They remembered everything except the door to get out.
Amazing Mystery Funnies volume 3 #1
Centaur Publications (January, 1940)
Comic Book Plus lists it as issue #17 but I want to go with the official numbering. If you’re going to reboot your numbering at least use volume numbers. It makes organization easier. Now we begin the 1940s with actual months, and this has been one of the good anthologies from our Golden Age readings thus far. Will that trend continue? Let’s dive in and find out.
The Fantom Of The Fair by Paul Gustavson
Our fair protecting hero’s road trip continues, and now his black costume has gone blue and red. That’s him on the cover except his mask is red as well in the story. It’s another story of someone sabotaging a mine so they can buy it cheap, but there’s some decent action. Not sure why Fantom didn’t just remove the wired from the dynamite, but maybe he didn’t know he had time? Anyway, I liked it.
Daredevil Barry Finn by Tarpé Mills
Was this supposed to be an adventure story or a comedy? Darcia goes to a German munitions dealer because she needs money. He believes that if the US joined the war the Germans and other Axis powers would need more weapons and he’d get richer. So they conspire to sink American ships and blame the Nazis. (Good thing we avoided that war. Oh wait…that’s World War II. Not that Mills could predict the future, mind you.) Barry and Frogga are unknowingly involved when a boat they’re going to take is one of the sunk, Barry and his friend make a joke that sends Frogga into the water to find the sub, and after Barry tells him to wreck the periscope, Frogga tries to enter the ship to find a mermaid girlfriend. Yes, Frogga saves the day trying to get over the girl from the islands last story. Then Darcia steals their boat, and presumably captures Barry’s friend while Frogga has to tow Barry to shore in the lifeboat. Again, was this a serious story or a comedy about Frogga’s love life, drinking habits, and other silly stuff? Also, what IS Frogga anyway?
The Inner Circle by L Feild
A group of terrorists are causing trouble around London and the Inner Circle gets involved when Murdock meets a man they tried to hire to set up a bomb. I had trouble following things. Halfway through the story the Inner Circle gains a smaller military team. Are the criminals or terrorists? Who back then knew what an Itorian is because I don’t. So I don’t know why a British man kind of resembles one when the only natives we see later fighting the Inner Circle’s soldiers are darker skinned. I just couldn’t get into it.
Tippy Taylor On Fantasy Isle by George Loomis
A new serial added to the comic. I’m not sure it was worth it. Reporter Tippy Taylor is sent overseas on a hot news story but a storm pushes him and his pilot off-course to one of those lands time forgot. (Time is so forgetful.) Now he’s working for some alchemist to help bring his robots to life, and his first task is to visit a land of lilliputians. We’ll have to see where this goes, but it’s not really doing it for me in this first chapter.
Don Dixon & The Hidden Empire
Honestly, I barely remember what happened last time. Don gets help in destroying the dam while his friends deal with their enemies. With that finally done with, Don searches for his father and to get Wanda home. This isn’t all that memorable I guess. Plus, the rest of the characters don’t look that much darker in skin tone than Don, but they act like he’s the “white savior” or something.
The Bullet by R.F. Butts
Our hero in this new series is adventurer Craig Stewart and his valet Khan, who in what I’m finding happens often in the Golden Age, is from India. Completing a silent plane, our duo travels to help stop a takeover of one nation by another. I think that’s what happens. Honestly, the story was so boring in presentation that I couldn’t focus on it. Half of it is done in text with illustrations rather than a proper comic. The Bullet is the plane but it doesn’t really do anything in the story. Too often the artist is reduced to using arrows to show the reader where to go next. It’s just not a good story.
Jon Linton by somebody whose name I cannot read
Okay, so Satan-Rex is actually a scientist from before Einstein who is mad that scientists laughed at his theory of relativity and later excepted Einstein’s. Somehow he survives until 2009 (a method we aren’t allowed to know–convenient) which Jon’s source also uses…though it doesn’t save him from being burned in a fire from the dreaded Ihavenoclue. The bad guys capture our heroes and want to force Jon to join team evil, make the girl join Satan-Rex’s harem, and who knows what happens to the other guy. This is the point in the serial where the villain seems so indestructible our hero is going to need a big butt to pull a solution from. The problem is trying to read a serial in a format like this, making it difficult to really get into. It might be a better read altogether.
Speed Centaur by Malcom Kildale
See, I even forgot we left Speed and Reel in Arthurian land. Remember when this was just a story about a centaur who fought mobsters? The easy times. Speed comes up with a plan to get Prince Albert back on the throne, by having Albert’s knight challenge his evil uncle’s champion to a joust. I have to agree with the villain, using a centaur as your jouster is cheating. Eventually, Speed saves the prince and the uncle is wipe out along with his castle. Because Speed is now strong enough to lift a mountain. And he can fly now. How does a story about a crimefighting centaur go off the rails? Can’t wait to see him not use these powers next time when he’s back in our world.
OVERALL
This comic…happened. The best this comic hits is being just okay, even the stories that are usually pretty good. The only one I actually enjoyed was the Fantom’s. Hopefully this isn’t a sign of things to come with this anthology.
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