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in: Comics Published by Quality Comics, Everett M. Arnold/Executive Editor, Gill Fox/Cover Artist,
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Crack Comics Vol 1 17

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"The Black Condor: "Jaspar Crow's Indian Tax Bill"": Jaspar Crow pushes a bill thru the U.S. Senate, imposing a $10/person tax on all Reservation Indians. Tom Wright argues passionately against it, then returns home to his high-rise apartment, where two gunmen are there to take him to meet their

Quote1 Now remove the paralysis from the people in New York or I'll choke you until your eyes pop out! Quote2
— The Spider

Crack Comics #17 is an issue of the series Crack Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of October, 1941.

Synopsis for The Black Condor: "Jaspar Crow's Indian Tax Bill"

Jaspar Crow pushes a bill thru the U.S. Senate, imposing a $10/person tax on all Reservation Indians. Tom Wright argues passionately against it, then returns home to his high-rise apartment, where two gunmen are there to take him to meet their boss. Senator Wright instead jumps out of the room thru a closed window, then changes into the Black Condor on his way to the ground, and flies away unseen.

Twenty-four hours later, voting time has come and gone, and Senator Wright was absent. The Indian Tax Bill passes the Senate without any dissenting votes. That very day, from his secluded hideout, Jaspar Crow sends his hoods out west to start collecting the tax, ahead of the real Treasury agents. The Black Condor arrives there, throws a big scare into Jaspar Crow, and sends him and his chauffeur racing away in a panic, but doesn't pursue them.

In reservations across the nation, conversations between Federal officials and Tribal Councils are growing increasingly heated. Also some foreign agents arrive in these places, and stir up some deadly serious trouble. Soon there are murders, then raids, then massacres and evacuations. The Black Condor flies out to one large reservation and confronts one chief. He uses his Black Ray pistol to convince the Indians that he's been sent by the Great White Father, and when some foreign agents try to shout him down, he breaks some jaws, but it doesn't persuade his audience. That meeting breaks up violently, with Condor rescuing one anti-conflict Indian youth, and flying him away.

Black Condor learns of attacks planned for the Colville Dam, a grain elevator, a Santa Fe station, and other targets; he alerts the State Governor to all of that. National Guard cavalry is dispatched to the dam, but it's too late, the bomb-planters, on their ponies, are already fleeing the scene. No, wait, the Black Condor soars into view, spots the dynamite keg, swoops and lifts it, then flings it into the reservoir just before a terrific detonation! Condor then intercepts the wild riders, en route to the grain elevator, and uses his Black Ray pistol to stampede their ponies away from their target. Guardsmen watch the headlong retreat, but do not pursue.

From his altitude, Black Condor spots a fleeing foreign agent, overtakes his fast car, snatches him up into the sky, where he finds a nearly-empty airplane flying along, and forces his way into the cabin. The pilot is dragooned into turning his plane into a flying paddy wagon, as the Condor jumps out and returns with new spies, again and again. The pilot flies all these traitorous punks to the nearest Indian Reservation, to get put into Federal custody.

Back in Washington, in the Senate Chamber, the Indian Tax Bill again comes up for a vote, and this time is resoundingly defeated.

Appearing in The Black Condor: "Jaspar Crow's Indian Tax Bill"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Chief Fleethawk
  • other chiefs
  • State Governor
    • Captain Cato
      • National Guard cavalry unit
  • civilian pilot

Locations:

Items:

  • Black Condor's Black Ray Pistol

Vehicles:

  • civilian passenger plane


Synopsis for Tor the Magic Master: "The Stolen Bombsight"

Jim Slade does some wildlife photography in the Okefenokee Swamp, where he encounters a pair of spies, who have a stolen set of bomb-sight plans and a seaplane. Jim changes into his tuxedo, out in the swamp, becoming Tor the Magic Master. Tor miniaturizes himself and hitches a ride aboard the seaplane's pontoon. Just over the horizon is a Nazi sea-raider, a heavily-armed fake merchantman ship. Tor uses magic to get himself back to shore, and finds a National Guard artillery brigade, training at a coastal gun emplacement. He tells the commanding officer what's out on the water and where it is, and the foreign ship is soon sunk by cannonfire.

Appearing in Tor the Magic Master: "The Stolen Bombsight"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Slade's editor

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • National Guard artillery unit

Locations:

Items:

  • bombsight plans

Vehicles:

  • pontoon biplane (Destroyed)
  • Nazi commerce raider (Destroyed)

Synopsis for Space Legion: "The Man With The Terrible Machine"


Appearing in Space Legion: "The Man With The Terrible Machine"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Space Legion
    • Commander Ray Crosby

Antagonists:

  • Dr. Dram (Dies)
    • his aviators

Locations:

  • Earth (Late 21st Century)
    • City of Cosmo

Items:

  • Space Legion ray pistol

Vehicles:

  • small urban airplanes
  • Space Legion spaceship

Synopsis for Red Torpedo: "Black Shark Steals the Red Torpedo, Part 2"

The Black Shark has stolen the Red Torpedo's Red Torpedo, and Red has made his way to a U.S. military base. He borrows a fighter plane, flies it to Black's island headquarters, aims the plane at the hideout, then bails out. The plane crashes into the stronghold; both are destroyed. Shark's troops try to nail the Torpedo with rifle fire, and they do damage his parachute, but he lands in a palm tree and reaches the ground. Red gets captured by the troops, and brought in front of Black, who is enraged about his base's demolition.

Shark calls in his torture expert, Sinj, a Tartar, and they decide to stake Torpedo out on the beach, for the cannibal crabs to devour. After a while, a number of crabs do scuttle in out of the surf, but the surf rolls in right behind them, it's high tide. The rising waters cover Red, but before he can drown, they also loosen the sand enough that he's able to yank loose the stakes holding him down. Black Shark's troops belatedly open fire, but Red dives into the shallows and quickly swims away.

The Red Torpedo swims to a distant beach on the same island, where his Red Torpedo is moored, and guarded by only two riflemen. Red bare-handedly steps up and punches them both out. Meantime the Black Shark has figured out where the Torpedo was headed, and now shows up brandishing a pistol; Red again bare-handedly thrashes the black-hearted back-stabber, knocks him unconscious, throws him in the back of the Red Torpedo, then takes off and flies it to Hawaii. Along the way, the Black Shark regains his wits, and there's another fight, at the end of which Black has tumbled out of the Red Torpedo's cockpit, into the ocean. He survives, finds a floating spar, and vows to return.

Red Torpedo beaches his craft on a secret island, and is, erroneously, very pleased to be through with the Black Shark at last.

Appearing in Red Torpedo: "Black Shark Steals the Red Torpedo, Part 2"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

Locations:

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"

Featured Characters:

  • Jane Arden
  • Lena Pry

Synopsis for Alias, The Spider: "The Monster Men"

One night all of the electrical power in Manhattan, including car batteries, fails at the same time, creating havoc. Then an ominous, opaque, green gas filters up out of the sewers and manholes; people fall down, unconscious or dead. A horde of green monster-men, from beneath the Earth's crust, each about the size of two men, invades the city, shooting down hundreds of people with blazing green rays. None of them says anything. Tom Hallaway, alias the Spider, dukes it out with the invaders, hand to hand, and takes a lot of lumps but keeps at it, until he sees one monster-man grab a girl and carry her away, down into the city's sewer system; the Spider pursues them, and kills the monster-man with a spider-seal-tipped arrow. But soon another swarm of them arrives, and this time he's knocked unconscious.

Hours later, the Spider regains consciousness, in the core of the Earth. He is observed, and mocked, in English, by the leader of the Green Horde, a yellow-skinned giant, who looks a great deal more human than his soldiers do. Tom gets ready to fight him, but he reveals the captured girl, rigged up in a death-trap. According to the leader, the people of New York are mostly only paralyzed; the gas wasn't fatal. But they all will die in 24 hours if he doesn't administer an antidote, which only he has. "Your so-called dictators will be mice when they learn that I took New York in 17 minutes!" He claims to have a circle of caverns all over the Earth, to be able to destroy all the cities on Earth with the push of one button, to have element-powered weapons more powerful than any device made by man, and to have a hundred-million-man army, ready to strike. Their brains are all connected to his by cosmic rays and electrical impulses, and he's here to find out if he can put the brains of upper-world people under his control too. None of this fazes the Spider at all, he wants to fight, bow versus ray-gun, right now.

The leader tries to quick-draw with his ray-gun, but the Spider cuts it out of his hand with one shot. The leader calls a whole lot of Green Horde warriors into the room, but the Spider fights his way free of them and chases the leader into his enormous control room, catches him, beats the attitude out of him, then chokes him into revealing the control switch that unparalyzes the people. Then the leader dies, and yes, his brain really was connected to the brains his horde, all of whom now fall down dead in the streets.

Appearing in Alias, The Spider: "The Monster Men"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • the Green Horde, an army of subterranean monster-men (all die)
  • their leader (Dies)

Other Characters:

  • unnamed girl

Locations:

Synopsis for Spitfire: "Thermite in the Cockpit"

After delivering a bomber to an airfield in Canada, Tex lets himself get talked into assisting as a combat flight instructor. One training plane catches fire in mid-air and crashes on the landing field, killing the pilot. Spitfire's plane catches fire the same way, confirming his initial suspicion about the cause. A spy is among the ground crew, and with a little bit of chemistry and a little bit of lying, Tex tricks him into incriminating himself. The spy makes a run for it, stealing the field commander's staff car and racing away down a twisty mountain road. Tex takes off in a training plane and pursues him. The spy tries to pistol-shoot the airplane, while driving much too fast, and ends up plummeting into a ravine.

Appearing in Spitfire: "Thermite in the Cockpit"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Chuck Bolton

Antagonists:

  • unnamed spy (Dies)

Other Characters:

  • RCAF Major

Locations:

Items:

  • sheets of thermite paper

Vehicles:

  • RCAF training planes (two destroyed)

Synopsis for "Ned Brant"

(newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Ned Brant"

Featured Characters:

  • Ned Brant

Synopsis for Madam Fatal: "Old Skipper Bly"

Retired actor Richard Stanton's old friend Skipper Bly has a treasure map, that he hopes to sell to promoter Paxton Forbes, but is being stalked by "the Jackal's" hoodlums. As they leave Stanton's home, some thugs try to kidnap them both, at gunpoint, but Stanton punches one of them out, and they steal the taxi that Bly had arrived in, with Stanton driving, at crazy speeds, out into the countryside, and a carful of gunmen in hot pursuit. One shot blows out a tire and the taxi veers off the road, over a cliff, and into a river. Stanton makes it out alive and Bly doesn't. The hoods see Stanton get to shore, but don't pursue or shoot at him; they leave, to go search Bly's house for the treasure map, and Stanton figures that's where they are headed.

The next day, Madam Fatal shows up at Skipper Bly's lodgings, and encounters a prowler going thru his stuff. It's Professor Trumbull (famous inventor of an undersea salvage system), who Fatal now deduces must be "the Jackal". He yells for help and his thugs run in, shooting. One stray shot breaks a mirror that is the hiding place of the map. Paxton Forbes walks into the room, with a gun, demanding the map. Receiving it, and mistaking Madam Fatal for an ally, Forbes teams up with him, against Trumbull's gunsels. Forbes plans to force Trumbull to conduct the salvage operation then turn him over to the law; Fatal plays along.

That night Trumbull's salvage barge moves into position in the harbor to raid the sunken wreck of the "Corsair". Madam Fatal snoops around below, finds a surly thug guarding a brig, wallops him with his walking stick, and gets inside the cell. There he finds the real Professor Trumbull! The guy on the bridge with Forbes is a fake, an accomplice. Fatal and Trumbull sneak out onto the main deck, where they find the fake Trumbull, alone, facing away from them. Madam Fatal grabs him, ties him up and gags him, then the real Trumbull replaces the fake. But one thug runs onto the scene, he's found Mike, the the knocked-out brig guard, and yells all about it, which blows Madam's cover. There's a fistfight, and Madam Fatal knocks down two thugs, but Forbes is almost able to shoot his way out of it, when the real Professor Trumbull uses a hoisting derrick to catch him by the coat collar and yank him out of the fight.

Appearing in Madam Fatal: "Old Skipper Bly"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Paxton Forbes, the Jackal
    • his hoods, 5

Other Characters:

  • Skipper Bly (Dies)
  • Professor Trumbull

Locations:

Items:

  • Bly's treasure map

Vehicles:

  • taxi (Destroyed)
  • sunken frigate "Corsair"

Synopsis for The Clock: "Killer Kale Dies Tonight"

As Killer Kale is executed in the electric chair he makes some cryptic and menacing remarks. There is a highway accident with the Morgue Wagon carrying Kale's body to the coroner's office, and in the resulting fire, Kale's body is lost. Or so it seems.

At Brian O'Brien's elegant home, he and his doppleganger Pug Brady talk over the accident, then learn from a radio news report that O'Brien's old college mentor Professor Jennir has been murdered. He resolves to get to the bottom of it, and sends Pug to the coroner's office to examine Jennir's body. Pug finds fingerprints on the throat, gets prints of them, then Brian searches thru his extensive set of fingerprint files until he finds a match ... but it's Killer Kale. O'Brien deduces, based on this, that Kale's thugs stole Kale's body, then kidnapped old Jennir and compelled him to use his advanced electrical knowledge to bring Killer Kale back to life, and this worked, then Kale strangled Jennir to death.

The Clock and Pug go visit Kale's old hide-out, and they find a thug there, and work him over until he squeals: Kale is at 10 Murk Street. Clock and Pug leave, then the thug phones his boss to warn him. At Murk Street, Clock and Pug are very suspicious at finding no lookouts on the job, but go inside anyway. They get jumped, but they outfight the jumpers. But Kale shows up with a pistol, standing just the right distance away, and gains control of the room. Then the Clock yanks the rug out from under him, and follows up with a series of hard punches.

A few days later the newspapers announce that Killer Kale will be executed a second time, along with reporting the fact that the late Professor Jennir had brought Kale back to life.

Appearing in The Clock: "Killer Kale Dies Tonight"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Pug Brady (Final appearance)

Antagonists:

  • Killer Kale (dies, is resurrected)

Other Characters:

  • Professor Jennir (dies)

Locations:

Items:

  • Jennir's Advanced Electrical Equipment

Notes

  • Black Condor:
    • This episode is Jaspar Crow's sixth clash with the Black Condor. At the end of it, the felonious old plutocrat is still at large and still a U.S. Senator.
  • The Clock:
    • Pug Brady will be mentioned one more time, next issue in the introductory caption, but this story marks his final on-panel appearance.
    • The late Professor Jennir perfected a process for returning an electrocuted dead man to life. This is never mentioned again.
  • Red Torpedo:
    • Black Shark's unspeaking soldiers wear German Infantry uniforms, minus the swastikas and other insignia. Next issue, his troops will be Mongolian.
  • Space Legion:
    • Dr. Dram's theory: "Sounds queer ... but he must have a powerful electric machine somewhere which explodes the atoms of all the elements on Earth ... But I can stop him!"
  • Tor the Magic Master:
    • Fritz the aviator spy wears a monocle.
  • Also appearing in this issue of Crack Comics were:

Trivia

  • Jack Cole signed his Slap Happy Pappy story as "Ralph Johns".
  • The cover depicts the Clock as "the oldest and best comic book character". When the second allegation is debatable, the Clock is not the oldest comic book character -- for example, all of the characters from New Fun Comics #1 are over a year older.
    • Even if you assume they meant "the oldest comic book character who is still appearing in comics", it is still not true. For example, Federal Man Steve Carson (currently appearing in Adventure Comics (Volume 1)) started in January 1936, ten months before the Clock in November 1936.


See Also


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