That’s not how the Heimlich maneuver works.
Fantastic Comics #2
Fox Publications, Inc (January, 1940)
I was rather neutral towards the previous issue. Some stories were okay, and only a few were actually enjoyable. I’m hoping things improve with this issue, but it just be more of the same thing. After all, I had to double check my review, so nothing was all that memorable off the top of my head. Will that take it out of the review cycle or is there something that will keep me coming for the next issue? Let’s take a look.
Samson by Alex Boom
Dragor, tyrant leader of Ratatonia (a country with very German-sounding accents) is marching across Europe and only Samson can help the allies and kick everyone’s butt, then destroy Dragor’s operation, which sounds oddly familiar, 1940 comic book. Yeah, it’s total wish fulfillment before what would become known as World War II shifts into high gear, but that’s all there is, using stand-ins for Hitler and the Nazis.
The Super Wizard Stardust by Fletcher Hanks
Rip-The-Blood, who wants a worldwide war for…reasons…tries to blame a presidential kidnapping on the Japanese, but he’s saved by Stardust, who then destroys all of Rip’s operations and stops the world war before it starts. I’m sensing a trend, and given that the Japanese military’s actual actions is what brought the US into the war doubles as a unintentional prediction. Stardust leaves to stop an existing war on Mars. So this whole comic going to be about stopping a worldwide war before it starts? Pity we don’t live in either of those worlds.
The Golden Knight by Grieg Chapian
Sir Richard is captured by the enemy forces, but his Muslim captors (the Crusades, remember) oddly treat him like a captive guest. With free reign, our hero makes friends and the trio escape. Yes, one of them is a beautiful maiden and the other is a mistreated member of the enemy Sir Richard rescues. At least it breaks the trend of the first two stories but I’d like to know why he wasn’t just killed off with the rest of this comrades.
Yank Wilson, Superspy X4: “Sabotage Rampant In The US” by Jack Farr
Another vaguely German enemy, this time trying to sabotage any attempts by the US to bring war relief to England. I have never heard of Nazi spies in the real world, though I don’t follow many war documentaries to have. They were all over fiction even before the US officially joined the war. It seems a lot of comic writers wanted us involved but this book is all about stopping it before it gets to where it is, or at least keeping the States out of the war.
Space Smith by Hank Christy
Am I forgetting the previous issue or is this starting in the middle of the story? Seeing as I don’t remember the previous issue’s story it could go either way. Smith and Dianna are attacking Mars before Mars attacks Earth. I guess Stardust didn’t arrive yet. Martian ogres under the command of the Master Brain are headed for Earth with their Anti-Earth Demolishing Rays (they named it, not me), and our heroes must stop them. Future Earth’s only hope against this threat are Smith’s quick-shrink bombs. If any of this sounds lame, you may have already read this comic.
Captain Kidd by Bill Bossert
Kidd and his mate Freddy (they’re sailors, still 1940) want to learn why an island loaded with gold isn’t selling them to other lands. It could just be they don’t want to, but it’s actually because a fake god controlled by a man the comic just calls “The Voice” is tricking or forcing them to give it to him. A longer version of this story may have had more time to really sell the drama and action, but for this length it’s just too short and easy.
Professor Fiend by Boris Plaster
The prof’s newest experiment gives everyone a hairstyle they don’t want so he has to shrink himself to get away from them. If you think that’s the dumbest thing in this story, you didn’t read it.
Flick Falcon In The Fourth Dimension by Orville Wells
Nobody believes Flick about Martians coming to invade the Earth when the war in Europe is heating up, so Flick and Adelle travel back to Mars to stop them. They meet the Martians’ real natives, or so the lilliputians claim, and then things get crazy. You’ll have to read this one because every idea was thrown to the wall and made to stick with nails.
Sub Saunders & The Rebels Of The Deep by Karl Kief
Sub and Lantida have better luck, but they’re also in the future and Lantida offers to return all the gold taken from sunken ships over the years. Maybe if Flick told them there was silver on Mars or something? Anyway, the Americans agree to attack Atlantis and help put Lantida back on the stolen throne. One panel points a word balloon at the wrong character. Thus our final story is not terrible, but not very interesting.
OVERALL
I think I’m out on this one. I don’t care how some of these stories end, the characters aren’t doing it for me, and I just don’t have time to continue reading this series.
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