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in: Comics Published by Quality Comics, Everett M. Arnold/Executive Editor, Ed Cronin/Cover Artist,
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Crack Comics Vol 1 1

Revision as of 01:35, 8 May 2016 by Stoop Davy Dave (Message Wall | contribs) (may.40, p.1)
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"The Clock Strikes: "The Story of Pug Brady"": Brian O'Brien helps out a jobless man, "Pug" Brady, who tried to steal Brian's watch. Pug was an ex-heavyweight boxing champ and ex-All-American fullback, and his life was screwed up due to having killed a guy in self-defense. Pug followed the Cloc

Quote1 Since you asked for it, I'll fight you Crickets in your own fashion... with death! Quote2
— The Spider

Crack Comics #1 is an issue of the series Crack Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of May, 1940.

Synopsis for The Clock Strikes: "The Story of Pug Brady"

Brian O'Brien helps out a jobless man, "Pug" Brady, who tried to steal Brian's watch. Pug was an ex-heavyweight boxing champ and ex-All-American fullback, and his life was screwed up due to having killed a guy in self-defense. Pug followed the Clock, on a case, and freed him when he was captured, but once again, Pug wound up killing the Clock's attacker; O'Brien moved to cover it up. Brady and O'Brien turn out to be near-lookalikes. The two continue their partnership and go after the crime boss, the Big Shot, who is secretly the Mayor.

Appearing in The Clock Strikes: "The Story of Pug Brady"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Pat "Pug" Brady (First appearance)

Villains:

  • The Big Shot (Mayor Kozer)
    • Butch, former bent cop (Dies)
    • Tony
    • other thugs

Other Characters:

  • District Attorney John Dooly (Dies)
  • Officer Casey
  • Miss Dooly
  • Captain Kane

Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:




Synopsis for "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"

(Newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"

Featured Characters:

  • Jane Arden (across top halves of pages)
  • Lena Pry(across bottom halves of pages)

Synopsis for The Space Legion: "Introducing Rock Braddon"

Harg the Space Pirate hijacks a shipment of radium and massacres the crew of the cargo spaceship that carried it. Arriving too late, the Space Legion's ship "Mercury" arrives, with Rock Braddon in command. The Mercury's instruments detect Harg's ship, the "Titan", on course toward the Earth's Moon. The Titan is observed flying into an opening on the Moon's surface; his once-hidden base is now discovered! Harg is furious, and deploys two smaller fighting ships to attack the Mercury. Space Legion ray-gunnery prevails, and both of these are destroyed, but meantime Harg and his crew have escaped into a Lunar mountain. Braddon is reluctant to destroy the mountain, and leads a space-suit-wearing landing party onto the Lunar surface and below it, down a long tunnel into a great cavern. One crewman is killed by a boobytrap, and the crew of pirates swarms in to attack the Legion. There's a ray-gun shoot-out, which Harg ends by throwing an atomic grenade into the midst of it, killing almost everybody, on both sides. Rock Braddon survives, and pursues Harg on foot. Harg almost makes it to his spaceship, but pauses to take a shot at Braddon, misses, and is shot dead.

Appearing in The Space Legion: "Introducing Rock Braddon"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Space Legion
    • Curly
    • Dutch

Villains:

  • Harg, the Space Pirate
    • his crew

Other Characters:

  • Captain Graves (Dies)
    • his crew (Dies)

Locations:

  • Mars
    • Earth Colony "Hispan"
      • space port
  • Moon
    • hidden space pirate base
  • Earth
    • Space Legion Port

Items:

  • Visaplate, a long-range viewing device, used in cargo spaceships
  • Electro-Scanner, a long-range detection device, used in military spaceships
  • electronic stun ray, all sizes

Vehicles:

  • cargo Space Ship "Nova"
  • Harg's Space Ship "Titan"
  • Space Legion Ship "Mercury"

Synopsis for Alias the Spider: "The Sign of the Cricket"

Organized crime is running rampant in the big city, and the extremely dangerous Cricket Mob is behind it. At the archery range of his fashionable sportsman's club, Tom Hallaway reads about this giant crime-wave, and decides to do something about it. But no sooner is he driving away in his open roadster than a big sedan swerves up close to it, and a package is tossed into his car. Hallaway immediately hurls it into the nearby river, where it explodes! Then he pursues the roadster as it speeds out of town, and changes his clothes as he does so. When he gets close enough, the Spider stands and shoots over his windshield, sending a flaming arrow into the fleeing sedan, causing it to veer off the road, drop off the embankment, crash, and burn. Hallaway salvages a clue from the wreckage, interprets it, and speeds away to the Empire Life Insurance Building. There he finds a lurking henchman, jumps him, grabs a written clue from him and tries to extract the Cricket's real identity from him, but of course he doesn't know. He spills his instructions, which are to deliver a package to a particular address, by one o'clock, but his squealing is interrupted by the noisy arrival of a big car with a bright spotlight and a loud machinegun, which kills the squealer and narrowly misses the Spider. Spider counters with a volley of arrows that cause this car to wreck, plus kills the occupants.

The Spider learns of a planned robbery at a department store, phones in a tip to the cops, then races to the store to participate in the shoot-out. He inflicts some amount of damage on the Crickets, then leaves as the main force of police arrives. He follows his earlier clue to 510 Spring Street, right beside the river. This turns out to be a trap, where he drops thru a trapdoor into a basement, and at last is face to face with the smirking, well-armed Cricket. The Spider moves way more quickly than the Cricket is expecting, closes the distance between them, punches the Cricket half silly, sends him stumbling out thru a breaking window, to fall into the river, sink, and not resurface.

Appearing in Alias the Spider: "The Sign of the Cricket"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Villains:

Other Characters:


Locations:

  • New York City
    • Empire Life Insurance Building
    • 510 Spring Street
    • Lebson's Department Store

Items:

  • The Spider's trademark weapon was an arrow that burst into flame upon shooting, and which bore a scarab-like tip that embedded into its target.

Vehicles:



Synopsis for Wizard Wells: "Too Hot to Hold"


Appearing in Wizard Wells: "Too Hot to Hold"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Tug

Villains:


Other Characters:


Locations:


Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for "Molly the Model"


Appearing in "Molly the Model"

Featured Characters:

Synopsis for "Ned Brant"

(Newspaper strip reprints)

Appearing in "Ned Brant"

Featured Characters:

  • Ned Brant

Synopsis for Lee Preston of the Red Cross: "Lee Gets Her Wings"


Appearing in Lee Preston of the Red Cross: "Lee Gets Her Wings"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Villains:


Other Characters:


Locations:


Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for The Red Torpedo: "Origin of the Red Torpedo"

U.S.Naval officer Jim Lockhart designs a truly amazing warship: a one-man, high-speed, deep-diving, seemingly-indestructable “torpedo” with astounding capabilities. His superior officer, Captain Wells, deems the whole idea “just too fantastic” and kiboshes the project. Lockhart resigns his commission over this, and with his fiancée Meg, he goes to work in his secret workshop on a remote cove. Meanwhile almost everywhere else, World War II has really gotten going. The still-neutral USA sends a relief ship to Europe, to bring some 5,000 refugee children to America. Hitler decides this is a great opportunity to provoke the Americans into entering the war, by sinking the relief ship. (It’s not clear why he wants to add an extra enemy to the other side in this war, but there it is, his newest brilliant plan.) U-079 and another submarine are dispatched to sink the relief ship.

At sea, the Red Torpedo encounters the relief ship, and using his “Marinograph,” is able to see that it is packed with refugees. The two enemy subs arrive, and one releases a mine while the second one surfaces and deploys its deck gun. The amazingly maneuverable Red Torpedo intercepts the mine by snagging the mine’s trailing cable on the Torpedo’s spinning prow, then flipping it back onto its own submarine, to fatal effect. The tiny craft then surrounds the surfaced U-boat with a smoke screen, so the sub commander gives up on using gunnery, dives his boat, and shoots a torpedo. The Red Torpedo detonates the speeding (conventional) torpedo with machinegun fire, then pursues the sub, rams it, and sends it to the bottom. The Red Torpedo then accompanies the relief ship until it meets up with a protective convoy.

Meanwhile in Washington DC, at the Navy Club, Captain Wells may finally be getting an inkling of what and who the Red Torpedo is.

Appearing in The Red Torpedo: "Origin of the Red Torpedo"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Meg, Jim's fiancee

Villains:

Other Characters:

  • Captain Wells

Locations:


Items:

  • Red Torpedo's Marinograph, a long-range viewing device

Vehicles:

Synopsis for Madam Fatal: "Origin of Madam Fatal"

For nine years, Richard Stanton has been looking for the man who kidnapped his daughter. Posing in drag, as an old lady, he finally located the thug, John Carver, who accidentally shot himself. But before he died, Carver revealed that Stanton's daughter was still alive!

Appearing in Madam Fatal: "Origin of Madam Fatal"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Hamlet (parrot) (First appearance)

Villains:

  • John Carver (Dies)
  • Mike (Single appearance)
  • Lou (Single appearance)

Other Characters:


Locations:


Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for The Black Condor: "The Man Who Can Fly Like a Bird"

An archaeologist and his family trek to outer Mongolia, and are ambushed by raiders. Realizing their plight to be hopeless, the mother hides her baby behind some rocks. The raiders savagely massacre everyone, yet unnoticed, a giant condor swoops and gathers the child and brings it to its nest. The child grows to be a boy, and studies the movement of wings, body motion, air currents, balance, and levitation. One day, the condors are attacked by a tribe of eagles. The flying man falls in combat and is found by Father Pierre, a hermit, who teaches the young man the ways of man, dubbing him the Black Condor. After one year with Pierre, the Black Condor discovers the hermit murdered by the raiders of Gali Kan.

Putting his skills to use, the Black Condor hunts, attacks, and defeats the raiders, just as they are attacking a small walled city, full of Hindu-looking, Allah-invoking people, in a mountainous part of South Asia. Condor snatches Gali Kan right out of his saddle and flies him up to some scary altitude then drops him; his condors attack the raiders, encouraging the locals to a more vigorous defense, and ending the reign of terror.

Appearing in The Black Condor: "The Man Who Can Fly Like a Bird"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Villains:

  • Gali Kan (Dies)
  • Yakki Raiders

Other Characters:

  • Mr. Richard Grey (Dies)
  • Mrs. Richard Grey (Dies)
  • Father Pierre (Dies)

Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:


Notes

  • Alias the Spider:
    • Spider body count = 2 or more in the first crashed sedan, plus 2 or more in the second crashed sedan, plus the Cricket himself, so > 5.
  • Black Condor:
  • The Black Condor's costume was colored red, for this issue only.
  • The Black Condor's South Asian despot-warlord villain this issue is Gali Kan, raiding and looting. Next issue, his next South Asian despot-warlord villain will be Ali Kan, attempting to usurp a principality adjoining his own.
  • The Clock Strikes:
  • Red Torpedo:
  • Red Torpedo’s original base: “a secret workshop on a remote cove”.
  • Red Torpedo body count = two submarine crews
  • Hitler isn’t named in this story, but the main bad guy works in “the Chancellery of a ruthless power…”, and he looks just like Hitler.
  • "Origin of Madam Fatal" is reprinted in The Quality Companion (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2011).
  • Newspaper Reprints:
  • This issue of Crack Comics also featured:
    • "Off The Record", by Ed Reed
    • "Screen Snapshots: Jimmy Stewart", by Gill Fox
    • "Rube Goldberg's Side Show", by Rube Goldberg
    • "That Battle of the World's Greatest Hurlers", by Bob Zuppke and B. W. Depew
    • "Slap Happy Pappy", by Gill Fox



See Also


Links and References
Superboy Vol 4 69
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