How every teen girl’s father sees her first boyfriend.
Silver Streak Comics #2
Tour Guide Publications (January, 1940)
Why yes, comic, the second issue usually had a new number. I find myself not really remembering anything from the last issue, but checking my review I did say I was going to give this comic a few issues. Maybe something will be memorable this time? Let’s find out.
The Claw
We begin with our heroes escaping the Claw after events of the previous issue I still can’t remember. The Claw also escapes his exploding headquarters and begins his next plan. Said plan includes the yellow menace for our story THREATENING UNNAMED but blatantly obvious based on the look of the “aggressor nation’s dictator” and flag ADOLPH HITLER TO GIVE HIM HALF OF EUROPE IN EXCHANGE FOR HIS HELP OR HE’LL CRUSH ADOLPH’S HEAD! There are so many reasons this did not age well. It just gets darker from there, as Claw creates an underwater train filled with his Orientals (if he’s Chinese, guess who was actually on our side during World War II thanks to Japan being the bad guys in that one but Pearl Harbor hadn’t happened yet) and “aggressor nation” troops on the sea to attack the US. From the train he shoots large guns, then grows giant sized to help attack cruise ships, with frantic passengers committing suicide…the hell, comic? Our hero has lightbulbs that can freeze water–you’re guess is as good as mine–but only breaks them out after his little brother falls into the water and disappears…they drowned a child, people! A bunch of scientific BS later and Claw is dead…or is he? I…I don’t even know what to make of this story. We’re just making stuff up as we go along and trying to explain it as our hero’s latest invention.
Captain Fearless by Malcom Kildale
In case you needed further proof this comic hates the Chinese more than the Naz…sorry, “aggressor nation”, our heroic gunrunner (maybe he’s more heroic in the first issue, but I still can’t remember) is captured by Chinese, who tossed Fearless’s new friend in the ocean and now beats him up. I mean, they’re pirates and the Chinese he’s working for but still, this comic really has it in for China. Dugan is taken on a Chinese junk (don’t look at me like that, it’s what the Chinese calls that style boat) but they want to force him to work, so he gets away and gets his Marine buddies for help, but our villain uses his daughter and their men as a distraction while they disappear with Fearless to torture him for how they’re getting the guns to the…good Chinese, I guess. Not that we see any this issue. Maybe I’m still thrown off by the first story, even after a nap, but I couldn’t get into this one.
Red Reeves The Boy Magician
If you didn’t think this comic is sadistic enough, the title panel has Red’s genie gleefully stalking a dude on the floor while the scared man pulls out a gun and has an eye mask on backwards while the boy looks on in shock. What a starter. The story is oddly not sadistic after what we’ve seen, probably due to the lack of Chinese people. Red loses his marble but it’s still in the house, found by a crook who comes into the house that night. The genie gets the marble to Red so the crook doesn’t become his master, and they turn him over to the police. After his sob story, Red has genie give him and his family a house and all of their needs fulfilled, then Red’s dad gives him a job…which I wouldn’t think he’d need if all their needs are magically taken care of, but this is a comic where Red has no qualms about showing off his magic genie and letting a potential threat know how to control him. Somehow this still isn’t as odd as threatening Adolph Hitler into compliance.
Lance Hale by John Hampton
Not sure if this is a new one or not. We join as Lance and his friends are captured by jungle natives who seem to speak Spanish, but the name isn’t showing up in my tags as one I’ve used before. We will never see Lance’s friends, even after they’re set free and allowed to return home so why have them there, but the white man the natives work for wants an adventurer and decided kidnapping was a great way to recruit. Or the writer wanted to start with a fight scene, one of the two. Turns out the man is an inventor, who has a spaceship and a ban that gives someone superhuman strength if they’re already unbelievably strong, and together they set off to an alien world. This comic continues to make less and less sense as I go on.
Calling Duke Kelly: Ace Inspector by Larry Antonette
Another new one. A crazy man kidnaps a singer as she appears on a radio show because he wants revenge on her father. For what we don’t know, but he was in the nut house until he escaped. And somehow this is the sanest story thus far. If the dialog and pacing were better it might be good. But they aren’t so it isn’t.
Mister Midnite
I wonder if he’s the same character from yesterday? He would be public domain, though the name is spelled slightly different. Then again, this scourge of the underworld is fighting the “little men” and their creation as part of a mission to wipe out all beautiful women. Sounds like modern day Hollywood. I’m not sure why he had to stop time to fight these guys when everybody is still moving around anyway, or why the little men have a jar of the one thing that can, and does, kill them, but I stopped trying to make sense of this thing by now.
Solar Patrol by Joe Simon
I doubt this is connected to the dude from last week’s comic. Ken Kuarge (I caught it) is in the year 2065 and is a captain in the Earth police force looking for alien spies. The other guy was a space patrolman. Captured by the tree men of Uranius, (Uranus with an extra letter) along with an Amazon from Mars to keep the pretty girl count up, Ken must rescue his new lady friend who otherwise contributes nothing to the story and stop the tree men. Conceptually it sounds okay but in execution it’s too short and needs another draft to live up to the potential.
The Wasp by Jay Fletcher
Our hero matches wits with supercriminal The Professor, but he’s no supervillain. Actually, I don’t know why he’s called The Professor. He doesn’t do anything sciency. He’s just the usual criminal leader. Still, it’s sane and that’s a commodity in this comic.
overall
I think I’m done with this series. So much of this comic was just lame and I have too many of these to go through to see if it gets better. Maybe later issues due, but there’s just too much crazy here even for me.
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