Marvel Mystery Comics #25

Jul 26

Jul 26 Marvel Mystery Comics #25

The King Crime Syndicate

Leader of the numbers rackets, a gangster known as the King decides that it's time to change rackets following a series of anti-numbers articles appearing in the papers. Meeting with his minions he tells them that they will be getting into bootlegged medication, and shows off a pharmaceutical laboratory that he has created just for this purpose.

Meanwhile, Toro accompanies Steve, a reporter for the Voice, into Harlem to look for more information on the numbers rackets in the area. While snooping around a Penny Arcade, Steve is identified and approached by some mobsters. This prompts Toro to go into action, however he and Steve are knocked out. When a police officer arrives on the scene he is gunned down in cold blood. The shots attract the Human Torch to the location as the crooks flee the scene and he finds an King of Spades playing card, the calling card of the King. The Torch explains he was in the are following reports of a theft of a million dollars worth of drugs. This makes the trio realize that the King is getting into other rackets. Just then a bunch of TNT left by the crooks goes off, blasting them all out of the building. With Steve seriously hurt, the Torch and Toro rush him to the nearest hospital.

As it happens, the King's men are at that very same hospital where they kidnap three of the pharmacists on duty and escape in an ambulance. When the Torch and Toro arrive one of the physicians informs them of what happened and the duo rush after them. Meanwhile, the pharmacists have been brought before the King who demands that they make his bootleg drugs for him. When they refuse, the King makes an example out of one of the pharmacists by pushing him into a vat of acid, killing him.

While elsewhere, the Torch and Toro stop by the Voice and tell the chief to run a story about the King's new racket in the hopes of flushing him out. As luck would have it, the King had sent some of his men to wreck the Voice's presses and the Torch and Toro give them chase. Chasing after the crooks getaway vehicles they find one of the crooks named Rocky barely hanging onto life, and the Torch just misses learning the location of the King's hideout. Finding that the car that caused the crash was controlled by radio control, they follow its signal to the King's hideout.

There the Torch and Toro battle it out with the King who has prepared various weapons to counter their flame powers. Caught in a stalemate when the King threatens to blow up the facility with nitro, the Torch is surprised when Rocky - still alive - jumps the King from behind causing him to drop the nitro. The resulting explosion destroys the King's lab and kills the two crooks in the process. With Toro injured in the fight, the Torch takes him to the hospital where he and Steve are intended to make a full recovery.

Recurring Characters

Human Torch, Toro

The Little People

Namor is restless and decides that he needs to get away when he is alerted by the guards that three planes have landed on the surface above their kingdom. Going to investigate he finds that it is his sometime allies Betty Dean, Luther Robinson and Lynne Harris. They have come asking Namor's assistance in investigating strange happenings off the coast of Florida. Namor is weary of always being called upon for aid but is interested in what the sea-bound mystery is and agrees to accompany them.

Arriving in Florida that night, Namor searches around the sea and is shocked when an army of tiny people come from the sea and go to a nearby aircraft manufacturing plant and sabotage its equipment before returning to the sea. Following after them, he is shocked to see that these small amphibious humanoids use explosives to uncover a rocket ship, making him realize that these beings have come from another planet. More shocking still is the sudden appearance of a human sized amphibious woman who appears to be the leader of these tiny people.

When the woman heads toward the surface, Namor follows after her and then approaches her on the beach. She tells him that she is lives in a nearby cottage with her father. She agrees to have Namor escort her home, but she refuses to allow him to come inside, telling her father is conservative enough to have issue with a young man calling for his daughter. Namor, does not buy the story at all and returns to the cabin where his friends are staying to tell them what he has observed. They find it hard to believe at first but are convinced of the fact and Namor decides to go and investigate the cottage the woman has entered.

He finds that the property is actually home to a number of Nazi spies who with the aid of the little people easily subdue the Sub-Mariner. Unaware of who Namor really is, the woman then orders that Namor be brought to the ocean where she will attempt to drown him. This works against her, as Namor's amphibious nature allows him to survive this attempt and he breaks free after the woman leaves the scene convinced that Namor has drowned. Easily overpowering her he takes her back to his friends cottage learns that her name is Queen Jarna, ruler of the Lavorites who hail from the planet Venus. She explains that she has come to Earth for the purpose of staging an invasion and taking it over.

Namor refuses to allow this to happen and demands that she return to her home planet. Jarna agrees to follow Namor's commands and returns to the ocean. Moments later, the Venusian rocket is seen blasting off into space.

Recurring Characters

Sub-Mariner, Betty Dean, Luther Robinson, Lynn Harris, Lady Dorma, Nazis, Queen Jarna

Continuity Notes

Queen Jarna and her people claim to have come from the planet Venus. It was not uncommon in early stories that aliens were said to have come from other planets in the solar system even though live as we know it has been deemed impossible on any other planet in our solar system. As the Marvel Universe adapted to later scientific understandings the idea of life on Venus has been deemed apocryphal. There are no official explanations to explain how Jarna and the Lavorites claims to living on Venus. One possible explanation is that while they did not originate from Venus, but perhaps used it as a temporary home or staging ground for an invasion of Earth. Many other alien races in the Marvel Universe have been identified as doing such, particularly the Kronans who claimed to be from Saturn in Journey into Mystery #83. It was later clarified in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #15, that Saturn was merely a staging ground for an invasion of Earth.

The Patriot Downs a Nazi

Continued from last issue...

Jack Casey believes he has overheard his ally the Patriot being shot over the phone while giving him an exclusive scoop about supposedly defected Nazi Herr Huss. Putting the story out so far, Casey traces the phone call to the home of John Garette. Arriving there, Casey climbs up onto the roof and spies into the residency through the skylight.

He overhears Herr Huss and Garette talking about how Huss is feigning his coming in peace to make America vulnerable to Nazi attack. Casey unfortunately leans into the window too far and ends up smashing through and getting caught. Garrett and Huss decide to seal Casey up in the basement by building a brick wall in front of him so that his body will not be found.

Meanwhile, upstairs, the Patriot - only grazed by the bullet - revives and finds Casey's hat and suspects that something suspicious is going on. Hiding his friend's hat, the Patriot confronts Huss and Garrett. The two insist on seeing the president, however when the Patriot asks them about Casey they reveal their true intentions leading to a fight between the Patriot and the Nazis. In the scuffle, Garrett takes a bullet that was meant for the Patriot, and Huss - preferring suicide over capture - turns his own gun on himself. Garrett's butler surrenders and tells the Patriot where Casey is and he frees his friend from his brick tomb.

Recurring Characters

Patriot, Jack Casey

Get-Together

This is a text story that details a meeting of the Human Torch, Toro, the Sub-Mariner, the Angel, the Patriot, Ka-Zar, and the Vision. However, this story is non-canonical since all the characters here are aware that they are characters in a comic book.

The Forest Fire Saboteur

Still in Maine with Deadline Dawson visiting Dawson's father "Bull", Terry lends a hand fighting a mysterious forest fire. After the fire is put out, Terry decides to go for a drive to get some fresh air. Deciding the fire was suspicious the young detective devices to explore the damage and finds an envelope soaks in phosphorous confirming his suspicions that the fire was deliberately set. Terry is caught by a Nazi spy who takes him at gun point and leads him to a cabin where he ties the boy up. In order to silence Terry, the Nazi sets a fire around the cabin in the hopes the boy will killed in the blaze.

Freeing himself with broken glass, Terry quickly grabs TNT left in the cabin and uses it to blow a trench between himself and the blazing inferno. With the fire having nowhere else to burn it quickly goes out. When Bull and the others arrive to fight what's left of the blaze, Terry overhears that the entire population of the logging camp is here to fight the fire. Realizing what the Nazi spies are up to, Terry rushes back to the logging camp by riding a log down the river.

Arriving at the camp and arming himself with a rifle, Terry catches the Nazi spy going through the camp's papers. Finally recognizing the Nazi as a prisoner of war who escaped from a Canadian prison camp, Terry deduces the Nazi spy had come here to sabotage the camp due to its government contract.

Recurring Characters

Terry Vance, Deadline Dawson, Bull Dawson, Nazis

The Vengeance of Saba

Continued from last issue...

Ka-Zar has been tossed into a gladiator pit in the home of Ali Hamud to fight for his life while Ali and the Nazi Commander Ollendorff watch. However, as Ka-Zar is cornered by two leopards, he is pulled through a secret passage way by Ali's brother Saba. Saba explains that he is against his brother's alliance with the Nazis and is seeking to put it to an end. Fighting their way through some guards, Saba leads Ka-Zar to a room full of explosives. Saba tells Ka-Zar that he intends to detonate the explosives and kill everyone in the castle and urges the jungle hero to escape while he can.

Ka-Zar makes a break for it, liberating a scimitar from one of the guards. Fighting his way through more guards he runs into Hamud and Ollendorff. Knocking the Nazi commander aside, Ka-Zar slays Ali Hamud by tossing hot lamp oil on him. Fleeing to the airfield on the property, Ka-Zar boards the bomber Ollendorff came in on and orders the pilot to escape as quickly as possible. As the plane takes off Saba lights the explosives causing a massive explosion that not only destroys Hamud's base, but also knocks the plane Ka-Zar is escaping out of the sky. Crashing down in the jungle, the plane is demolished leaving a gravely injured Ka-Zar the sole survivor in the wreckage.

This story is continued next issue...

Recurring Characters

Ka-Zar, Ali Hamud, Nazis

The Book of Sorcery

Valley Town's Davidson Hall is the site of a lecture by metaphysics expert Enric Zagnar who is lecturing those present harnessing the black arts to control the elements. After, Zagnar is asked to see the lecture guild's chairman who tells Enric that his vile lectures are no longer welcome and orders his resignation. Angered by this rejection, Zagnar warns the chairman that he will get his revenge on the whole town. With a book of black magic, Zagnar summons a powerful storm that terrorizes the town.

This storm also attracts the attention of the Vision who comes to the aid of townspeople who have been endangered by the storm. The Vision then spots Zagnar as the source of the trouble and climbs up the mountain to stop him despite Zagnar's opposition. During their struggle, Zagnar meets an ironic end when he is struck by one of the very bolts of lightning that he himself had summoned. With Enric dead, the Vision takes his book and uses it to quell the storm, saving the town. Hailed as a hero the Vision then departs.

Recurring Characters

Vision

The Python and the Prison Riot

Following his capture, the Nazi spy known only as the Python is now sitting on death row awaiting execution by the electric chair. The Python is fearless and believes that he can beat the chair and reclaim his freedom. Taking this claim seriously, his foe the Angel is among the witnesses to insure that the Python is executed for his crimes. However, before the executioner can throw the switch to activate the electric chair, the Python uses his contortion skills to break free from the chair and take the warden hostage.

Getting into the general population area of the jail, and fights his way through the guards and the Angel to the switch that opens all the cells. Freeing his fellow inmates he leads a prison riot headed toward the front gates. The National Guard is called in and they attempt to stop the escape attempt by sending a tank in to quell the prisoners. The Pythons skills allow him to climb into the tank and take control of it, turning it against the soldiers who would have used it against him.

The Angel grabs some grenades and after fighting through the prisoners, he tosses one at the tank decimating it and seeing it ablaze. Not wishing his foe to burn to death, the Angel attempts to free him. However, the Python decides to take the Angel with him and tries to pull the hero into the burning tank. The Angel breaks free from the Pythons grasp, and the Nazi operative falls back into the tank to burn to death.