Human Torch, The (1940 series) #2

Flying over the countryside with his flame on, the Human Torch spots a traveling circus and swoops down to investigate. Panic breaks out as Toro, a fire-eating boy performer, topples from his stand with his body ablaze. The Torch quickly subdues both their flames, and the astonished circus owner, Pops, introduces himself. The Torch tests Toro's control over his power, and the boy is able to ignite and extinguish his flame at will. Samson, the circus strongman, demands the bonus Pops owes him, and when fired, attacks the Torch directly. The Torch fights back, crashing his flaming fist into Samson's jaw, but Samson bear-hugs him and flings him aside, warning he will return. Afterward, the Torch tells Pops he suspects Samson is trouble, and announces that he and Toro will enter secret training. The Torch also asks Toro how he came to be with the circus — Toro recounts that two years earlier his train derailed and burst into flames; while bystanders tried to hold him back, the boy ran into the burning wreckage looking for his parents, yet emerged unharmed, clutching a piece of molten steel in his bare hand. A couple named Tom and his wife took him in, adopted him, joined Pops' circus, and gave him the name Toro.

One week later, Toro's debut as the Flame Kid is a sold-out sensation: he leaps through the air forming a blazing letter T, melts through two-foot steel drums, and orders the ringmaster to bring in caged wild beasts, which he corrals with a protective ring of fire. But firemen suddenly enter the tent and douse the flames with hoses — extinguishing Toro's flame along with the act's fire barriers and freeing the wild animals to charge the crowd. The Torch intervenes, rescuing Toro from a lion and rounding up the escaped beasts with a second circle of fire. Afterward, the Torch voices his suspicion that Samson is behind the sabotage. Meanwhile, Samson berates his henchman for failing to let the beasts attack when Toro's flame was out, then reveals his plan: that night he and his men sneak past police into the circus grounds and break into the tent of an elderly Professor, demanding the professor's invention — the Rayon Gun — a weapon that can extinguish the Torch's flame. The professor refuses and Samson knocks him out, seizing the gun.

Samson and his gang then rob the circus box-office. The Torch confronts them, but Samson fires the Rayon Gun and kills the Torch's flame. Toro blasts in through the door and decks one henchman while the Torch, now unable to ignite, engages Samson in a fist fight. The Torch sidesteps Samson and throws him out the doorway, but Samson's superior strength brings the Torch down, knocking him cold. Police arrive and rush Samson, but he races toward a squad car. Toro cuts off his escape with a wall of flame and the gun is kicked away. Samson is taken into custody by the police, though his two henchmen slip away unnoticed. The Torch recovers — the professor had talked before passing out, revealing the henchmen are hiding in prowl car 51. The Torch's flame returns as the Rayon Gun's effect wears off. He and Toro chase prowl car 51, crash its engine into a boulder with their blazing bodies, melt the men's guns to slag, tie the criminals up with a rope from the car trunk, and fly them back to the circus lot, dropping them from the air. The story closes with Pops declaring it marks the beginning of the greatest show on earth — with Toro, the Flame Kid.

Sub-Mariner Crashes New York Again!!!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

Two bystanders in New York read newspaper reports that Fifth Columnists are responsible for the sabotage and sinking of four new battleships and destroyers at the Baltimore Navy shipyards. That night, Namor — disguised as a dock worker — reads the same story and slips into the harbor, swimming to Baltimore. In the harbor he spots a German U-boat and listens at the hull; it is quiet, but he soon spots two women in a rowboat who strip off their clothes, don artificial lungs, and vanish beneath the surface — the U-boat's crew, he realizes, returning through the escape hatch after conducting sabotage ashore. Namor races for the Navy Yard, clears the perimeter fence on his winged feet, and eavesdrops on two sentries who reveal that the new battleship Armonk is being launched from No. 8 Drydock at 2 p.m. the following day. Concluding the saboteurs intend to sink her at launch, Namor returns to his aerial-sub, which he calls his flagship, and contacts his associate Folma to assemble a fleet of super aerial-submarines overnight.

The next morning Namor's fleet of aerial-subs wings over the sea to Baltimore, arriving as the Armonk slides down the ways — and immediately begins to sink, sabotaged below the waterline. Namor orders his planes to drop long steel cables tipped with magnets, which clamp to the sinking hull; the fleet then hauls the battleship bodily out of the water to the astonishment of the onlookers, then lowers her back onto the drydock ways. Namor leaps down, scatters the armed sailors with a word, and tosses a capsule containing a note to the officers' rostrum. The note tells the Navy officials that the saboteurs will meet at Pier 18 that night with a light torpedo boat; he invites them to send a vessel, warning them not to abuse his friendship. Navy officials agree to cooperate, and at the appointed hour a fast torpedo boat meets Namor at Pier 18. He dives to confirm the U-boat's location, then boards the torpedo boat and directs the captain to the spot. The captain balks at sinking a submarine without authority since the country is not at war, so Namor dives alone, surfaces at the U-boat's escape hatch, and personally triggers the torpedo boat's depth-charge mechanism. The explosion narrowly misses Namor, who soars clear and then swoops back with his aerial-sub, dropping grappling cables onto the fleeing U-boat's deck. The magnets lock on, and the aerial-sub tows the captured submarine to shore, beaching it on the New Jersey coast near Cape May. Namor phones the Coast Guard with the location, then flies off to new adventures.

Characters
Good (or All)

 

Sub-Mariner
(Namor)

Antagonists
Nazis.

Extortion for a Bail-Out

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

Carl Burgess, assistant district attorney, is wrapping up his case against political boss Big Jim Peterson when Mrs. Bankhead intercepts him outside the courtroom. She tells him her husband has received a $50,000 extortion note — if they fail to pay, the kidnappers will kill him. Burgess accompanies her home, where they find the maid Louise bound and gagged. Louise recounts that three men broke in at four o'clock, tied her up, confronted Mr. Bankhead in his study, and dragged him away. A note on the mantelpiece instructs Mrs. Bankhead to place $50,000 in a suitcase and deliver it to the Kinney residence wall at nightfall. Burgess promises to recover her husband safely, then goes home and transforms himself into the Falcon — a costumed crime-fighter. He loads the suitcase with stage money and marks both ends with phosphorescent paint so he can track it in the dark.

That night at the Kinney residence, the Falcon watches from a tree as a kidnapper retrieves the suitcase and drives to a deserted farmhouse. He disables the getaway car's distributor, then confronts the gang inside. The Falcon floors two kidnappers in quick succession, but a third enters and shoots him — grazed by the bullet, he falls. The kidnappers pile into the car with Bankhead, but the disabled engine won't start; while they investigate under the hood the Falcon regains consciousness and dives on them one by one, beating all three and bundling them into the back seat. Burgess sends Bankhead to drive the men to the police. The Falcon learns from Bankhead that the kidnapping was arranged to raise ransom money to bribe Peterson free — giving Burgess exactly the ammunition he needs to complete his summation the following morning. Peterson is found guilty on all counts, and the District Attorney calls Burgess into his office to commend the Falcon's role in foiling the plot.

Characters
Good (or All)

 

Falcon
(Carl Burgess)

Plus: Mr. Bankhead, Mrs. Bankhead.

Antagonists
Big Jim Peterson.

A Wish Come True

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

Jimmy Everett, bored at home, decides to visit his neighbor Mr. Schmidt, an elderly chemist. Schmidt sends him to buy tobacco, paying him with a nickel, and reveals that he has created a potion capable of shrinking a person. While running the errand, Jimmy wonders idly what the fluid tastes like — and on finding Schmidt dozing upon his return, sneaks a taste. He shrinks rapidly until he is smaller than the nickel itself, unable to make the deaf and nearsighted Schmidt hear him. The oversized coin becomes too heavy to hold and topples onto Jimmy. He crawls free, tries shouting from the floor, then — when Schmidt pockets the nickel alongside his watch — squeezes out of the waistcoat pocket and climbs the watch chain to the tabletop. Still unable to attract attention, and nearly crushed by the old man's fumbling hands, Jimmy retreats behind Schmidt's magnifying glass. Schmidt finally spots the tiny figure reflected in the lens, recognizes Jimmy at once, and fetches an antidote. Jimmy slowly returns to normal size, and Schmidt scolds him for touching things he shouldn't. Jimmy's response is to ask Schmidt if he can become his assistant — and the story closes with a note that next month Schmidt will start a strange experiment with Jimmy.

Hidden Treasure Means Death

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

Mantor, a cloaked magician, is walking near a river when he spots a young woman floundering in the water. He gestures and a life belt miraculously encircles her and draws her to shore. She introduces herself as Joan Winters: she says she jumped in out of despair, driven frantic by terrible events since her father's death. Her father left her his river castle and a strange map directing her to a hidden treasure, but the castle is haunted. Mantor accompanies Joan to the castle, where they are greeted by the servant Saunders, whom Joan finds unsettling — his brother was their gardener but vanished after her father died. That night, after reading the map, Mantor determines that moonlight striking a specific wall of the gun room at 2 a.m. will reveal the hidden button to a secret passage. He creates a magical likeness of himself sleeping in his bed as a decoy, then lies in wait in the gun room. At 2 a.m. a horribly deformed creature enters and swings an axe at the dummy; Mantor steps forward, fires electricity from his eyes and fingertips, and the creature flees.

Following the moonbeam's path, Mantor presses the revealed button, opening a secret panel onto a stairway leading down. Before he can descend, Joan screams — Mantor races to her room, peers through the keyhole to find a robed, skull-masked figure looming over her bed, and uses his powers to enlarge the keyhole so he can step through it. He converts the figure's drawn sword into a piece of silk, but while focused on the confrontation a second costumed figure clubs him from behind. The attackers demand the map; Joan, thinking quickly, claims it is hidden in Mantor's left shoe. While the figures drag her toward the secret passage, Mantor recovers, races after them, and arrives at the underground channel just as they throw Joan into the water. He gestures and the water vanishes, leaving Joan standing on the dry bottom. He sends her upstairs to phone the police and follows the trail left in the thick dust — the so-called ghosts leave footprints. In the hidden vault below, the figures have found the treasure chest; as they attempt to flee with it, Mantor intercepts them, transforms their revolver into a harmless stream of water, and snares them with a magically summoned rope just as the police arrive. The "ghosts" are unmasked as Saunders and his long-lost brother — the men who had been after the treasure all along.

The Strange Case of the Bloodless Corpses

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

A wave of mysterious deaths has gripped the city — the victims are found with no wounds and drained entirely of blood — and the police captain calls in Dr. Castle, a young physician, to examine one of the marble-like corpses. Castle confirms the body has been murdered but can offer no explanation, and deflects the captain's plea that the Fiery Mask is the only man who can solve the case. Castle leaves but cannot ignore the spreading panic: children kept indoors, vigilante committees storming city hall. He phones the editor of the Daily Herald to announce that as Dr. Castle he is opening a blood bank — storing a hundred quarts of mixed blood types in his laboratory. Then, as the Fiery Mask, he sets his trap and waits in hiding that night. A shadowy figure slips through the laboratory window, retrieves a large jar from the cabinet, and injects its contents into its own body. The Fiery Mask seizes the creature, but a mob of similar pallid figures surges from the shadows and swarms him. He tears through them, only to be felled by a solar plexus blow, and the creatures haul him away unconscious, ordering what they call the "life-giving element" removed from him.

The next morning Dr. Castle's nurse Julie discovers the wrecked laboratory and the Fiery Mask unconscious on the floor. He revives and, swearing her to secrecy, explains his theory: the stolen blood was mixed with a fluorescent salt visible only to his electrically charged eyes, allowing him to track the creatures. That night he follows the luminous trail through the streets until he spots his quarry, allows himself to be taken captive, and is led through tunnels into a castle's modern operating room. There the mastermind — identified by the Fiery Mask as Doctor Sendach, a once-eminent stomach specialist who vanished years ago — reveals that he has been surgically removing the internal organs of his victims to build a mechanical stomach, and needs blood to keep his experimental subjects alive. When Sendach threatens to experiment on the Fiery Mask next, the Mask breaks free, finds a captive woman chained in the dungeon, frees her, and retreats from Sendach's pursuing creatures. Cornered, Sendach ignites a dynamite fuse; the Fiery Mask kicks it into the air and the woman catches it. The shocked Sendach falls backward — his own bloodthirsty creatures, scenting his wound, turn on him and swarm over his body. The Mask uses Sendach's dynamite to demolish the castle entirely, and the city sleeps peacefully once more.

Characters
Good (or All)

 

Fiery Mask
(Jack Castle)

Antagonists
Dr. Sendach, Zombies.