In case you missed the update, welcome to the new posting time for “Yesterday’s” Comic, or at least the Golden Age comic reviews. Check said update for the reasons why. Let’s just get into the review.
Why is his cape so short and his bandana mask so long?
Jumbo Comics #14
Real Adventures Publishing (April, 1943)
According to an ad on the inside cover Jumbo Comics went monthly starting the following month. We’ll see about that, given the mistakes on the cover. “The Lighting” won’t make his actual debut until the next issue while the title for the Sheena story happened last issue. They also started some contest where in this and a few other of their titles there was a comic strip mystery where the readers could win a prize for solving it and sending the answer in before being revealed in a later issue. There was a cash prize and everything. Odds are you can’t collect today, but I’m more concerned about whether or not we reading from a public domain site will ever know that answer or if we have to guess?
Sheena: Queen Of The Jungle by W. Morgan Thomas
The pygmies ask Bob for help building a bridge, but headhunters attack and capture him and Sheena, wounding Bob so he can’t take part in the story. Sheena doesn’t get to do much either until her chimp friend Chim calls in the ape troops to rescue them. Sheena does get to fight some alligators and make the headhunter chief pay when both Bob and Chim are wounded, so at she still gets to take part in her own story. Overall a good beginning to the issue.
The Hawk by Willis B. Rensle
After freeing slaves from a slave ship, Hawk and his men learn of chicanery at a port town usually cut off from the world. A pirate is looking to take over, even planting a spy as the governor’s woman. Hawk isn’t fooled by her trickery and his crew manages to fend off the bad guys while Hawk is there when the pirate leader accidentally shoots the spy, and she returns the favor on purpose. We’re two for two on good stories so far. Also, I have an answer to my earlier question. The contest is a four-panel strip, so it won’t disrupt the reading experience, but I still wonder if we get the answer next issue.
Spencer Steel by Dennis Colbrook
Spencer and his wife can’t go on vacation without a murder happening. Stopping in Las Vegas, a dead body falls right in front of them, so of course he’s on the case. We don’t get a motivation for the killer, captions recapping the story like they planned longer breaks than a page, and having McCarthy show up is meaningless other than have him in the last few minutes to remind us he exists (I know I didn’t), so it’s not as good a story as it could have been, but it’s okay enough.
Weird Stories Of The Supernatural by Curt Davis
Stuart Taylor returns. Yay. He’s still in the future. He just fought off the giant ants and now he and Dr Heyward fight one-eyed cyborg giants. It’s not as cool as it sounds. It’s sadly rather mundane as they destroy the city and our heroes go after their creator, who’s death isn’t very satisfactory. Overall they took a cool idea and made it dull.
ZX-5: Spies In Action by Major Thorpe
Of course ZX and his fiance have a friend who’s a Mongolian queen. She’s about to be married, but that means the rival to the throne wants him dead, as does a foreign country who wants to open trade in the region. Some decent action, though not as strong a story as I would have liked. It was okay.
Wilton Of The West by Fred Sande
Why introduce a costumed cowboy crimefighter (who is secretly a cowgirl) if you’re just going to toss the idea way? The Crimson Rider goes to Wilton for help because Indians are supposedly attacking local homesteads, but it’s all a trick to replace the sheriff…who is barely part of these proceedings and doesn’t do much when he is. It’s a good plot but it doesn’t have time to become an interesting story.
Inspector Dayton by Geo Thatcher
The Chinese man who help Dayton’s kid sidekick captures the man who framed Dayton because he has his own issues with him. He’s also part of an Opium smuggling ring, but he destroys it rather than sells it, and he forces the other guy to sign a confession in a manner that I’m pretty sure would never old up in court even in 1943. Dayton goes along with this a little too well. Curious if this goes anywhere in later issues, but for this one I’m kind of in the middle. It’s not great but it’s not bad, either.
The Count Of Monte Cristo adapted by Jack Cortez
The count gets a draw in the pistol duel to due intentionally missing his target. Knowing that gets the other guy to calm down, but another count sneaks into his bedroom to try to murder him. Our count is ready for him, leading to the cliffhanger….and here’s the problem. This story does not adapt well into these short stories. You’re better off just reading the novel, or if you want a comic version there’s probably a Classics Illustrated or other adaptation that would be a better use of your time.
overall
There’s just enough here for me to look into another issue. Like last time it’s kind of a mixed bag, but the continuing stories aren’t memorable enough due to the format and how many other comics were on the shelves at the time also doing the anthology thing. Some stories do hit well, but they all seem to be at the beginning of the comic. I guess next time we’ll see if this “The Lightning” characters is at all interesting.
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