Brewalda, Part 8

 

cover art by Marshall Frantz

Read/Watch 'em In Order #141

The August 19, 1939 issue of Argosy brought us Philip Ketchum's eighth Brewalda tale. 

This one--"The Valiant Arm"--brings us to 1298 A.D., with Edward I locked in war with Scottish hero William Wallace. But Roger Wilton, the current member of the family bearing the famous axe, has troubles of his own.

 Roger has fought at Stirling Bridge a year ago, where Wallace's men defeated Edward's army. Afterwards, he was falsely accused of cowardice by Sir Thomas Seagrave, whom Roger had thought a friend. So, as the story begins, Roger and his friend John Tuck find themselves exiled from England.

Even before he leaves for his exile, some of Sir Thomas' men ambush and try to kill him. He and Tuck head for a forest near the Scottish border--land ruled by Sir Thomas. Roger is determined to eventually have it out with the man and... well, there was this young girl he met six years earlier when lost in the those woods. That girl would be a young woman by now.

Around this premise, Ketchum efficiently weaves a tale involving unknown identities, political manipulations, treason, surprise twists and several typically good action scenes. It's not a story I want to discuss in more detail, because I don't want to spoil those surprise twists. Suffice to say that not everyone Roger meets is whom they claim to be and the story overall is yet another excellent one.

Click HERE to read it online. 

Travelin' Toughy, Part 3

 

Ding Dong #3 (1946) finally gives Travelin' Toughy a prominent cover appearance. And that's good, because the tough little guy deserves it.

This issue's story has Toughy floating on his rug over a Middle Eastern desert. Where two issue earlier, he had been declaring that he was mean and tough and hated everyone, now he's enjoying the quiet desert ambience. 

That quiet is interrupted when a signal rocket whooshes by and someoe takes off on a flying carpet of his own. Toughy realizes something is up and follows the guy.

He soon overhears a plan to rob a kid named Karim is about to spend a lot of gold to buy his mom a new home. The bandits--forty of them equipped with flying carpets--are in on this plan. Well, as Toughy says "Not if I kin help it!"

He locates and warns Karim, but it may be too late. One of the bandits gets the drop on Karim. But Toughy then gets the drop on the bandit. Literally. Toughy drops a brick on him.

The unknown writer and artist Ted Miller now give us an absolutely delightful chase scene, as Toughy, with Karim as a passenger, dodge a squadron of bandit-driven carpets before Toughy crash-lands in a pool at the king's palace. 

The kids hide out in the palace. In another delightful plot twist, they end up hiding in the harem. When the bandit leader comes looking for them, Toughy tickles the king's favorite lady on her hip when she's not looking. She thinks the bandit did and and the king quickly has the guy hauled off to prison.

The Travelin' Toughy stories continue to be pure fun. And Toughy is growing as a character, remarking that it is getting easier to do his daily good deed to keep his flying carpet working. Initially, he might have done good deed out of necessity to keep his flying carpet working. Now, he's doing them because he wants to. It's an effective and legitimately touching bit of character development.

You can read this story online HERE.

Next week, we'll jump back over to the DC Universe and visit with the Atom.

Cover Cavalcade

 

June is Adventure Magazine Month!

This 1935 cover is by the great Walter Baumhofer.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Fibber McGee and Molly: "Fibber Takes Molly Out to Lunch" 3/12/40

Fibber takes his wife out to lunch so that she can get a break from washing dishes. This plan goes awry.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Counterspy Goes to the Movies

 

The radio show Counterspy ran from 1942 to 1957. Right smack in the middle of that run, there was a movie version made. 

During World War II, the radio Counterspy usually had David Harding (who ran a fictional anti-espionage bureau) chasing down Axis spies. After the war, the show took on a Cold War vibe. Interesting, the movie--a Cold War-era product released in 1950--flashes back to World War II, with Harding's men working to take out a spy ring set up in a factory making newly designed torpedoes.

Harding is pretty sure the accidental death of a Naval officer wasn't so accidental. He has another officer assigned to him--a guy who knew the dead man and was, in fact, an old flame of the man's widow.

That could be good or bad, depending on whether the widow is working with the Nazis.

David Harding Counterspy sometimes plods along too slowly, especially considering it only runs for 67 minutes. But it still manages to entertain. It has an effective Film Noir look to it and the plot does unfold in a logical manner. Willard Parker is essentially the lead as the Navy guy, but Howard St. John shines as Harding. In several scenes, he feels obligated to bawl out one or more of his men. And he is fun to listen to when he's mad--provided you are not the person being yelled at. Also, the movie has more fun showing off some then-modern surveillance equipment. 

Character actor John Dehner, who plays an agent good at accents and imitating voices, adds another level of fun to the movie.

So if you get a chance to see David Harding Counterspy, go for it. 

Still in the Negative Zone

 

cover art by John Romita

Fantastic Four #141 (December 1973) amps up the Sue/Reed marriage problems they've been having for far too long at this point, but--to be fair--the ending of this issue does give them an understanble reason for their marriage difficulties. 

And, aside from that particular arc having gone on for far too long, the Annihilus story that began in the previous issue is quite good. The FF and Wyatt Wingfoot had been captured by the villain and taken to the Negative Zone.

This issue, by the way, is written by Gerry Conway and drawn with power and imagination by John Buscema.

We also find out that Sue, Franklin and Agatha Harkness are prisoners as well. Agatha had been captured earlier by Annihilus, who had then forced the witch to help capture Sue and the little guy. THAT explains something from the previous issue that had seemed like a plot hole to me when I read it as a kid--why there was anti-matter residue at the site where Agatha teleported away Sue and Franklin. She was taking them to the Negative Zone, so that now makes sense.

The FF try to fight Annihilus again, but once more get curb stomped. Annihilus also drains them of much of their powers. Tossed in a tower prison, they at first seem to be helpless. But Medusa comes up with a Rapunzel-inspired trick for escaping, letting them climb down from their cell. Their powers also slowly start to return and they fight their way past some of the planet's primitive tribesmen.

In the meantime, we learn exactly what Annihilus' end game is. He wants to drain the enormous among of cosmic energy that is growing in Franklin. Then he'll be able to easily conquer the universe.

The FF show up and, using surprise and subterfuge, then manage to defeat the villain. Agatha, though weak, is able to magic them all back to the Baxter Building. But Franklin is on Cosmic Power Overload and is now a danger to the universe in his own right. Reed, in deperation, zaps him with an experimental anti-matter weapon. The cosmic energy is drained out of the child, but he's left in a coma. Reed clearly had no choice. But Sue is angry anyway--an understandable immediate reaction for a mother--and now seems more done with Reed than she was before.

All of this is good storytelling, with the heroes using their brains as well as their powers to get the drop on Annihilus and save the universe. Bucsema's art is excellent and carries the story along powerfully. In restrospect, if Conway wanted to do a brief arc about Sue and Reed having problems, then perhaps he should have started it here. That would have made the arc much shorter before coming to a (sadly awkward) conclusion eight issues later. 

Also, this is the point at which Franklin begins to shift back and forth between being a normal kid and being an all-powerful plot device--something that lasted for years to come depending on the whims of the various writers and was eventually over-used. 

Still, if we look at these two issues by themselves, we have a good, solid FF story that effectively brings back a classic villain and gives that villain a strong origin story. A- for the story, D+ for the soap opera elements.

Next week, we return again to Travelin' Toughy.

Cover Cavalcade

 

June is Adventure Magazine Month!

A 1934 cover by Hubert Rogers.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Gunsmoke: "Scared Boy" 5/17/59

A young boy witnesses a murder, which makes him a target for the killer.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Robots Soldiers

 

cover art by Ed Emshwiller

My nephew Josiah is visiting one day when I happen to muse aloud about what might make a good entry for my Thursday post.

"The Defenders," he immediately said.

"No," I replied. "Thursday is for non-comic book stuff. Books, movies, and so on."

But he didn't mean the comic book. He had recently run across the short story "The Defenders," by Philip K. Dick, published in June 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Well, it seems as if impeccable taste in fiction runs in the family. "The Defenders" is an entertaining and clever science fiction tale.

It is set eight years after nuclear war has broken out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In both countries (and presumably the rest of the world's population) move underground to escape the destruction and radiation. Robots called "leadys" are sent to the surface to fight. The "leadys" send down reports, while the humans manufacture weapons and sending them up to their robotic soldiers.

But something funny is going on. On a regular basis, a robot comes down from the surface to report on the war personally. The robot stays in a shielded room because it would be highly radioactive. The last time a robot reported, though, someone noticed that it was not in fact radioactive. 

That doesn't seem possible. Something funny is going on and the robots are apparently being less than honest about conditions on the surface.

Several humans are assigned to venture up to the surface. I won't go into detail as to what they find there, but trust me that the author manages to put in a fun plot twist.

You can find the story online HERE. 

And, as an added bonus, you can listen to the X Minus One adaptation of the story HERE. 

Travellin' Toughie, Part 2

 

Ding Dong #2 (1946) finds Travelin' Toughy still testing out his new flying carpet. He ends up in Mexico. A panel on the first page reminds us that Toughy has to do at least one good dead each day or the carpet will lose its power.

We still know nothing about Toughy's backgroud, but it seems likely he hasn't had much schooling. What follows over the next couple of pages are a few gags based on Toughy's lack of knowledge of Mexico. This culminates with Toughy trying to eat some very, very hot food.

Toughy isn't so tough in this case. His mouth trailing smoke from the hot food, he takes off on the carpet to find a way to quench his now-burning thirst.  Thus, before ducking into a rain cloud, he ends up leaving behind a thick string of smoke weaving around the sky. 

The smoke trail is quite a distraction for those in the village stadium watching the bullfights. In fact, a young boy falls out of the stands into the ring. Toughy spots this and does some fancy manuvering with his carpet to distract the bull. He finally subdues the bull by breathing on it. There's still enough hot tamale on his breath to do the job.

So Toughy once again pulls off his daily good dead and so keeps his flying saucer. Once again, Ted Miller's art is clean and fun to look at, while the unknown writer fills the story with humor and a protagonist who is never quite as mean as he claims to be. Travelin' Toughy really is an unjustly forgotten character.

Click HERE to read it online.