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More Fun Comics Vol 1 69

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"Doctor Fate: "The Shadow Killers"": After returning from his exploration of a haunted region in the Sahara, Everett Dahlen throws a grand house party, at his countryside home, which is attended by Inza Cramer and Kent Nelson. During the party, an unearthly assassin, seemingly a man made out of

More Fun Comics #69 is an issue of the series More Fun Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of July, 1941.

Synopsis for Doctor Fate: "The Shadow Killers"

After returning from his exploration of a haunted region in the Sahara, Everett Dahlen throws a grand house party, at his countryside home, which is attended by Inza Cramer and Kent Nelson. During the party, an unearthly assassin, seemingly a man made out of shadow, steals into the house and murders Dahlen, then flees when Nelson enters the room. Kent pursues, and catches up to, but can not capture, the insubstantial killer. Rather than magically blast the shadow-man, he resolves to learn more about it, as Dr. Fate.

At his gaunt Salem tower, with Inza listening, Doctor Fate pores over a great deal of arcane literature, and theorizes that the late Dahlen's travels had taken him to a lost city in Africa called Ragnor. If so, he now had control of an ancient technology for turning men into animated shadows and enslaving them.

In Ragnor, several years earlier, two archaeologists found an enormous ruby, and fought over it. Everett Dahlen struck down his partner Ian Karkull and left him to die, taking the ruby, the camels, and all of their water. Karkull survived long enough for his luck to change, and he got rescued by some nomads. He had found something in the city that Dahlen had missed, and was already planning his revenge.

Doctor Fate divines the enemy's identity and location, and he races high over the city to reach his secret laboratory. Before striking, Fate spies on Karkull as he transforms three thugs into shadow-men. They head out to rob a bank, where Fate confronts them. Fisticuffs are useless for both sides, and the bandits realize they also can't work the combination lock. Fate departs, to attend instead to Karkull. But Karkull, by remote control, solidifies his henchmen, who break into the vault and steal some bags of money. They and the money are then returned to a shadow state and they return to the lab. Dr Fate has gotten there ahead of them, and confronts Karkull, who shoots him right in the chest with a ray, a "beam of transareal power." Fate falls down and gets quiet, but this was supposed to blow him to bits, so Karkull pauses to think. Just then the henchthugs return with the loot and while they are distracted with dividing it up, Doctor Fate stands back up. It's a short fight, with fists, knives, and guns proving useless against the Doctor. Karkull activates the Transareal Power Beam again, accidentally killing one of his own punks. Fate blows up the ray projector with a bolt from his fingertip, but Karkull cleverly turns himself into a shadow, thus becoming invulnerable. So Fate blows up the materializer, and effectively condemns Karkull to live eternally as a shadow, unable to touch anything.

Appearing in Doctor Fate: "The Shadow Killers"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Ian Karkull (First appearance) (Flashback and main story)
    • Slick (Dies)
    • Hart
    • 3rd thug

Other Characters:

  • Everett Dahlen (Single appearance; dies) (Flashback and main story)
  • Sahara nomads (Flashback only)

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

  • Nelson's roadster


Synopsis for Detective Sergeant Carey: "The Aqueduct Case"


Appearing in Detective Sergeant Carey: "The Aqueduct Case"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Sleepy, City Police
  • more cops, at least three

Antagonists:

  • Fatherland saboteurs, at least five: Hans, others

Locations:

  • woods outside of town
    • aqueduct shaft entrance
    • aqueduct pumping station

Synopsis for Clip Carson: "The Swamp of Pestilence"


Appearing in Clip Carson: "The Swamp of Pestilence"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • George Harvard, assistant geologist, as "Big Sun"
    • two gangster escort
    • fake Seminole braves

Other Characters:

  • Professor Lovett, geologist
  • Doris Lovett, daughter

Locations:

  • Florida
    • Hotel
    • Everglades
      • fake Seminole village
        • illicit oil well
      • Lovett's secret pitchblende discovery

Synopsis for Captain Desmo: "The Count"


Appearing in Captain Desmo: "The Count"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Gabby

Antagonists:

  • Count Parla (wears a monocle)
    • Parla's bodyguard
    • Eddie
    • five more masked gunmen

Other Characters:

  • Mr. Banks
  • Mrs. Banks
  • Enid Banks

Locations:

  • West Coast
    • Airport
    • Banks' Mansion
    • Pasa Canyon
      • cabin hideout
    • Metropolis Hospital

Vehicles:

  • Desmo's new plane (Mentioned only)
  • Banks' speedplane (Destroyed)
  • gangster sedan

Synopsis for Radio Squad: "The Priceless Art Treasures"


Appearing in Radio Squad: "The Priceless Art Treasures"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • stickup gang:
    • gangster chauffeurs: Sam, others
    • Mr. Rivers, politician (secretly)
    • Mr. Wu, art treasure manager (secretly)

Other Characters:

  • Dr. Ling
  • Relief Ball attendees

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • Radio Car K-7
  • Chinese moving van
  • stickup gang's sedan
  • Rivers' limousine

Synopsis for Lance Larkin: "Mystery in Jungletown"


Appearing in Lance Larkin: "Mystery in Jungletown"

Featured Characters:

Animals:

  • Satan, Larkin's horse

Antagonists:

  • ex-miners, at least five

Other Characters:

  • Bill Wallace (Appears only as a corpse)
  • Nadya Wallace
  • Daddy Wallace

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • small plane (crashes)

Synopsis for Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol: "Bailey's Nugget"


Appearing in Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol: "Bailey's Nugget"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Black Hawk, RCMP

Antagonists:

  • Russell, (Dies)
  • Russell's partner
  • Talley, safecracker

Other Characters:

  • Old Man Bailey, miner

Locations:

Items:

  • biggest gold nugget ever found in Canada

Vehicles:

  • Talley's yellow roadster

Synopsis for The Spectre: "The Strangler"

A wealthy man is strangled to death in his own mansion, his head almost crushed, inside of a locked room. Just as Detective Corrigan makes the grisly discovery, a threatening call comes demanding 10,000 dollars. The operator's able to trace the call to the home of Daniel Lakespur. Corrigan confronts Lakespur, but his ghostly powers tell him the man had nothing to do with the murder, especially when it turns out five other men died in identical ways at the same time. A threatening note arrives for Lakespur from "the Tentacle", demanding money or he'll suffer such a dire fate himself if he doesn't pay a ransom, which happens despite police protection.

Finally deciding that seven deaths is severe enough, Corrigan becomes the Spectre to protect the next threatened man. Watching invisibly, he sees a strange plant come to life and try to strangle the wealthy victim, but crushes the deadly flora before it has the chance. His charge safe and the method of murder discovered, the Spectre hurries to where the ransom was meant to be dropped and turns himself into a bag of money. When it's brought back to the greenhouse of the murderous plants' creator, the Spectre changes back into himself. In fleeing the spirit of vengeance, the Tentacle gets too close to his own killer plants and is crushed.

Appearing in The Spectre: "The Strangler"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Chief of Police, Cliffland

Antagonists:

  • The Tentacle, horticulturist (Single appearance; dies)

Other Characters:

  • Thomas Bardsley (Single appearance; dies)
  • Daniel Lakespur (wears a monocle) (Single appearance; dies)
  • five more wealthy men (Mentioned only) (Dies)
  • police guard detail
  • Jake Carstairs (Single appearance)

Locations:

  • Cliffland, New Jersey
    • Police Headquarters
    • Bardsley Mansion
    • Lakespur Mansion, 1911 Grestoke Road
    • Carstairs Mansion
    • Carlson Bridge
    • Tentacle's Greenhouse

Items:

  • walking strangling plant

Vehicles:

  • Police Car

Notes

  • Published by Detective Comics, Inc.
  • Captain Desmo
    • Desmo is again seen without his white leather helmet, again with the dark glasses.
    • Desmo and Gabby get head-konked unconscious, with blunt instruments. Gabby also gets stabbed with a rapier.
  • Clip Carson gets head-konked unconscious, with a wooden club. He also gets hanged by the neck, but saves himself with "that old Hindu rigidity trick."
  • Doctor Fate:
    • According to Roy Thomas, in All-Star Squadron Annual #3, Ian Karkull's elaborate attack on eight future U.S. presidents took place on 28 & 29 June, 1941.
    • Doctor Fate first encountered Ian Karkull in this issue, and then fought a teamed-up Karkull and Wotan in More Fun Comics #70.
    • Therefore both of those adventures took place before 28 June 1941.
    • According to Green Lantern's remark on page 26 of the Annual, the second Fate-versus-Karkull battle had happened "last year."
    • Therefore both of those More Fun stories took place not later than December 1940, with earlier Doctor Fate stories being likewise "compressed upstream" on the Earth-Two timeline to compensate.
    • At the end of the story, Ian Karkull has been turned into a shadow and can't touch or move things, but he can still speak.
    • "The Shadow Killers" is reprinted in The Golden Age Doctor Fate Archives Vol. 1.
  • Lance Larkin gets knocked out by falling off his horse.
    • In early 1941, Japan had not yet invaded Indonesia.
  • The Spectre: The Strangler is reprinted in The Golden Age Spectre Archives Vol. 1.
    • "Lakespur" is the last name of one the Tentacle's victims. It had been the name of one of the towns wiped out in the previous issue's Spectre story as well.
  • Also appearing in this issue of More Fun Comics were:

Trivia

  • Clip Carson smokes a pipe.


See Also


Links and References

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