The strange part is he found his contact lens.
Don Winslow Of The Navy
Okay, here’s where we get confused. Apparently this is part of the “Four Color” series by Dell Publishing/Western Publishing according to Comic Book Plus, the second in the series. The cover date they give is November, 1939, so we’re starting a new month. On the other hand, the comic itself gives no publisher and list the dates 1936, 1937, and 1938, with the copywrite going to Bell Syndicate, Inc. This may well be a collection of strips by former Lieutenant Frank Victor Martinez, a World War I veteran from Naval Intelligence, which did receive a serial adaptation after this comic came out. Fawcett would do some original comics and there was also apparently a radio drama. Also credited is Leon A. Beroth, who I assume is the artist.
I know this isn’t usually my kind of story, but it’s a comic in the Golden Age that is just one character, so I got curious. After getting the full history, I’m kind of set up to do this, so I’ll continue. Not sure what I’ll do with the rest of the series. Don returns in #22 if you’re curious.
I was going to list the titles of these stories, as created by Comic Book Plus (or possibly the Grand Comics Database), but since the stories all blend into each other it’s not worth the trouble.
Aboard a naval ship is Doctor Centaur, who seems to be an old enemy of Commander Don Wilson and his obligatory sidekick, Lieutenant Red Pennington. (So is Red based on Martinez instead of Wilson? Or is their shared rank coincidence?) This time the mad scientist wants to use a US destroyer to take over the world…because clearly one destroyer is enough to conquer the world? I think your sound machine has warped your brain. Also, nobody told his daughter they’re supposed to be evil. A well chosen introductory story, though from the narration on the first page/strip you know this comes after a prior adventure. Each story seems to be feeding into each other.
From there, Don and Red are sent to help a plane in trouble and end up damaging their own plane after the successful rescue, and a rather clever way of doing it. They end up picked up by a boat running munitions with the goal of starting World War II, as Spain is currently involved in a war and someone wants everybody to play. That goes right into the third adventure according to the post, in which they have to stop a duchess who is part of the plot, hoping to expose the big villain. We keep going from villain to villain. The dutchess barely appears in her part, which is to grab any poor sap who loses big at the casino and promises them riches if the join the cause.
From there luck and coincidence follows our heroes as they earn the respect of the pirate captain…wait, are they trying to trick everyone into their war to sell weapons or do they just want to make wars happen like a Gundam series villain, or…I’m not following. They call him “The Dwarf” (though apparently not to his face), seeing as he’s a little person (we used to call them midgets but someone decided that was insulting for some reason) should be enough. though if Russel T. Davies was involved he’d probably be worried about making a dwarf evil. Nobody tell him about the original Wild Wild West version of Doctor Loveless. Also, I am probably the only person on the internet who somehow managed to link Gundam, The Doctor, and James West all in the same paragraph in a review about a comic staring pair of naval intelligence officers.
Unfortunately this is where the story ends, as Don and Red are found out, but manage to escape to warn the British naval captain that the yacht they thought they were rescuing is actually owned by the bad guys. No idea what happens next, and the next issue shifts to Myra North: Special Nurse.
I wasn’t expecting to get into this story, but I did. While a breather between the Doctor Centaur tale and the one that dominates would have been nice, or maybe skip Centaur and give the main story more of a chance to complete here, it was a good story, with the quality of the art on the higher side of the period. Red isn’t the goofy sidekick but is just as good a naval officer as Don, making him a better partner than some Golden Age heroes would get. Overall I enjoyed this and wish I could see more of this adventure at least.
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