Alright so Captain Kidd! As it turns out the Nathan Drake thing of "Let's give our two-fisted hero the name of a dead privateer, because what was once bloody mercenary work is now a symbol of high adventure" is older than you'd think. Although Kidd, unlike Sir Francis Drake was executed for treason, but whatever.
Anyway Captain Kidd gets taken to a fat man with a monocle in a big castle by a guard with an oversized hat. Kidd wonders why the guard didn't bother to disarm him. The fat man explains that this is the "Von Haupt estate" and that he was the one who brought Kidd's plane down.
Von Haupt says that he's working on a way to achieve immortality He also explains that he has an iron glove because his hand is the only part he can't make immortal. Kidd is a doubtful smartass about this, but Haupt intends to show him how he achieved immortality. And now it's time for the TWO FISTED CONCLUSION!!!!
And that's it! Not even a "The End"! Nothing! We have page space to save, dammit!
This is just reminding me that I liked what Swamp Thing did with a recurring villain. There was an evil necromancer character named Anton Arcane, and every time he came back he would have stitched his body back together in ever-weirder and more inhuman shapes.
Our intrepid Professor builds a rocket ship, and sails off into space for Mars, being delayed only by his spaceship being filled with milk due to springing a leak in The Milky Way. Unfortunately, it turns out Mars is already inhabited!
Professor Fiend: well, at least he wasn't the same character as all those other dorks.
He is either the dumbest man alive, or hates having to live with his girlfriend Adele.
Who, incidentally, will be so heartbroken by this that she'll create a best-selling album about the whole thing after gaining some weight.
Anyway Flick goes to Mars, which is apparently in the Fourth Dimension
The giant throws Flick into a mad science room, where a three armed alien with gross head pimples explains that his race has developed a machine that can send anyone into the past, present, or future. Now they have all the knowledge of all time, and are going to go enslave everything else, starting with Flick.
Of COURSE the past is represented by a creepy frowning Super Mario 2 face. I mean duh. That's the universal symbol for the past.
Anyway, Flick uses the low gravity to jump back on his "Fourth Dimension Bolt" to get back to earth, escaping the giant from earlier.
Don't take him back Adele. Think of the hit songs you could write about this.
Next time the last story in this issue of Fantastic Comics!
When David Cronenburg turns something/someone inside out, it's gross and disturbing. A golden age comic turning someone inside out at least has the potential to be daft and entertaining.
In thousands of years, we have stupid helmets and even stupider nickname conventions. Come on, "Sub Saunders"? That's worse than "Space" Smith!
"Sub" and his best pal, Dirk, disembark and immediately get kidnapped by the frogmen slaves of the Atlanteans, who take them where they were going anyway.
They claim Nautulus is evil, but this woman rules over a kingdom built on the slavery and subjugation of sentient people just because they're amphibious scale people. I'll believe it when I see it.
"Sub" saves the queen from the boulder, fires off a few rounds of his Rocket Gun at the frogmen, and they race to the airlock to get out of here.
Even though, you know, the queen is still the sovereign ruler and presumably has people loyal to her. But whatever, she is a slaver-queen.
Anyway, "Sub", Dirk, and the queen escape from the frogmen into a submarine, and go back to where they came from.
Well, that was rushed and anti-climactic. Remember Stardust? Stardust wouldn't stand for this. I miss Stardust.
I have made enough jokes about Boy-King that it's probably time to get to this. Let's learn about this Boy King, and the other dopes mentioned on the cover.
Here we have an inaccurate survey of Boy-King's predecessors! Many of whom don't really count as over-throwers of tyrants, but who's counting? Certainly not the pair of people who thought this comic up on their lunch break!
Our story begins in the tiny country of Swisslakia, bordered by France on the west, and Germany on the east. Despite the growing threat of the Third Reich, things are well in Swisslakia, except for the fact that they seem to be trapped in the middle ages culturally. Our young hero, a prince of Swisslakia, takes note of festivities in honor of the king and hopes that when he becomes king, he will be just as beloved.
Unfortunately, Nazis.
"Gladys" and "Jackie" are Swisslakian names rich in cultural history. Totally. In this real nation that actually all the time exists.
The Nazis steamroll the Swisslakians, and install a puppet Swisslakian quisling dictator, Governor Grousse, who sets about executing the royal family.
Today: Nazi Atrocity Comix, straight from your old pals at Clue Comics.
The guy who's been given the unenviable task of burying the royal family discovers that the prince still lives, having just barely survived being shot. He gets a doctor, and together they resuscitate our hero.
Yes, as it turns out there is one hope left: The giant robot Nostradamus built to kill Hitler. Also the king is dead now. LONG LIVE THE BOY-KING!
The Boy-King sets out to find the giant man, and unearths a giant stone nose as soon as he starts digging. Thankfully, our Boy-King is a fucking WIZARD at digging.
Grousse is about to execute some Swisslakians, but this starts to look dodgy when the giant breaks in and tosses some Nazis straight into Russia.
Uh, I guess Swisslakia was even smaller than I thought, or the Nazis killed a LOT of people. Regardless, as we can see, the Boy-King has a plan! I'd call it a stupid plan, but perhaps this is why I am not a Boy-King.
Very '40s, but in kind of a cool way rather than a not-so-cool way? Although the German accents are a bit much given that the location of Swisslakia indicates that they all probably speaking Alsatian.
Our heroes, professional wrestler Bob White and his life partner young pal Terry Wake are in Perfect Town for a match. Bob's started telling people Terry is his manager to ward off "phony promoters" and there's some banter about whether Terry is his new boss or not. Meanwhile, the mayor of Perfect Town gets kidnapped by a super-villain called "The Checker Master".
I guess the Chessmaster was taken or something. Or else his suit came out the wrong color, and he didn't feel like correcting people.
The Checker Master demands that the people of the town start carrying an amount equal to their income from the previous year with them at all times as some sort of weird ransom, which interrupts Bob's match.
That was a cheap way to win Bob, and you know it.
Anyway, the Checker Master is "kidnapping" whole parts of the town for every piece the mayor loses in the Checkers game he's playing with him. He then takes all the money from the people in the places he kidnaps. Unluckily for Bob and Terry, Checker Master has decided to kidnap the bus they're on next. He announces that he's going to straight up kill everyone who doesn't give him enough money.
Also Bob and Terry have some skeleton costumes for the Winner's Ball they were going to attend. This is important for what happens now.
You will note Nightmare and Sleepy have decided to pose as a team because shit got real. You will also note that they have cut the bullshit out of Bruce Wayne's belief that criminals are a cowardly superstitious lot and have just decided to dress like spooky scary skeletons.
Checker Master kidnaps a big fancy mansion party next, and orders the townsfolk to drop off their money at a mailbox to get their relatives back. Nightmare and Sleepy keep a watch on the mailbox, then follow the crooks back to their hideout, bringing the Checker Master's scheme to an end.
Zoinks Scoob!
And that was the story of how a wrestler and his life partner foiled a ludicrously over-complicated scam by dressing up in dime store Halloween costumes and punching people.
It's Stupid Manny! The joke is he's stupid! And fat! And he harms the people around him with his incompetence!
Meanwhile here is Bruno McNasty, the proud scion of the McNasty family, related to such luminaries as Shasta McNasty and Marvin McNasty. He has invented anti-gravity!
Unfortunately, Manny ruins it, gets a full zap of anti-gravity, flies away, gets a curtain stuck on his head, and lands in a nazi hideout.
Stupid Manny is a new kind of superhero. Look forward to the reboot starring Jack Black as Manny, Steve Carell as his Nazi archenemy, and Christoph Waltz as Bruno McNasty, coming in 2018!
Micro-Face! He has a terrible name and a nightmare inducing costume! What adventures we shall have!
We start out with a crook killing a cop in the street. Things get weird when the crook grabs the cop's badge, asks crime lord named "Big Boston" if he got the correct number on the badge. Seems Big Boston is running a scheme in which he runs a lottery that requires criminals to kill cops, and then give him their badges in the hopes of winning money. If a criminal DOES win money, Big Boston lets him walk away, tell people about it, then kills him to get the money back.
I see no problem with this plan, it is a flawless creation of a diabolical mind. There is nothing that could go wrong here.
Well except that the cop's brother, eccentric inventor Tom Wood, is a bit PO'd
Micro-Face quickly starts kicking ass and taking names, and uses his invention to confuse and disorientate large groups in order to better take them out one by one. Like Batman, but with a worse name.
Big Boston manages to sneak away as the cops roll in to arrest the confused criminals, but Micro-Face uses his x-ray vision to see Big Boston's military registration card in his pocket.
This was written during WWII, in case you forgot.
Anyway, Micro-Face wastes no time waging some psychological warfare
Micro-Face uses his powers of misdirection to get Big Boston to waste all his ammo, and get him at his mercy
And that's the first adventure of Micro-Face! Weird obligatory jingoism and mildly overcomplicated plot aside, I kinda liked this one. Having a hero who needs to rely on misdirection and being able to see more than his opponents is pretty cool, especially for the time period.
ZIPPO! He moves fast! He is not a clown or a Marx brother!
We start in the offices of a detective by the name of Joe Blair. He gets hired by Leo Anderson, head of a plant that's involved in war production. According to Leo, some highly skilled workers have all been migrating to a different plant, which is a big problem for their plant, as they need to show the new guys the ropes and it slows down production as a result. He's hiring Joe to see what's up. Joe takes the case, and decides this is the perfect time to test out his new invention.
Meanwhile, HARD HITTING WWII ERA POLITICAL COMMENTARY
Anyway, Joe goes undercover as a worked in the plant, and finds out the deal through the use of asking around and punching people. Joe would fit right in amongst the heroes of the last comic. Then he uses his new suit to punch more people and ask more questions
The Pirate shows up and, threatening Joe/Zippo with a gun, manages to lock him up. However, Joe uses his wheels to cut through the bars and escape.
Well that was certainly a thing that happened. They can't all be winners I guess.
Guys, don't be a jerk to Gorilla. It's not his fault he has tinyface syndrome.
Anyway, Jackie and the boys are off to see Jackie's old man! Let's see what Jackie's lovable old pop is up to!.
This remake of Sandlot is taking an odd turn.
Young Jackie immediately swears a Batman oath to forever oppose crime. Unlike Batman, he starts opposing it the moment he gets back home, and asks his buddies to join him in his crusade as the Boy Rangers.
Gorilla is totally going to be the Judas of the Boy Rangers one day. Or the Syndrome. Something like that.
Anyway, Jackie tracks down the crooks, and we learn that the youthful plans of idealistic young boys do not always stand up to reality.
Or maybe we learn that either these are the lamest lone sharks ever, or these kids are all from Krypton.
Next Time: The final story of this issue of Clue Comics! And before that, a poll of possible next comics for us to look at!
Comments
ARRRR
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Who, incidentally, will be so heartbroken by this that she'll create a best-selling album about the whole thing after gaining some weight.
Even though, you know, the queen is still the sovereign ruler and presumably has people loyal to her. But whatever, she is a slaver-queen.
And with that, Fantastic Comics # 1 is FINISHED!
Very '40s, but in kind of a cool way rather than a not-so-cool way? Although the German accents are a bit much given that the location of Swisslakia indicates that they all probably speaking Alsatian.
It was definitely a good choice for this thread.
Next time:
It's not anything especially bad, but not really anything especially good either.
Next time
I dig how the villain's paranoia was used against him.