Marvel Mystery Comics #59
Madman of Terror Mountain
Professor Svengalie, a mad scientist, has created an army of gigantic robots in a bid to obtain world power. He sends his robots to destroy Keystone Bridge, leading the military to send forces to attack the robots. When their weapons prove ineffectual against the robots, the military calls in the Human Torch and Toro for assistance.
They clash with the robots but are unable to damage the machines with their flames. The Torch and Toro hold back and follow the robots back into their master's secret lab. There they try to capture Professor Svengalie, but are subdued with an electric shock that incapacitates them.
They are placed in a large glass bowl and left to suffocate. With quick thinking, the pair cause the bowl to topple and smash open over the professor's atom smasher. Using their flame powers to destroy the robot’s controls, the Torch and Toro attempt to capture Svengalie and his men. The professor douses Toro's flame with an alum bomb and attempts to kill the boy with an axe. A fireball from the Torch causes Svengalie to recoil, and fall backward into his own atom smasher, killing him and ending his threat.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch, Toro
The Case of the Electric Killers
The Sub-Mariner is in Florida with the daughter of Professor Ensen, a brilliant scientist who is among repatriated Americans returning home aboard a ship. As they wait, the Sub-Mariner hears screams from the beach below. Diving down onto the beach, Namor finds that those in the water have been killed by electrocution.
Swimming out to sea, Namor spots an American tanker being jolted with massive amounts of electricity and swims to its aid. The ship explodes before Namor can help, and the hero spots a Nazi bathysphere in the water. Boarding it he fights the Nazis on board who begin to fill the vessel with water and unleash electric eels to kill Namor. Both Nazis end up dying instead, and one tells Namor that he cannot stop their master, the so-called Master of Death.
Suspecting that they are targeting the passenger ship carrying Professor Ensen, Namor swims out to meet it and finds a Nazi sub that uses a light beam to send eels out to their targets. Boarding the sub, Namor attacks the Master of Death who knocks him out by dropping a steel beam on him. He then has Namor bound to it with a chain and dumped into the ocean.
Revitalized by the water, Namor breaks free and makes a return attack on the sub. Spotting Namor, the Master unleashes all his eels and trains the light beam on the Sub-Mariner. Outswimming the eels, Namor removes the light and shines it on the Nazi sub, sending the eels upon it. The resulting jolt of electricity destroys the sub, causing a massive explosion that kills all aboard. With the threat over, the ship carrying the professor safely lands ashore.
Recurring Character
Sub-Mariner, Nazis
The Horror of the Secret Weapon
As a pair of Nazi spies survey the Crosby-Electric plant, they begin planning to blow up the dam to knock out the electricity in New England. Elsewhere, Madeline Joyce and her Uncle Jim are heading to the Benson House Electric company, so Jim can conduct a routine check-up.
As they drive down the road they get into a place of a supposed traffic accident. They stop to see a young woman kidnapped. Jim goes off to find a gas station to report the crime they saw, leaving Madeline with the car. Madeline changes into Miss America and flies after the kidnappers. She spots the car pulling into a building and the men inside forcing a woman to follow them. Racing after the men and subduing one of them, Miss America flies up to the upper floor window with him. She spots two other Nazi spies trying to get a scientist to hand over his experimental floating torpedo by threatening his daughter. The scientist cracks and agrees to give it to them.
Miss America then smashes through the window, but during the fight she is pistol-whipped from behind and tied up. Taking the floating torpedo with them the Nazi spies flee the scene. Coming to, Miss America manages to free herself by breaking the binds and learns from the scientist the Nazis plan on blowing up the dam at the power plant.
Flying to the dam, Miss America easily subdues the Nazis and taking the torpedo tosses it into the water away from the dam where it explodes harmlessly. With the spies turned over to the authorities, Miss America flies off before she can be thanked.
Recurring Characters
Miss America, James Bennett, Nazis
The Case of the Vanishing Head
A young woman is caught with a decapitated head and taken to the hospital for shock and kept under police observation. As the girl's uncle leaves her room, reporters Jeff Mace and Mary Morgan arrive at the hospital to get her story.
Recognizing Mary's name, the girl snaps out of her state of shock and takes the officer's gun. Holding Mary and Jeff at gunpoint she demands that Mary help her get in touch with the Patriot. Mary tries to explain that she has no means of contacting the Patriot but girl forces Mary to go with her. After the women have left the room, Jeff turns off the light and changes into his costume. He goes after the girl and disarms her.
Helping the girl sneak out of the hospital where she suggests they take her uncle's car as it has been left behind. As they get into the vehicle and drive off neither the girl nor the Patriot knows that there is someone hiding in the back seat. The girl explains to the Patriot that she has no memory of how she ended up at the scene of the murder. Just then the man in the back seat -- the girl's uncle -- reveals himself and orders the Patriot to drive to his home at gunpoint.
There the uncle -- who is murderously insane -- explains to them that he framed the girl and he is not her real uncle. Activating a trap door, the Patriot and the girl fall into the man's basement. They find skulls and mummified heads of his murder victims. The man tells them that he has learned the art of curing heads of the head hunters when he was an explorer and that he intends them to be his next victims.
Disarming the man of his gun, the Patriot struggles with him when he pulls out a knife. As the two men struggle, the girl recovers the gun and shoots her "uncle" dead, ending his threat. Later, back in his civilian guise, Jeff remarks to a colleague how Mary has grown jealous when the Patriot left her to assist the girl in danger.
Recurring Characters
Patriot, Mary Morgan
The Talking Corpse
While out on a walk the Angel narrowly avoids a speeding car that crashes. Checking the body inside he finds that the driver is dead but notes that due to the discoloration of his face he was not killed in the automobile crash. When an officer arrives on the scene, the dead man is identified as Jean Claire, the son of millionaire Monty Claire. The Angel asks the officer to have the coroner provide him with a report and then goes to inform Monty about his son's death.
Meeting with Monty Claire to discuss Jean's death, the Angel is introduced to Jean's twin brother René and the family lawyer. When the Angel mentions that his son was murdered and asks if he had any enemies, Monty cannot recall anyone who would want to harm his son. Returning to police headquarters the coroner tells the Angel that Jean died of poison, confirming his suspicions. Meeting with the Claire family lawyer, he learns that René has a gambling addiction and that Monty's will stated that upon his death the family fortune was to be split evenly between the two brothers. With Monty's health failing, the money would now go entirely to René.
Suspecting that René had murdered his own brother, the Angel decides to play onto René's sense of guilt and to frighten a confession out of him. Finding a record player in René's room, the Angel prepares the record where he pretends to be the ghost of Jean and accuses René of murdering his twin. The recording frightens Rene into making a confession. When the Angel attempts to apprehend him, René fights back but is quickly knocked out. The final blow causes an urn to fall over revealing the bottle of poison that René used to murder Jean. The Angel turns the murderer over to the authorities.
Recurring Characters
Angel
