Marvel Mystery Comics #36
Human Torch
The Human Torch and Toro are invited to see First Interceptor Command, where all air raid warnings are sent out to the general public initiating a black out. However, as they are being shown around someone manages to set off the air raid siren even though there is no danger. While the city goes into blackout mode, the Torch and Toro rush around the city to try and keep things lit so that people do not injure themselves. This is all going according to the plan of Nazi agent J-97, who has dispatched his agents all over the city to cause accidents and damage the utilities in New York City.
The Torch and Toro come across one man planting a bomb on the New York water supply, but he commits suicide before they can get answers out of him. Deducing that the power plant will be targeted next, the Torch and Toro rush there, but again the spies commit suicide before they can talk. Curious as to how the spies get their instructions, the Torch searches one of the bodies of the dead men and finds a radio receiver that J-97 uses to give his men orders. Hearing a command to burn down the 18th Regiments armory, the Torch and Toro arrive on the scene. While Toro douses the flames, the Torch battles the spies, who all commit suicide except for one, whom the Torch grabs. He manages to get the location of J-97's hideout before letting the man kill himself.
J-97 begins rallying his men to blow up the Empire State Building, however power is restored to the city and soon the Torch and Toro arrive. Although J-97 briefly douses their flames with a fire hose, they soon beat the spies by using their flames to make a massive steam cloud envelop the room. With J-97 and his men captured, the Torch then imitates J-97 and calls all the spies back to the base. When they arrive they find the FBI waiting to apprehend them.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch, Toro, Nazis
Tanks With Tusks
While swimming along the coast of India, the Sub-Mariner spots a number of Indians on elephants tossing trees into the water. Attempting to find out why, Namor is tossed back into the water by an elephant. Namor rushes back and grabs a young boy named Mabu and asks him what they are doing. He tells Namor that some "brown men" gave them treasures in exchange for clearing the beach of trees. Examining these treasures, Namor recognizes them as Japanese trinkets. Suspecting that Japanese forces are seeking to get a clear space to launch an invasion of India, Namor tells Mabu not to trust them and to return to shore.
Swimming out to sea, Namor finds an entire platoon of Japanese ships and removes their propellers leaving them dead in the water. Finding the lead battle ship, Namor smashes through the bottom of the ship and fights his way to the deck. Namor overhears the Admiral of the ship hoping that the Indians have cleared the beach by sunrise and attacks. However he is overpowered and when the Japanese sailors learn the ship is sinking they chain Namor to the boat and flee to the mainland. Namor, unaffected from being underwater breaks free and swims to shore. There the Indians have realized the Japanese are not their friends when they demand they turn over the elephants to them so that they can clear the land. Namor fights them off and then tells Mabu to take his people into the forest. However, Mabu tells Namor that his elephants cannot be harmed by bullets, so the Sub-Mariner tells him to get ready to help.
As the Japanese land on the beach, Namor attacks again, swimming out to sea and tossing their immobilized boats out into the waters to be carried away by the currents. He then leads Mabu and his people in defeating the ground forces, their elephants stomping the Japanese soldiers to death.
With one battle ship full of the Japanese left and stuck without a propeller to escape, Namor swims out to sea and tells a British destroyer about it before leaving the area.
Recurring Characters
Sub-Mariner, Imperial Japan
Boom Doggling
With flood waters threatening the town, Terry Vance invites city officials to see his latest creation, explosives that contain volatile Potassium Chlorate with a molasses mixture. While the officials are skeptical, all go outside to see a demonstration except for a man named Adolf. When the mixture proves to be a success they all return to Terry's lab to find it has been ransacked and Adolf missing. Realizing that Adolf is a spy, Terry learns that he works for the Gill Airplane Factory.
He rushes there with Dr. Watson and is barred from entry by the security guard who doesn't believe Terry when he warns him about Adolf. Dr. Watson helps Terry break into the factory and they begin searching for Adolf. Terry spots Adolf planting his explosives in the fuselages of airplanes but is spotted by the factory foreman before he can act. When Terry tells the foreman about Adolf's activities, the foreman demands proof, so Terry gets Dr. Watson to coat the untouched fuselages with Methylene Blue powder. After Adolf has finished planting the explosives, Dr. Watson squirts him with oil. When Adolf rushes to the bathroom to wash his hands they turn blue. Thinking he has been poisoned, he confesses to his sabotage plot in order to get medical aid, implicating himself when Terry tells him the Methylene blue is harmless and reacted to the water.
With Adolf captured and taken away, Deadline Dawson arrives to find out that the adventure is all over before he could get there.
Recurring Characters
Terry Vance, Doctor Watson, Deadline Dawson
The World Beneath a World
An underground society calling themselves the Sewer People live deep below New York City. After years of scrounging for food, their leader the Cyclops organizes the sewer people to attack the surface dwellers. They kill many hapless victims, or drag people down into their domain to torture to death. Their activities attract the attention of the Vision.
When the Sewer People attack a defenseless woman the Vision swoops in to her rescue and attempts to fight off the Sewer People. They over power him and bring him down to the sewers for the Cyclops to personally torture. However, the Cyclops makes the mistake of using a torch to try and burn the Vision and its smoke allows the hero to disappear and reappear behind the Cyclops.
Closing the floodgates in the sewer tunnel the Vision then sets the tunnels to fill with water. He then beats the Cyclops into submission and escapes out a manhole cover leaving the Sewer People to drown.
Recurring Characters
Vision
The Case of the Missing Molar
Jimmy Jupiter has developed a sore tooth, and despite his efforts to hide it from his mother, she sends him off to the dentist. Afraid of any pain, Jimmy makes a break for it when he hears someone inside the dentists office yelp in pain. Tripping over his feet, Jimmy takes a tumble down the stairs.
He has a nightmare where he is chased by a dentist calling himself Dr. Yank and his living dentist chair. The chase becomes more desperate as his mother appears in the dream to help Dr. Yank. Tricked by a table of candy, Jimmy is caught by Dr. Yank and his chair and just when Dr. Yank is about to pull out his tooth, Jimmy wakes up with the real dentist checking to see if he's okay. He informs Jimmy that when he fell down the stairs the problem tooth was knocked out, much to Jimmy's relief.
Recurring Characters
Jimmy Jupiter, Mary Jankovicz
The Hunters of Heads
Jeff Mace, Casey and Mary Morgan (despite Jeff's recommendations that she stay behind) go to New Guinea to cover the potential Japanese invasion of the area. Arriving there, they are captured by local head hunters. Jeff is split from his colleagues and meets Colonel Zinzer, a Nazi officer who has convinced the locals to attack and kill any white man that comes and to aid the coming Japanese forces. Left alone, Jeff breaks free from his bonds and changes into the Patriot.
Rushing outside, he fights the headhunters and gets a hold of one of their spears. He throws it at Zinzer, killing him instantly as it impales through his chest. With Zinzer dead, the chief of the headhunters proclaims the Patriot worthy of their worship. The Patriot orders the headhunters to help fight the Japanese. When the Japanese soldiers land on New Guinea, the head hunters wipe them out. With the slaughter over, the Patriot orders the headhunters to release his friends and to trust all white people. The Patriot then rushes back to the hut he was tied up in and resumes his civilian guise to protect his double identity.
In the aftermath, Jack and Mary chuckle over how Jeff missed the Patriot in action again.
Recurring Characters
Patriot, Mary Morgan, Jack Casey
Polly Wants a Murder
The regional head of the FBI has asked the Angel to assist in a series of strange murders where government officials have been poisoned by unknown means. Outside, they are confronted by a blind man who has a talking parrot. Claiming to be a war veteran who lost his vision in combat, he convinces the FBI head to give money to have his fortune read by his parrot. When the fortune reads that he will die soon the FBI head is convinced that it's a hoax but moments later he keels over and dies, a victim of the same poison. Realizing that the blind man is the killer the FBI has been looking for he chases after him but loses the blind man in the crowd.
After confirming with the coroner that the FBI head was killed by poison, the Angel begins calling every institution for the blind to see if they can identify the mystery killer. Calling a Dr. White, the killer is identified as Krauss, a German-American citizen who wrote for the "Beobacher", a newspaper for a now defunct German-American bund. Meeting with White, the Angel devises a means to try and trick Krauss into walking into a trap. Planting a story on the radio about how White had evidence proving Krauss to be the killer, the Angel's decoy works in sending Krauss to go to White's apartment and send his parrot, Polly, up to kill the doctor. However the Angel is there to stop the attack and he ties up Polly long enough to trick Krauss to come upstairs. However, despite being blind Krauss defeats the Angel in a fight and escapes with his bird before he can be captured.
Spotting Krauss escaping in a cab, the Angel follows after him and gets out in the same neighborhood. Finding a feather outside a house, the Angel deduces that it is Krauss' home and uses a skeleton key to get inside. He is immediately captured when he falls through a trap door. When the Angel revives he finds himself in a room full of half starved birds that Krauss intends to unleash to feed upon the Angel. However, as the birds are loosed upon him, the Angel breaks free from his bonds and smashes through the window of the observation booth that Krauss is watching from. As the Angel flees to get the authorities, Krauss' birds feast upon their master. When the police finally arrive on the scene, they find Krauss' partially eaten corpse and his dear Polly as the only things on the scene.
Recurring Characters
Angel
