Champ Comics #11
Duke O’Dawd the Human Meteor
At a taxi stand in Times Square, Duke O’Dawd sees a child being beaten up by a bully and tries to intervene. However, before he can stop the fight he is surprised when the bullied child manages to fight back, making his tormentor flee in tears with a single blow. Duke recognizes the boy as Toby, who works at a nearby shoeshine stand with his father. Asking how the fight happened, Duke learns that Toby’s father couldn’t show up for work and the other kid had come to try and steal the shoeshine stand. The boy tearfully tells Duke that his father was hit by a car the day before and that he was attacked while on the way to visit his dad in the hospital. Feeling sympathetic for the boy, Duke offers to drive Toby to the hospital in his taxi cab.
When they arrive there, the nurse tells Toby that his father is undergoing an operation and that the boy won’t be able to see his father until the morning. Duke assures Toby that his father will be fine, but the boy is sick with worry. That’s when a man shoves past them to get the nurse, telling her that he needs her help as it is a matter of life or death as his boss has been seriously injured. Hearing that it is an emergency, Duke offers to drive them to where help is needed in his cab. Along the way, a radio report about the government searching for a pirate radio station that broadcasts anti-american propaganda upsets the man and he demands that Duke turn the radio off. Duke drops the man and the nurse off at nearby pier and despite Toby’s reservations, allows the nurse to leave with the strange man.
Once they are out of site, the man pulls a gun on the nurse and forces her onto a boat. Back in the cab, Duke gets a call on his Televox on his wrist from his ally Wah Le in Tibet. Wah Le warns Duke that the nurse is in trouble and, without explanation, tells Toby that he needs to go. However, when Duke ducks into a nearby warehouse to change into the Human Meteor he is unaware that Toby has followed him. Toby discovers that Duke is the Human Meteor, and the hero swears him to secrecy before flying off to a nearby lighthouse to save the captured nurse. Inside, he discovers the man is part of a group of men who are behind the pirate radio station. Although the Human Meteor has the drop on the crooks, the ensuing battle damages the lighthouse causing one of the wooden support beams to fall on the Meteor. As wood is his only weakness, the hero is knocked out and finds himself tied up with the nurse as the spies try to make their escape. However, when the Human Meteor wakes up he revitalizes himself by grabbing onto a metal ring screwed into the side of the wall. He then flies after the boatload of escaping spies and uses his Yargun to knock them out long enough for the authorities to take them away.
Returning to his civilian guise, Duke O’Dawd returns to the taxi stand where Toby tearfully tells Duke that his father died in surgery. Feeling sorry for the boy, Duke offers to take Toby in and raise him like his own.
Recurring Characters
Human Meteor, Toby, Wah Le
Continuity Notes
In this story, Duke abruptly changes careers from airplane mechanic to a taxi driver. No real explanation is given except for a single panel at the beginning of the story where a co-worker remarks about how different the two jobs are. Duke merely replies that “a job is a job in these times”, suggesting that he was probably laid off and had to get a job elsewhere.
