Never bring a fist to a knife fight…when you can make it a gun fight.
Miracle Comics #1
Hillman-Curl Inc. (February, 1940)
A new title and from what I can tell a new company. So we’re about to see some brand new characters that never made it. Miracle Comics seems to have only lasted four issues while the publisher continues on. That does not bode well, but unless the stories are really bad I might go through all four issues when they come up on Comic Book Plus’ virtual newsstand. I could use some new old material.
Sky Wizard
I thought his outfit was meant to be futuristic, but everything else seems present day (as in 1940, not 2025 or whenever you read this). Sky Wizard has created a new plane because that was apparently a popular story in 1940. Someone called the Unholy One sends crooks to steal the plans while he steals the jet. Sky Wizard and the pilot’s pre-teen kids have to protect the plans and go after the bad guys in their headquarters that’s also a dirigible thanks to rubberium metal and fabric. Oh, they have a BS explanation for all their crazy gadgets, complete with names straight out of the 1940s sci-fi naming book. It’s silly in all the best ways. He even has the turban wearing assistant that calls him “master” all the time. It’s a good start and hopefully this is what we’re getting in this book. I demand Golden Age crazy!
K-7: The Famous Radio Character
Not so famous. I looked him up and Secret Agent K-7 did have two short radio shows and a movie but he didn’t last very long in public consciousness. Then again, with so many “K” codenamed secret agents in the Golden Age he’s easy to bury. I still prefer K-9. The robot dog, not some agent. Anyway, K and his pretty lady partner Yvonne Durrell have to stop the bad guys from creating a fake international incident so they can start a war and take over a friendly neighbor once they take over their own government. It’s a situation that pretty much sorts itself out while Yvonne tries to kill the assassin when it appears he killed K. Except he didn’t because even though this story ends here there’s more to come. Not as crazy as the first one but not a bad story.
Dusty Doyle: The Circus Cyclone
I need to ask my family members who were actually circus acrobats how insulting it is that some dude off the street and a suicidal woman whose life he saved can easily get an acrobat job just after one of the last performers falls to his death and his partner quits. I feel it’s pretty insulting given the hard work that goes into being an acrobat. Dusty and Elaine do expose a plot to ruin the circus by a rival group. And nobody becomes a teen sidekick to a guy in a cave. That’s not the biggest shame. It’s how short and uninteresting the story turns out to be.
Dash Dixon: Man Of Might : “The Triangle Murders”
Police officer Dash Dixon must clean up crime on Sesame Street when a triangle is brutally mur…no, wait, that sounds like someone’s parody webcomic, and mine isn’t touching that one. Instead, Dash is immediately fired so he can protect a scientist that’s been receiving death threats. Wait…you fired him to give him an assignment? What? That’s sorted quickly but Dash then agrees to undergo an experiment to gain perpetual life and bunch of other powers. He’s not hurt or anything. He just agrees to it after shooting the assassin. Even Dan Garret was dying when he got Vitamin 2X to become the Blue Beetle, doc. What follows is a very confusing story where Dash returns to the job that fired him and gets involved in a plot involving another coup, scene where someone is trying to kill him and then doesn’t, being more prepared that Batman, and in a suit that really does look like he’s wearing underwear outside a military uniform made of a metal that now keeps him alive. Again, he signed up for that despite being in good health. Dusty’s story might be short and boring but at least I followed what was going on.
The Scorpion: Terror Of The Underworld by Carl Sherman
Oooh, an actual creator credit. I was expecting a costumed crimefighter, the first one without a mask. I can’t tell what Fred Ward, aka The Scorpion is. Private investigator? He can’t be a “G-man” if one of the cops says the underworld fears him more than the FBI. The bad guys know who he is and apparently DON’T fear him as they force him and his partner to be caught up in a frame-up for their robbery. Of course they’re also dumb enough to think the hero is just going to drive off a cliff if there’s nobody pointing a gun at his head anymore. I’m starting to see the problems in this anthology.
Blanda The Jungle Queen
I want to make a pun about her name, but “bland” is replaced with the bad kind of crazy, like Dash Dixon’s story. Okay, so Blanda is a white girl who grew up in an African tribe, is now the ruler, will sacrifice people to the animals they worship…which sounds like an extremist’s fantasy in 2025…but when a white man shows up to hunt to capture animals for a zoo she is ready to send him to the animal pits. Then a rival tribe attacks, they end up fighting together for a panel, and suddenly the gorillas won’t let her leave because she’s now in love with him because…what? This isn’t a comic, it’s the plot for a comic that never got a first actual draft!
The Masked Angel
His police officer father is killed by the underworld, so Steve Oakes fights crime as the Masked Angel…which looks more like a guy in sunglasses and a three piece suit. Batman was coming, the Fantom Of The Fair already existed, and this was the best you could come up with? Alongside the obligatory undisguised partner Jack Quinn, he takes down a couple of museum thieves, but his police officer brother is also his own personal Mike Mannigan. Now I just want to read more Golden Age Blue Beetle stories. He’s a more interesting crimefighter than most of the heroes in this book.
Pinkie Parker, The Kid Cop: “The Kid Sherlock”
I linked to the comic so you can read it. Maybe you can figure this one out. Pinkie gets in trouble for using a pea shooter, but the officer offers to trade it for roller skates. Not with you so far, and it gets worse when bad guys catch them and somehow Pinkie shooting peas into their coats helps prove they’re crooks? I don’t get it.
OVERALL
It’s a darn shame. The comic started well with the opening stories, and slowly went downhill as the comic went on. This is going to be an interesting read to see if the few good comics just got bogged down by all the crap, because I can see that killing this anthology.
BW Media Spotlight 