guy's hands. He claims to be a prospecter who was simply being cautious, since there's a lot of outlaws in the area right now. This is a reasonable claim, since there's been a nearby gold strike. They let the guy go.

But soon after, they stumble across a wounded prospecter who was shot and robbed by two men. From the descriptions he gives, its obvious one of them was the guy from the mission.

A posse loses the trail, so Annie and Tagg take a look. They find indications that the guy backtracked and find him at the mission, frantically searching for something. He draws on Annie, who strongly objects once again.

That puts one outlaw in jail, but another still on the loose. But Annie figures he'll have to come to town to kill the two men who can identify him--the wounded prospecter and the his captured partner. 

She's right, of course.  The second outlaw does come to town, where's he's subsequently chased to the old mission and forts up in the bell tower. Annie shoots at the bell, scaring him into surrendering. Annie also notices that the bell made a THUD sound rather than a ring. It turns out that the stolen gold dust was hidden there.

It's a fun story. Spiegle's art is great from start to finish, with two panels that stand out. When the first outlaw has his pistol shot out of his hand, Spiegle shows it literally flying out of the panel. The panel looking down at Annie from the level of the tower as she shoots the bell is also exceptional.

The story itself unfolds in a logical fashion, though Annie having to think of EVERYTHING makes the actually (and supposedly experienced) lawmen look a bit helpless. But what the heck. It is Annie's comic.

You can read this story online HERE. 

Next week, we'll return to Captain Willy Schultz.

Cover Cavalcade

 

August is Second-Tier Villain Month!

A Neal Adams cover from 1977.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Crime Does Not Pay: "Clothes Make a Woman" 1/2/50

A gang pretends to be a service for checking coats and hats at a private party. This allows them to steal valuable fur coats during the party.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

An Interesting Way to Time Travel

 

cover art by E.K. Bergey

Sometime in the future (well, the future relative to 1941), an atomic war is destroying civilization. As New York City burns, Professor Tempus (who won the last Nobel Prize in 1948, before "the disappearance of Sweden as an independent state effectively put an end to further awards") leads the attractive Nancy Jordan through a tunnel to a chamber several hundred feet underground. It's here that they can wait out the war.

That's the basic premise of "The Eternal Moment," written by Robert Arthur and published in the March 1941 issue of Startling Stories. But there's more to it than that. Tempus has invented a gas that slows down metabolism. You don't go into suspended animation. Instead, Tempus and Nancy will live for waht will seem like a couple of months in the underground chamber. In real time, 500 years will have passed. Tempus is convinced a new civilization will have risen by then.

Tempus is also hot for Nancy. But she had no prior knowledge of his plan, gets understandably upset when Tempus tells her that her boyfriend Peter (Tempus' assistant) was killed, and doesn't appreciate Tempus' rather aggressive insistance that their perceived two months in the chamber be their honeymoon. To be fair to her, Tempus' timing is lousy. "Hey, honey, the man you loved just died a horrible, violent death. Wanna get hitched?"

Anyway, it turns out Peter was shot in the back by Tempus. But Peter didn't die and while a few minutes passed inside the chamber, Peter had a month to heal up outside the chamber (he's still far enough underground to avoid the nukes that are falling). Peter bursts into the room--moving at what seems to be super-speed until he also breaths the gas. The lever controlling the gas gets pushed, allowing more of it into the room. Now millions of years are passing outside the chamber as the two men struggle. The gas doesn't affect non-living objects, so everyone's clothes rot off their bodies while Peter tries to strangle Tempus, who in turn is trying to stab Peter. 

All of this leads to a great ending. You can read it for yourself HERE. 

It's a clever story. The author sets up the conditions of how the gas works, then logically follows through with the consequences of this and thus sets up the ironic climax. "The Eternal Moment" is a great example of just how fun and clever old-school science fiction could be. 

Willy Schultz, Part 9

 

cover art by Sam Glanzman

Fightin' Army #85 (May 1969) gives us the ninth chapter in "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz," written by Will Franz and drawn by Sam Glanzman.

There's a time jump of several months, taking us to September 1943. The Nazis have been driven out of North Africa and Sicily. The Allies have invaded Italy. And Willy Schultz, in the meantime, is in a prison camp in Italy, sharing the facility with British prisoners.

As we rejoin Willy, he's stopping a wire-happy officer named Newberry from trying to scale the fence in broad daylight, preventing him from being gunned down by the German guards. Newberry, Schulz learns, was once a well-liked joker in his outfit, keeping up morale. But the death of a good friend put him over the edge.

Later, the ranking British officer (Major MacRoberts) brings Willy a proposition. The escape committee has made two German uniforms and its known that Willy speaks fluent German. MacRoberts wants Willy to take Newberry out through a blind spot in the wire one night. It'll be risky, because Newberry might break and give the show away. But if he stays in the camp, he'll definitely break. 

Also, Willy learns that Newberry killed a German guard a few nights earlier. The Brits have hidden the body and the Germans think the guy deserted. But its only a matter of time before the body is found. Newberry could not stand up under questioning and the Germans would be likely to execute him.

So there's several reasons Newberry HAS to get out. But doing so will be dangerous. Willy isn't sure he wants to accept that risk. After all, he tells MacRoberts, he's safe here. He can live out the war in a relatively risk-free environment. Why should he stick his neck out?

This reasoning doesn't go over well with MacRoberts, who calls Willy and out-and-out coward. This shames Willy into changing his mind. He'll escape with Newberry--an event that will be saved for the next issue.

This chapter in Willy's life is almost entirely expository, with very little action. It's essentially all background information to set up the escape attempt in the next chapter. So it is a little slow. All the same, the dialogue flows naturally, Newberry's backstory is interesting and Glanzman's shifting "camera" from panel to panel keeps it visually interesting. In a story arc where each chapter is just 8 or 9 pages, there's room to pause for exposition without slowing the story down, especially when one is reading the saga in a single collected volume, as I am. I suppose it may be that readers in 1969, who would have to wait 2 months for the next chapter, might have wished for a little more. But I'm okay with it.

Next week, we'll head out West for a visit with Annie Oakley.

Cover Cavalcade

 

August is Second-Tier Villain Month!

This 1963 cover is by Jack Kirby.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Frank Merriwell: "Duplicate Dean" 12/4/48

A classmate of Frank dresses up as Yale's Dean as part of acting in a skit. Circumstances lead to the Dean himself being falsely accused of taking part in a street brawl.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Doc Egg

 

cover art by Rafael De Soto

Doc Egg is a great character. Created by Day Keene (real name Gunard Hjertstedt), Doc's real name is Egbert Thistlewaite. He owns a pharmacy on Times Square, having funded his way through pharmacist school by boxing in the feather-weight division. His store is also a "mecca for the sporting and theatrical crowd, and for the underworld as well. He never forgot a favor or forgave a slight." While working at the store, he and his head pharmacist quote Shakespear, Shelley and Wilde at each other, trying to stump one another as to the source of specific quotes. And, from time to time, Doc Egg also gets involved in solving crimes. 

There were eight Doc Egg stories published during the 1940s, most of them in Dime Mystery Magazine. I'd love to find all of them collected into a single volume. The publisher Ramble House has been putting out anthologies of Keene's pulp stories and this do have at least a few of the Doc Egg stories scattered within them. But the world really needs a specific Doc Egg collection.

"Doc Egg's Graveyard Reunion" appeared in the February 1946 issue of Dime Mystery. The story starts strong with an atmospheric and intense opening. A man named Bart Irish, beaten and half-starved, has been held prisoner aboard a freigher for months. While the ship is docked in New York harbor, he has a chance to escape, though he's shot during that escape. When he stumbles into a waterfront bar, he's too weak to talk. But he is able to indicate (by pointing to specific items in the bar) that Doc Egg is somehow involved.

The cops talk to the Doc, considering him a suspect in the murder. And, just before the cops arrive at his store, a sailor enters and tries to shoot Doc. So, both to protect himself and prove his innocence, Doc gets invovled in the case.

 

Clues soon point to an old murder. It's a murder that is supposed to be solved, with a rich society girl named Glenda (an ex-wife of Bart Irish) on death row. Doc soon decides she's innocent, but there's only one day left before her execution. 

Doc is kidnapped by the same sailors who had been holding Irish. Tied up in the freighter's hold, Doc uses a trick taken from a Poe story to get loose. By now, he realizes what's going on. To prove Glenda innocent, he and a police detective friend are going to have to set a trap in a graveyard to trap the bad guys and then find a clue hidden in a corpse to clear Glenda.

The story is solid, hard-boiled fun, anchored with a strong and unique protagonist. You can read it online HERE. 

The world yearns for a Doc Egg anthology. 

What If?

 

cover art by John Buscema with alterations by John Romita

I liked the original What If? series. It's a fun idea and was generally well-executed, though I do think the writers used it to channel a perhaps-subconscious desire for tragic alternate endings a little too often. I reviewed the second issue in the series some time ago. Today, we'll jump back to look at What If? #1 (February 1977). The script is by Roy Thomas and the art by Jim Craig. 

The issue spends a few pages setting up the concept for the series--the Watcher will narrate alternate-universe versions of Marvel history, in which one key element is changed. The Butterfly Effect then takes over, leading to sometimes massive changes in that universe as compared to the original universe.

In this case, we go back to Spider Man #1, in which he tried to join the Fantastic Four as a way of monetizing his powers. When he finds out the FF is pretty much a non-profit, he goes on his way.

But in this version, Sue calls him back and suggests he might be a good fit for the team, eventually talking Reed into it. The FF members all get a spending money stipend anyways, so Peter (who has to reveal his identity to the others as a condition of joining) can get a small salary that he then passed on to Aunt May.

At first, everything is hunky-dory. Joining the FF is enough of an endorsement to get J. Jonah Jamison to give up his anti-Spidey campaign. Spidey's villains pretty much get curb-stomped and the webslinger is a good fit in helping defeat FF villains.

Events begin to diverge farther from the original time line when the FF go to the moon and fight the Red Ghost and his Super Apes. Reed hadn't had time to alter the rocket for an extra passenger, so Sue stays behind to watch the store. This gives Puppet Master a chance to gain control over Namor and have the undersea prince kidnap Sue.

So when the FF get back to Earth, they immediately go on a rescue mission. They don't know that Namor is being controlled by someone else.

A nifty fight ensues. But when Puppet Master tries to amp up his control and get Namor to use deadly force, the Submariner begins to resist. Eventually, Sue is freed and Puppet Master is killed by a giant octopus.

Sue, who realizes Namor wasn't himself, defends him. In fact, she impulsively decides she loves him and opts to stay with him. Namor uses a machine to transform her into a water-breather.

Reed consouls himself by saying that Sue will act as Namor's conscience. In a nice bit of irony, Spidey wonders if things would have worked out differently had he never joined the FF, but Johnny assures him that it was all Fate and would have turned out exactly the same way.

It's a fun issue. The concept is well-executed and the changes that happen after Spidey joins up are reasonable and logical. Jim Craig's art is fun, though not as dynamic as Romita or Buscema. Sue suffers a little because the story is set in a time frame before she developed her force field power and she's pretty much just a damsel in distress during the climactic fight scene. Though, to be fair, she is the one who steps forward and argues for Spidey's admittance to the FF. 

Next week, we'll return again to the saga of Capt. Willy Schultz.