“Yesterday’s” Comic> Slam-Bang Comics #2

Well now you’re just wasting bullets.

Slam-Bang Comics #2

Fawcett Publications, Inc (April, 1940)

Well, the first issue was okay outside of some badly placed captions. Comic design has grown over the years. Seeing the early days is interesting. At least it’s earned a second issue. Will be any better? Sadly I can’t pad out the intro any further for the homepage and there’s a lot of credits and stories to cover. So let’s get on with it.

[Read along with me here]

Diamond Jack

When Jack foils a bank robbery, he learns their boss is also trying to kidnap a girl…and then her father, and then both of them. This Count Shano guy really has it in for these two. After learning the mistake of letting the criminal underworld know you have a magic ring you’re using to beat them up he still has to save them, and recover gems stolen from them, and then save them again. It’s a series of short adventures with the same two victims and same guy, but outside of a panel or two they messed up the word balloon placement it was an okay story to start on. Plus we got to see a man punch a criminal through a telephone. Try that with a smart phone! Well, I guess you could do it like the girl in The Ring…

Jim Dolan

I’m not sure why Jim has to be an editor, or why an editor is writing his own stories, but here he is writing about his latest adventure. A new plane for the military is sabotaged at testing, and this being 1940s you know Nazi spies are involved. Look, I’m going to complain about bad word balloon placement the more they do it because it’s what a critic does. The story itself is fine, though why Jim couldn’t just tell them how the sabotage works and let the pilot do his thing is simply to make him the hero of everything. It was a different time. You don’t see many open air planes these days.

Lucky Lawton

Okay, is the dog’s name Pard or Pal? I mean, they’re both bad names, but he’s a good dog as he helps Lucky protect a man and his son’s gold find from claim jumpers. Unlike Diamond Jack’s story, the villains doing numerous schemes to get the same land works because you could see different plans at different steps of the criminal process rather than a bunch of stories they came up with to fill the page count.

Hurricane Hanson

“Sea-adventurer” works better than trying to name the good guys “pirates”. The Kazilians want to sink Hanson’s boat, and Hanson doesn’t want them to. I bet the guy with his name in the title wins. Why do they want to sink the ship? Being Nazi stand-ins, I guess. It’s a good story, but guess what continuing trend shows up in this story.

Mark Swift & The Time Retarder

Again, don’t blame me for that name. Mark and Kent want to head for Camelot, but something goes wrong (like Camelot wasn’t a real place?) and they end up in the Crusades again. I’m sure Kent, being a history instructor, wouldn’t pollute the timeline by shooting the Moslems (that’s not a typo, that’s how they write it) with a gun that won’t exist for centuries, right? Or flirt with a woman so his jealous rival won’t switch sides just to get back at him during a religious war where he was on the side that’s against both those things? Oh, he would do that? Good thing he brought a small boy to save his sorry…oh, the balloon and caption problem is joined by one page’s mixed panel placement. It’s a weak story overall, but still okay. There have been anthologies that have been crap by this point, so if this is the worst we get, I’ll deal.

The War Bird

The Sermians are our Nazi stand-ins for this story, right down to the German speech. (Jim’s stand-ins didn’t even get named.) How is Baron Bruht, who blows up airplane bunkers without dropping anything…or is it a trick? Tom figures out the trick in part because he knows the actual mechanic? Was that bit of coincidence even needed? A minor detail that could have been handled better for our war bird to guess the plot, but otherwise not bad.

Lee Granger: Jungle King

Mad scientist Tarzan is back. Look, he made a lion talk. Apparently his name is Eric. What would you call him? The daughter of a consul general is captured by the “dreaded” Boko tribe. Why? Tuesday? I don’t know. This is not the issue for motivations unless it’s stealing a plane. The science is up for debate, but science used to work that way. That’s why it was the Golden Age. She likes Lee’s little pygmy friends, but it’s the mighty Eric who is the hero of this story. How is this stranger than Diamond Jack punching a guy through a phone speaker and still not even close to the crazy I’ve seen from this period?

overall

Okay, Slam-Bang, you’ve earned the third issue. It’s not the most spectacular anthology but it’s still a pleasant read for the price. Granted, my price was free because these are public domain scans, but still an interesting curiosity to keep in rotation.