Kid Komics #10

Wonder Wheel of Crime

Herbert Jenks is a mild-mannered office worker who has always been the butt of his co-worker’s practical jokes. When their boss asks for the day’s newspaper, Herbert offers to take it in unaware that his co-workers have given him a paper from last month. Furious that Jenks is constantly screwing up on the job, his humorless boss fires him on the spot. Walking the streets Herbert has grown tired of being pushed around by others. Looking in a shop window he sees that they are selling an alleged wheel of prophecy. Looking at the object in the shop window, Herbert is surprised when the device starts spelling out the message “buy me”. Impressed, Herbert goes inside the shop and buys the wheel of prophecy and the curio shop owner gladly sells it to him. After Herbert leaves, the shop owner has a good laugh because of the vibrations of passing subway trains cause the wheel to move.

Unaware of this, Jenks rushes home with his wheel and it instantly spells out a message telling him to go to the corner of Broadway and Elm. He follows the instructions and hears a bank robbery in progress. and ducks into a nearby doorway for cover. There he witnesses one of the robbers get gunned down by the authorities right in front of him. In the spur of the moment, Herbert grabs the gun and the sachel of stolen money and flees to the rooftops. He happens to run into the Young Allies who are flying a kite and shoves his way through them. Running down the roof access Herbert laughs as the door locks behind him preventing the meddling youths from going after him. Back home, Jenks counts the money and is surprised to discover he has eight grand in stolen money and realizes that he and the wheel are going places.

However, the Young Allies haven’t given up looking for the thief and decide to canvass the area. Toro spots Jenks as he leaves his apartment a short time later. When Toro signals the rest of the team they decide that one of them will have to tail the thief so they can find out what’s what. Knuckles volunteers to do so. Back at his home, Herbert gets another message from his wheel, telling him to bet on Trojan to win. Realizing that it is telling him to bet on a horse, he goes out to figure out where he can place such a bet. As he gets a shoe-shine from Knuckles a cab driver tells him that he knows a bookie that will gladly take his bet. Once the cab leaves with Jenks, Knuckles calls Bucky from a phone booth to tell him that Jenks is going to Bookie Joe’s. At Bookie Joe’s, Herbert places a one thousand dollar bet on Trojan to win. The bookie says that the odds are fifty to one and accepts the bet. Sure enough, Trojan wins and when Bookie Joe to collect. However, when the Bookie refuses to pay, Herbert shoots Joe with the gun he has concealed in his sports coat. With his gun drawn, Herbert holds Joe’s men at bay as he collects his money. When Herbert makes his way back to his home, the Young Allies have just finished bugging his apartment so they can hear what he is up to.

Inside, Herbert consults his wheel which tells him to take control of the mob. He picks up the phone and calls the bookie’s place again and demands to speak with the men there. He tells them that they are taking over their racket. They agree to give leadership over to Jenks, but in reality, this is all a ruse to have him show up so they can mow him down with their machine guns. Hearing all this, Bucky takes Knuckles and Whitewash while Tubby, Toro, and Jeff stay behind to search Jenks apartment. While the Young Allies watch from the window outside they witness Herbert ambush the crooks from behind and guns down their new ringleader. Realizing that Herbert is legit they agree to work with him. When the Young Allies come bursting in, Herbert tosses a table at them, bowling the youths over for the crooks to make their escape. When Jenks has his men drop him off at his apartment, Tubby and the others quickly hide. When Herbert consults his wheel, it tells him to rob a pageant of its jewels. Before he can leave, Toro, Tubby, and Jeff try to stop him but he manages to douse Toro’s flame with a pitcher of water and escape out a window.

Jenks and his men then attempt to rob the jewels on display at a pageant celebrating the crowing of Miss Universe 1945. The Young Allies are there to stop them, but Jenks and his men use tear gas to cover their robbery. The Young Allies follow the gang back to their hideout and in the ensuing conflict, a bullet bounces off Herber’s prophecy wheel. When it spells out a message, Herbert thinks it’s telling him to escape out the door. and runs out of the hole melted into the hideout by Toro. Instead of escape, Herbert falls to his death. When the Young Allies examine his wheel of prophecy, Bucky deduces that the device wasn’t spelling “door” but “doom”.

Recurring Characters

Young Allies (Bucky, Toro, Knuckles O’Toole, Jeff Vandergill, Tubby Tinkle, Whitewash Jones)

The Corpse in the Gilded Cage

The Destroyer visits his friend Jerry Crane at the Central Detective Agency, where he learns that Jerry is on his way for Mexico and he wants to leave the Destroyer in charge while he’s gone. Before the Destroyer can protest, Jerry says that his secretary Kathy will show him the ropes and leaves. No sooner has the Destroyer settled in that he gets his first case. The calls come from Magma Cherni the assistant to Houdin the magician. He tells the Destroyer that her partner is a thief but before she can reveal his scheme she has to hang up because someone is coming. It’s Houdin who tells her to hurry up and get ready for their show and when he asks who she was talking too, Magma says she was speaking with her dressmaker. Houdin knows she is lying and that she was really on the phone with the Destroyer. He decides to make it so she doesn’t speak to anyone again as well as come up with a means of dealing with the destroyer.

Back at the Central Detective Agency, the Destroyer decides he can find out the rest of Cherni’s story by visiting her at her next show. Kathy checks the paper and tells him that Houdin’s magic act is doing a charity for the milk fund the Swank Hotel where the Clayton Society will be represented. The Destroyer pays a visit to the hotel with Kathy that evening and they can’t help but notice all the valuable jewels that the women are wearing the audience. The Destroyer figures that this is what Houdin intends to steal from the audience. Trying to sneak backstage, the Destroyer is ambushed by some thugs in the alley behind the hotel. Although he gains the advantage, one of the men pistol whips the Destroyer from behind. When the Destroyer wakes up he realizes that Houdin must know what’s going on and that Magma Cherni is in danger.

When the Destroyer finally gets backstage he arrives just in time to see someone shoot Magma from behind. While the hotel manager keeps people distracted, Houdin promises to keep doing the show. Examining the situation the Destroyer and Kathy suspect that someone else other than Houdin must have shot Magma and decide to keep a close eye on things. Houdin continues by asking to see the famous Crown Diamond that is being worn by one of the women in the audience. His trick makes it look like he crushes the diamonds, but he reveals that they are perfectly intact and hands the jewels back to her. However, the Destroyer suspects that the jewels were replaced with a fake and tells Kathy to get the jewels appraised. Going backstage, the Destroyer then asks the stagehands if there is anything different about tonight’s performance. One of them tells the Destroyer that Houdin requested the curtains to be drawn at one point in the performance, something they haven’t done before. Going up into the scaffolding, he discovers that someone had rigged a gun to the curtain pulley so it would go off when the curtain was drawn. The Destroyer then interrupts one of Houdin’s magic tricks to accuse him of murdering his assistant and stealing the Crown Diamond. When Houdin tries to flee, the Destroyer chases after him. He easily overpowers the magician’s hired thugs and nabs Houdin. After turning over the magician to the authorities, Kathy remarks how the Destroyer cleverly deduced Houdin’s scheme.

Recurring Characters

Destroyer

Murdered in the Telephone Booth

At the Star Restaraunt, Ice Gordon orders one of his men to make a call in the nearby phone booth, telling him they’ll be waiting in the car. At that same moment, Jack Robinson is passing by when he remembers he needs to make a call as well and is directed to the local newspaper.[1] As he heads to the phone booth a man runs into him and tells Jack that the telephone is out of order. Jack ignores the man and goes to the booth and discovers a dead body inside. Realizing that a murder has been committed Robinson changes into the Whizzer and gives chase. Unfortunately, the killer manages to elude the Whizzer by tripping him up in a revolving door.

In the getaway car, the crooks wonder what to do next since they won’t be able to outrun the Whizzer for very long. Ice Gordon tells his minion not to worry and hands over his gun. When the Whizzer catches up and assures him that they will get out of this fix. When the Whizzer forces his way into the car, Ice insists that this man forced his way into the car and threatened them. The alleged killer claims his innocent The Whizzer had the car turned around and hands everyone over to the authorities. He finds it suspicious when Ice, who claims to be an innocent bystander, raises the Whizzer’s suspicions when he raises his arms like someone who has been frisked by the authorities before. Still, the Whizzer decides to let him go after taking his card. When the police wonder why, since the Whizzer was so suspicious of the man, the hero explains he wants to do a background check on his identity.

They then check on the murder suspect and discover that he was a diamond cutter and that his pouch containing expensive diamonds been emptied out. Unfortunately, the killer wiped away any prints he may have left. This discovery has the Whizzer think about something the alleged killer said in the car, that if he really did kill the diamond cutter they would have found the pouch on him. Realizing what’s going on, the Whizzer checks on the ownership of the car and get the address to Ice’s home. There he finds the man that the murder was pinned on and he tells the Whizzer everything.

The Whizzer chases off the Ice Gordon and his men who try to outrace the Whizzer and end up in a fatal car accident instead.

Recurring Characters

Whizzer

Continuity Notes

1. The Whizzer is referred to as Jack Robinson here. As per the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Golden Age 2004, Robert Frank developed the alter ego of Jack Robinson to give the Whizzer a public face.

The Lone Wolf

At an American airbase in China, Jap Buster Johnson tells his fellow pilots about the time he single-handedly took down a squadron of Japanese fighter planes. Johnson tells them that in a few weeks they’ll be able to teach him some new tricks and that the best way to survive in the air is to act like a team. That’s when they are buzzed by an incoming plane that does some fancy flying before landing. The pilot turns out to be a man named Fred Faraday who wants to meet the famous Jap Buster Johnson. Faraday insists that he is a famous pilot and that he has been assigned to the base to show the others how to fly. He gets paired with Johnson and when they are later on patrol they are attacked by enemy planes.

Thanks to Faraday’s wreckless flying and insistence that he is a lone wolf, both he and Johnson get shot down and captured by the Japanese. Deciding to finally listen to Johnson’s advice, the pair make a rush at the guard and fight their way to a plane and manage to escape with their skin intact. On the way back, Faraday says he learns an important lesson in teamwork.

Recurring Characters

Jap Buster Johnson

The Case of the Trembling Tycoon

Harvey Morrow meets with his board of directors to make a startling admission, he has been embezzling their money. He asks that they all give him a chance to make good the money he lost. If he fails, they can call the police. After Morrow leaves, one of the members of the board is worried as he has sunk all his money in the company, but the others tell him to relax and give Marrow a chance. However, Marrow is just as broke as the others but he thinks that prison is too good for a thief and thinks that he deserves to die.

A few days later, the front page news is the announcement that Harvey Morrow has committed suicide. Investigating the case is detective Mike Trapp and his partner Pepper Burns. At Morrow’s estate, they meet with Mister Winkler, one of the board of directors. Winkler tells them that Morrow was a coward who hung himself. He explains that he found Morrow’s body hanging from a beam when he came to see how Harvey was doing to get back the money he embezzled from the company. The coroner confirms that Morrow died by hanging, but there is a bruise on his forehead he cannot account for. Winkler says that the bruise happened when he cut Marrow loose and he fell to the floor. That convinces Detective Trapp that Harvey Morrow was murdered and that Winkler was the killer.

Later, Pepper asks Mike how he was able to determine that Winkler was a killer. Mike explains that he knew Winkler was responsible for killing Harvey when he said claimed the bruise on Morrow’s head was caused when he cut the body down. However, that is impossible since a dead body doesn’t bruise, therefore the injury had to have happened before Harvey was killed.

Recurring Characters

Detective Mike Trapp, Pepper Burns

Tommy Tyme Meets Pancho Villa

Tommy Tyme is spending the day playing hooky from school so he can go fishing. When he hears the truancy officer coming he makes a run for it. Realizing he can’t keep away for much longer he decides to use the Clock of the Ages to go back in time as a means of escaping. He appears in Mexico a few decades in the past and nearly gets run down by a man riding by on a horse. Angry at almost getting tramped, Tommy fires his slingshot at the man, hitting him with a pebble. He catches Tommy in a lasso and drags the boy down the street. When Tommy pleads for him to stop, the man complies and says he was just having a little fun. The man introduces himself as Pancho Villa and invites Tommy to join his gang.

At Villa’s camp, Tommy asks Pancho how he came to live this life. Pancho explains when he was a little boy he lived in the city. One day soldiers beat his father to death and he ran to the hills and vowed to get revenge, so he started robbing from the rich and giving it to the poor. That’s when Pancho is warned that American soldiers are coming. That’s when Tommy realizes that Pancho and his men are not musicians in a band but rebels. However, these are not American soldiers but Mexicans led by a man named Perez who wants to drive Pancho from his family land. Eventually, Tommy and his newfound friends defeat Perez. With his adventure over, Tommy returns to his own time and reappears in front of the truancy officer. Tommy can’t help but notice that he bears some resemblance to Perez. When the officer tries to nap Tommy, the boy beats him up and leaves him out front of the school.

Recurring Characters

Tommy Tyme