“Okay, which flight is yours?”
Speed Comics #2
Brookwood Publishing Company (November, 1939)
I was a bit meh on the last issue, but hopefully this issue will improve. This time you’ll notice two links to Comic Book Plus for this issue. I usually just link the one I’m using for the review. Oddly with this issue we have one scan with parts of a page missing and one with the full page but it’s in terrible but still readable shape. It’s a crapshoot to even find these old comics in decent condition, but you can look through both of them and decide which one to continue with. Note that the one with the nicer cover, which I’m using for today’s image, is actually the one with the worse colors. Not sure how that happened.
“Shock” Gibson by Maurice Scott
Baron Von Kampf is forcing planes to land in the ocean to build his army to take over the world. (With all these people trying to take over the world you’d think they’d end up trying to eliminate their competition more often than the heroes.) Shock manages to end his operation, then chases him to El Matador in South America to foil another plan. This is a longer than normal story, almost a regular comic’s length by more recent standards. And yet they both have to pad it out with unrelated rescues and somehow end the epilogue rather short. This was a good story, though.
Crash, Cork, & The Baron: The Three Aces by Fred North
Our trio try to rescue a down pilot for the reward money. Our heroes. The native are restless and the medicine man is not happy with these “white gods” and keeps trying to expose them as fakes. Cork and the Baron seem to be here mostly so North can write an Irish and German accent because it’s kind of ridiculous. The story itself kind of goes through the motions but it’s not every exciting despite the action.
Ted Parrish: The Man Of 1000 Faces by Bob Stanley
A bored actor uses his quick change makeup skills to fight crime on the side. Not the weirdest thing I’ve seen. In this story the Man Of 1000 Faces, a rather long hero name, works to rescue a kidnapped child star. It’s a decent enough tale, and they do make use of his skills, but also gets tripped by imitating a left-handed crook without knowing he’s left-handed. Nice attempt at getting tension into the story. Not bad overall.
Biff Bannon Of The US Marines by Remington Braut
Pirates kidnap Biff, believing he has information they could use. Instead he manages to fight them until the Coast Guard spots them and takes the villains away…except for two guys who keelhauled Biff. First they get tied to a seaplane’s pontoons so he can get revenge. Our hero, folks. Not sure he’s even allowed to do that. Someone has been watching Errol Flynn because he does that thing with the knife and the sail that actually wouldn’t work but looks cool. This story has some good action but is light on the actual story part.
“Smoke” Carter by Joe E. Martin
We don’t get good nicknames anymore in comics. A gangster tries to get revenge by starting fires in their warehouse (after he robs it) and fooling our hero into thinking he’s a little old lady. Then things get really messy. The fire hydrant is out of water, they can’t reach the river with their hoses, a kid gets in the way of firefighters from the next town and it crashes, a horse tramples a fireman and the ambulance guys are sure he won’t make it (we never find out for sure), and Smoke actually smashes a door down to prove the little old lady is none of those things. It’s a mess of events that included Smoke about to BLOW A BUILDING UP WITH DYNAMITE TO STOP A FIRE!!!!! Sure, it’s the arsonist but he doesn’t know that. He wants to blow up an old lady’s out to stop a fire. This story just feels wrong. Comic Book Plus also oversells it by calling him a transvestite arsonist. Do you guys not know what a disguise is? THIS is a transvestite.
Landor: Maker Of Monsters by Gregory Tory
Landor tries to get revenge on the couple whose name I don’t remember (I think this was in the last issue) by creating a giant woman with bat wings. Very flammable bat wings, it turns out. Landor jumps from 20 stories but is he really dead? We’ve had our share of “not really dead” villains in these Golden Age anthologies. This…happened.
Texas Tyler by Harry Waters
A friend of Tyler’s is supposedly killed by Injuns, but he soon learns what the villains are really after. It’s a short story that could have used another page, but it works for what’s available.
Spike Marlin by Carl Larson
Our US Naval Secret Service agent ends our last tale with a hero who forces a yacht to go after drug smugglers, messes with the Coast Guard captain who arrests him, and keeps bugging a seafront diner’s waitress. Some hero. Didn’t like this one.
overall
Note to my future self. We’re giving this comic one last chance before dropping it, and only because I’m reading these for free a few decades after they came out. This is still a meh selection of stories. Nothing really wowed me and others just kind of fell apart. Next issue better come up with something to impress me.
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