“New” and “different” are loaded terms in the 2020s.
Police Comics #10
Comic Magazines, Inc (July, 1942)
Apparently we went bimonthly and nobody told me.
Not sure how to open this one for awhile. This series at this point in the pre-DC (now) Wednesday reviews only gets interrupted on occasion by Doll Man’s Quarterly comic because Uncle Sam’s comic just kept leaving me confused. I still want to try to enjoy these comics, which is how the daily comic review started: reading comics to see if I want to continue reading those series. The comics in this book have been doing good so far. Let’s see if the pattern continues.
Plastic Man
Plas is after gangsters stealing a weapon for the Nazis. At least they dress like gangsters and don’t talk like Germans in a 1940s comic book. His only problem is Oman, a Western Union messenger who wants to be a cop. What follows is a fun story with surprisingly good use of word balloons to indicate how someone is speaking, like when Omar is caught up in a Plastic Man wheel. Good starter.
711 by George E. Brenner
I thought Plastic Man was supposed to be the sillier full story? Or did Brenner decide to make the German devious and the Japanese stupid? They have a plan to get prisoners to join their spy ring (again, did this actually happen during World War II?), but the group working in Dan’s prison isn’t ready for 711. The story ends a bit short for me and wasted too much time on explaining the plot to an imbecile.
Eagle Evans: Flier Of Fortune by Clark Williams
Nazis want a plane to lose a race so the Luftwaffe can get their hand on the plane when the US turns it down. With Eagle as the pilot, there is no problem and the plane wins. Was that all it took to get the plane sold to the US, and why did they assume the creator would sell it to them? Minor quibble because it’s a good action story.
Also, there’s a teaser that The Spirit starts next issue, coming over from the newspapers. Is this the last Eagle Evans story? It will also be the first Spirit comic I’ve actually read a full tale for instead of seeing panels of it. Should be interesting, but I’ll miss Eagle if that’s the case. His and Snap’s adventures have been mostly enjoyable.
Steele Kerrigan by Al Bryant
One of Steele’s friends ends up in debt gambling, but Steele knows the casino owner and is sure the game was rigged. He and Anne expose his operation. There’s a good story idea but the story moves a bit fast, and it looked like Anne was mad at him in her first panel but nothing comes of it the rest of the story.
Manhunter
Did a previous issue give us his location as Empire City? If not, this is where we learn his locale. A voodoo priest pronounces a man’s death, but it’s really a trap to kill Manhunter to get new converts. Only one of the group comes close to being voodoo related, or coming from either Africa or Haiti, and he’s far from the brains of the outfit. Plan might have worked if the lady didn’t bungle it with her impatience. Manhunter gets to punch a dude, the chief who looks like he’s supposed to be an idiot character clearly solved the murder, and nothing of interest was read.
The Human Bomb by Paul Correll
Continuing from the previous issue, our hero tries to shut down the Nazi boxite mine for good. Didn’t know Argentinean officers were so quick to shoot people, but he was a Nazi. And yet our explody hero doesn’t make a habit of killing dudes. It’s an okay story, but he really does need to tell his fiance what’s going on or he won’t have a fiance much longer.
Chic Carter by Vernon Henkel
Chic and Detective Monahan get caught up in a struggle for a raven statue that’s supposed to contain a fortune in diamonds. I won’t ruin the surprise, though the fact that there is one probably tells you what happened. If noir has taught us anything, folks, is never buy a bird statue. They’re nothing but trouble.
Phantom Lady by Arthur Peddy
Senator Knight doesn’t want to investigate a scandal in the civil defense offices because they’re enemies will use it against them. Yeah, it’s in the newspapers already so NOT investigating looks worse. Don and Phantom Lady both decide to investigate and team up when it turns out Nazis are involved. Of course they are, but why do they sound like the usual criminal henchmen? It was okay but some odd choices were made.
The Mouthpiece by Fred Guardineer
As a defender of Clark Kent’s glasses I still couldn’t tell you how Bill gets away with the Mouthpiece disguise just being a domino mask. I also don’t know why a newspaper boy calls the DA instead of the police when he overhears plans for a thief to sell some kind of plans to a Japanese spy. We don’t even know what the plans are for. It still somehow manages to be an okay story. Barely.
The Firebrand
It’s worse for Firebrand. He practically changes in front of his and Slugger’s Nazi captors, part of a plot to scuttle their Naval ship. Even Joan gets to help foil the operation as she joins the Red Cross as a nurse. Some minor issue with the outfit change and I’m starting to think Firebrand got super strength at some point, but it’s worth it to see Firebrand beat up one Nazi by using another as a weapon.
Not worth it? An ad for Tootsie Rolls where Uncle Sam tries to pass them off as healthy “energy” food.
overall
A bit uneven this issue. Nothing especially bad, just some odd choices and stories that could have benefitted from a couple more pages. Still overall enjoying the series.
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