Marvel Mystery Comics #30
March of the Metal Mobsters
The Human Torch and Toro are visited by Mary Orchid who asks for their help in locating her kidnapped fiancee Leslie Garden, the inventor of a new metal material called Y-9. The two agree to take the case and when Mary leaves their home some mobsters attempt to kidnap her. When the Torch and Toro save her they are shocked to find that her kidnappers are mute and are unable to answer their demands. Searching their persons they find an article about the Spencer Collection, which coincidentally is being directed by Mary's legal guardian Stephen Cole. After turning the thugs over to the police, the Torch, Toro and Mary all pay a visit to the museum where the collection is being displayed.
There they meet with Stephen Cole who agrees to show the Torch and Toro the diamonds that are on display. As they are doing so, they hear Mary scream and rush back to Stephen's office to see what the commotion is. They find that Mary is missing, prompting Stephen to rush out of the room to call the police. Hearing shooting from downstairs, the two flaming heroes rush down and spot the museum security clashing with thieves dressed in armor fashioned out of the bullet proof Y-9 metal.
Finding their flames useless against the armor, the Torch and Toro believe they can catch the crooks when the automatic security shutters clamp down on all the exits. The crooks are prepared, and blast the steel doors open with explosives. As they flee, the Torch and Toro grab the man who appears to be their leader and force his helmet off. They are shocked to find that it is Leslie Garden. Stephen arrives with the authorities and demands that he be arrested. Stripped of the rest of his armor, the Torch notices welts on Leslie's back indicating that he has been recently whipped.
Unconvinced that Leslie committed the crime, the Torch realizes that the "Metal Mobsters" must have fled into the cellar of the museum in order to avoid capture from the police. Rushing down there they are attacked by one of the armored crooks. They fight the true mastermind to a standstill and he flees into another room. Following after, they find that the mob leader has Mary tied to a pulley device. The Torch uses his flames to free her and he and Toro jump the mob leader and his gang. While they manage to round up the gang (who are out of their armor) their leader escapes.
The Torch and Toro take Mary upstairs to be reunited with her lover. There the Torch accuses Cole of being the leader of the Metal Mobsters. When the Torch points out the whip marks on Leslie's back, Leslie explains that it was Cole who whipped him into submission. Cracking under the pressure, Cole pulls out a gun and takes Mary hostage. During the confusion Toro manages to slip away and gets the drop on Cole and disarms him before he can harm the girl.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch, Toro
Reprisal Revenge
Returning to Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner is reunited with his mother Princess Fen. Fen has become deeply concerned about the occupation of France by Nazi forces and encourages her son to do something about it. Gathering an army, Namor takes a fleet of subs to the coast of France and begin attacking Nazi forces in various villages, slaying the soldiers and destroying their operations. While their secret raids are successful, the Nazi begin executing innocent French citizens in retaliation for these attacks, prompting the Sub-Mariner to take on a different approach.
Disguising themselves as French citizens, the Atlanteans gather an army of loyal French resistance fighters and arm them with weapons so that they can rise up against their Nazi oppressors. With an army mobilized both French resistance fighters and Atlantean warriors storm all corners of France, fighting Nazi opposition everywhere eventually converging on Vichy. With radio distress calls coming from Nazi forces intercepted by the British, they send the RAF to aid the French fighters in liberating their homeland.
Satisfied that the combined French and British forces can liberate France from the Nazis, Namor pulls his forces back and returns to Atlantis.
Recurring Characters
Sub-Mariner, Princess Fen, Nazis, Folma
The Crank
Finance City is terrorized by a criminal calling himself the Crank, who demands half of the city's rental income from the "board of directors". While they debate, one of their own named Mr. Powers suggests that they give into the demands. When the head of the board refuses to do so he suddenly drops dead. When the news gets out, the city is suddenly struck by a powerful earthquake causing many buildings to crumble.
The chaos prompts the arrival of the Vision who has come to stop the Crank. Hearing the Crank threaten to destroy the entire city if his demands are not made in 15 minutes, the Vision scales a nearby building and takes out the loud speaker communicating his message. Entering the building he finds the secretary is dead, and wrecks the radio equipment. Out in the hall the Vision spots a suspicious looking man with radio equipment rushing to the elevator. Rushing after the man, he is intercepted by Mr. Powers who gets in the Vision's way and prevents him from stopping the man from escaping in an elevator. When the Vision tries to go down the shaft Mr. Powers attempts to stop him but the Vision is convinced that the man really tried to push him down the shaft as they are both thrown down.
The Vision saves their lives and when another earthquake hits the area Mr. Powers flees. The Vision spots the man he was chasing getting caught in falling debris from the building. Confronting the dying man he learns that he was nothing but an accomplice of the Crank, who is revealed to be Mr. Powers himself — confirming the Vision's suspicions. With the building collapsing around him, the Vision breaks open a water pipe, using its torrent of water to blast a path to freedom.
Chasing Mr. Powers into another building the Vision confronts him at his earthquake machine. When Mr. Powers threatens to turn on a full power earthquake at 12:15 am, the Vision jumps him and in the scuffle a switch is thrown that causes a powerful localized quake that causes the building to topple over the both of them. The falling material crushes Mr. Powers to death, and the Vision escapes by disappearing through a cloud of smoke.
Recurring Characters
Vision
The Mystery of the Flying Corpses
After a series of strange instances where the bloated corpses of members of defense have been found floating in the sky, Jack Casey, Jeff Mace and Mary Morgan are sent on assignment to learn the truth. Jack has linked them all to the private clinic of Dr. Strasse, who had performed blood transfusions on all of the dead men. As they fly toward the clinic, they are struck by another floating corpse and are sent crashing into the building. Both Jack and Mary are knocked out, and Jeff — recovering before the others — changes into the Patriot and goes to confront Strasse.
Confronting Strasse's assistants he notes that they are all German and correctly deduces that they are Nazi spies. Knocked out from behind the Patriot wakes up shortly to find himself strapped to a table. Dr. Strasse explains to the Patriot that he injects his victims with powdered Potassium which mixes with their blood causing them to bloat up and become lighter than air. He shows this procedure by carrying it out on Chief American Defense Commissioner Needham.
Before he can do the same to the Patriot, the hero breaks free of his bonds, and battles off his aides. Fighting Strasse, the Patriot knocks him back on one of his needles full of Potassium, delivering Strasse the same fate he gave to so many others. With Dr. Strasse's threat over, the Patriot rushes back to the crash site where he resumes his civilian guise. Later, as the Patriot, Jeff provides the story to Jack Casey who has the scoop published on the front page of the Daily World.
Recurring Characters
Patriot, Jack Casey, Mary Morgan
The Mystery of the Pharaoh's Eye
The ancient Egyptian ruby known as the Pharaoh's Eye is being shipped to a local Egyptian museum, however the authorities fear that a man named Finog — a fraud who claims to be the descendant of the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs — might attempt to steal the jewel. Even though extra precautions are made, Terry Vance and his pal Deadline Dawson decide to lend a hand to insure that the jewel isn't stolen. Watching as it is removed from a heavily guarded ship and placed in a special theft proof display case, they are satisfied that nobody could possibly steal the gem.
However the next day Mr. Nutley discovers that the ruby on display is a fake. Reading about this Terry and Deadline rush back to the museum and begin investigating the crime scene. Going down into the basement, they find an open sarcophagus and dusty footprints leading from it. Arming themselves with ancient weapons that are on display they follow the footprints until they come across a mummy that appears to be still alive. Removing the bandages, Terry, Deadline and Dr. Watson are shocked to find that it is one of the security guards. They learn that Finog was hiding in the sarcophagus and jumped the guard.
Deducing that Finog likely disguised himself as the guard and easily stole the ruby, he and Dr. Watson rushes off to find the fake guard. They catch him just before he is "relieved of duty" and attack. Finog knocks Terry out with a punch, but Dr. Watson pounces on the man for attacking his master. The little ape manages to pull off Finog's mask revealing him to the officers on site who quickly arrest him and recover the stolen ruby.
Recurring Characters
Terry Vance, Doctor Watson, Deadline Dawson
The Fairy Dance
Failing to try and convince his parents that Nowhere truly exists, Jimmy Jupiter goes to bed disappointed. That night he is visited by his friends Ruffy Rabbit and Wump Jump the Dragon who tell the boy that they have a surprise to show him. They lead the boy up a moonbeam to the land of Nowhere. Along the way Jimmy grabs a handful of moonbeam dust as a souvenir.
Arriving in Nowhere, Jimmy breaks up a fight between Ruffy and Wump Jump and keeps them on track to showing him what they wanted him to see. They quietly creep through the forest and see a group of fairies having a dance. When Jimmy steps on a twig the noise frightens the fairies away. Jimmy manages to convince the fairies that they mean no harm and to get them to come out again. When they do the group is attacked by bat riding Gnomes. Jimmy manages to fend them off by throwing his moonbeam dust at them forcing them to flee.
Jimmy is then approached by a giant bat, as it gets too close he wakes up in his room to see a bat flying out of it, leaving the boy to wonder if it was all just a dream.
Recurring Characters
Jimmy Jupiter, John Jankovicz, Mary Jankovicz, Ruffy Rabbit, Wump Jump
The House of Slaughter
A serial killer is on the loose prompting the Angel to go into action to assist the authorities to catch the assassin. While prowling the streets at night, the Angel hears a woman scream and tracks her down to an alley where he sees her attacker to be a massive man with pale white skin. When attempting to stop the attacker the Angel is clubbed over the head, allowing the killer to escape with his victim. When the Angel comes around, he follows after them but only spots a meat packing truck from the the Reisel Prime Meat company.
With no other leads to follow, the Angel decides to investigate the meat packing plant. Arriving there, he spots a disposal chute and is shocked to see a dead body dumped out of it. Climbing inside, he finds a number of dead bodies hanging off meat hooks that have been drained of their blood.
The Angel spots the attacker who has completed a blood transfusion from his female victim. As he injects the blood into himself the killer's face turns from chalk white to a healthy pink. The Angel attacks him and manages to fight him into submission. He learns that the killer is really Reisel himself who purchased the slaughter house as a front for his activities. He explains that he was diagnosed with a rare blood disease that consumed his red blood cells which required regular transfusions. With no cure, and not wishing to drain the blood supply the doctors were forced to release Reisel and leave him to die. Angry, Reisel vowed to steal blood from others in order to sustain his existence. With his plot revealed, Reisel is forced to give the stolen blood back to his most recent victim. Using a reverse transfusion, the Angel revives the kidnapped girl. The process ends up killing Reisel ending his reign of terror upon the city.
Recurring Characters
Angel
