Aw gee, Bottle .. These fellers in the comic books lead such exciting lives! 
National Comics #10 is an issue of the series National Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1941.
Synopsis for Uncle Sam: "The Phony Heinrich Brun"
At a seaport on the U.S. Atlantic Coast, an overloaded refugee liner docks, and a shipload of desperate European exiles emerges. Among them is young Heinrich Brun, or is he? Brun's uncle and aunt meet him at the pier, remark about how different he now looks, and take him to their home. But this guy is a phony, and the couple's grandson Paul is suspicious.
Weeks go by, and every night there is a meeting in the old couple's cellar, from which they are excluded. Paul takes to spying on Hans, and one day he runs over to the school basketball court to talk to his friend, Buddy Smith. Paul tells Buddy all about Hans, and Buddy tells his pal, Uncle Sam. That night, the two of them pay a social call on Mr. and Mrs. Brun. This goes well, there is laughter and piano playing, until a shot is heard, in the basement! Unc investigates, and catches "Heinrich" standing over a wounded man, holding a smoking gun. Thugs scuttle out of the shadows and jump Sam; he thrashes them, laughing merrily the whole time. The wounded man is a federal agent, whose cover got blown, while infiltrating this bundist gang. The beaten-down spies are loaded into a Black Mariah and hauled off to jail, but "Heinrich" has escaped.
A week later, at night, Heinrich returns and breaks into the Brun's house, in need of a place to hide. Grandpa Brun provides one, but the next morning young Paul is very surprised to see Heinrich back in the house. Heinrich smacks the kid and tells him to keep his mouth shut, but Paul runs outside and happens to encounter his friend Buddy Smith. But he doesn't snitch on Heinrich, but Buddy gets an idea anyway, and runs to fetch his Uncle. That day, the rest of the spies are on trial in Federal Court, and Uncle Sam is waiting his turn to testify against them. Buddy arrives and gets Sam to follow him to the Bruns' house. Sam does so, and tells the old couple his suspicions about their so-called nephew. Upstairs, Heinrich overhears this, and attacks Uncle Sam, who trounces him and hauls him to police HQ. But now, how to get the real Heinrich Brun out of Europe? Sam has an idea!
Uncle Sam barges in to the nearest Bund meeting place and confronts the leader, who calls in bodyguards, who get strewn about the room along with some heavy furniture. The leader shoots Sam several times with a hand gun, and is lucky to survive the ricochets as the bullets bounce off. Once he has this monocled coward's full attention, Sam instructs him to radio the Fatherland and order Heinrich Brun released. Right now.
Within the hour, Brun is released from a European prison, and by the next day, he's aboard a ship bound for America. When he reaches the U.S., the Bruns are very glad to welcome him into their family, and Brun is anxious to become a citizen of America.
Appearing in Uncle Sam: "The Phony Heinrich Brun"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- "Heinrich Brun"
- Statz
- Klink
- Doerer
- Hans
- Johan
- Bund Leader (wears a monocle)
Other Characters:
- Heinrich Brun
- Mr. Brun
- Mrs. Brun
- Paul Brun, grandson
- three Federal Agents: Brody, others
Locations:
- Waterfront
- Trans-Atlantic Pier
- Bruns' big country House
- Concentration Camp
Vehicles:
- Refugee Liners
Synopsis for Sally O'Neil Policewoman: "Sally Goes Hollywood"
Sally's movie star boyfriend Barry Gilmore persuades movie mogul J.J. Pickall to cast Sally in his newest production "Crime Doesn't Pay!" She flies out from New York to Hollywood, auditions for the part, and gets it. Make-up and costuming people find her difficult to work with, but she convinces the producer that she should wear her own clothes and do her own hair-do.
At her first day on the set, a prop handgun is swapped out for a real one, and one young man, an extra, is killed with it. Sally takes charge of the crime scene; all of the extras are detained for questioning. The murdered man, identity unknown, was a last-minute unauthorized substitution for one extra, and nobody knows who he was. Sally arranges to have the dead man's face shown on a lot of movie screens, figuring that somebody ought to recognize him. Theater managers cooperate by addressing movie audiences and asking for their help. Within a few weeks, James Kelly, of Los Vanos, Texas, sends a telegram to Majestic Studios, to identify the dead man as his nephew, Fred Kelly.
Sally O'Neil, expecting trouble, flies from Hollywood to Los Vanos, in order to ride back to Hollywood on the same train that Mr. Kelly is taking. Riding in the club car, she observes as a stranger approaches Kelly, noting that he matches the description of the missing movie extra. When this guy starts to chat up Kelly she joins the conversation. The stranger invites "Sue" and Kelly to his compartment, then pulls a gun and shoots Mr. Kelly. Sally disarms him with a kick, but he escapes by diving out of the train thru a closed window. Sally jerks the emergency cord, which stops the train, then jumps out and pursues him on foot. He tries to bludgeon her but she uses jiu-jitsu to flatten him. Soon the local cops arrive and the man turns out to be an escaped convict named Lem Flinn.
When Sally gets back to Hollywood, her movie is a big hit, and Barry proposes marriage for the thousandth time, and gets turned down again.
Appearing in Sally O'Neil Policewoman: "Sally Goes Hollywood"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Barry Gilmore, (Sally's actor boyfriend)
Antagonists:
- Lem Flinn, escaped convict
Other Characters:
- J.J. Pickall, movie mogul
- movie crew
- movie extras: Fred Kelly (Appears only as a corpse), Jeff Winters, Hy McCall, Alice Lane, Jay Lance, Joel Mason, John Mell, Walter Hall, Melton Cowan
- James Kelly (Wounded)
Locations:
Vehicles:
- passenger train from Texas to California
Synopsis for Wonder Boy: "Underwater Treachery"
At the Museum of Natural History, the director, Mr. Waters, sponsors famous marine explorer John Cray to lead an expedition to the South Pacific Ocean. There is a rare coral reef there, its location known only to Cray, who has deliberately kept it uncharted. Casually eavesdropping outside the director's office door is Wonder Boy. John Cray then goes to deliver a lecture aboard the S.S. Tropical, from which he does not return. An all-points bulletin goes out, complete with Cray's description.
Meanwhile the S.S. Tropical is sailing toward the South Pacific, with a new cabin boy aboard. Some sailors try to bully this new kid, and get put in their places plus scared silly, by Wonder Boy. One cabin, no. 3, is kept locked, and Wonder Boy is told to stay out of it. That night a squall springs up, and a heavy packing case is swept overboard; Wonder Boy dives in after it. The crew's reaction to that is one of amazement and relief, because he'd been asking too many questions. But soon Wonder Boy swims the huge case back to the surface and gets it aboard the moving ship. One crewman tells him what's going on: John Cray is headed to the bottom in a diving suit, looking for something important, and he won't be coming back up!
Wonder Boy dives back into the ocean, and finds two divers, one is wielding a knife. He disarms that one, signals the crew to pull up both divers, then fights a tremendous octopus, defeats it, and swims back to the surface. Aboard the Tropical, the now-unhelmeted second diver is the ship's captain. Wonder Boy leads a mutiny against this villain, and the crew throws him into the brig. Wonder Boy leaves Mr. Cray in command of the S.S. Tropical, which remains in the area, continuing the diving work until the entire coral reefs has been stripped of their valuable skeletons. Wonder Boy swims back to America.
Appearing in Wonder Boy: "Underwater Treachery"
Featured Characters
Antagonists:
- Captain of the S.S. "Tropical"
Other Characters:
- Mr. Waters, museum director
- John Cray, famous marine explorer
- "Tropical" Crewmen
Locations:
- Museum of Natural History
- South Pacific Ocean
Animals:
- monster octopus (Dies)
- monster sharks (Dies)
Vehicles:
- S.S. Tropical, freighter
Synopsis for Prop Powers: "The Secret Fascist Base"
Prop and Lank are patrolling the Gulf of Mexico in a Catalina Flying Boat when they spot a submerged submarine. They follow it to an island cove, where it surfaces. Prob cuts the engines and does a dead stick landing, as quietly as possible, on the other side of the island, then he and Lank hike overland to the cove, with Lank bringing his squirrel gun along. They find some shacks, and inside one of them they spot the governor of this set of islands, receiving his orders from the U-boat commander. He now wants to inspect an ammo warehouse, under construction elsewhere on the island, so the Governor will guide the two submariners there.
Prop and Lank set up an ambush at a narrow gulch. When they open fire, the foreign spies blame the Governor, and shoot him dead, then flee. They sprint to the Americans' seaplane and steal it. Powers and Loomis run back to the cove and steal the now-unmanned submarine. The Axis agents in the airplane spot this and dive the seaplane to attack the sub. Loomis punctures their gas tank with a rifle shot, and the plane is forced to land. Prop swims over to the plane, boards it, and punches out both of the agents. Then a Coast Guard cutter arrives on the scene.
Prop and Lank repair the seaplane's fuel tank, and replenish it from the submarine's fuel supply, take off, and complete their patrol.
Appearing in Prop Powers: "The Secret Fascist Base"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Lank Loomis
Antagonists:
- two Axis Agents: Rossi, Tony
Other Characters:
- Island Group Governor (Dies)
Locations:
- Bermuda
- U.S. Naval Base
- Gulf of Mexico
- Hidden Cove
Vehicles:
- USN Consolidated PBY Catalina
- Italian U-boat N-4 (Captured)
- USCG Cutter
Synopsis for Kid Dixon: "The Dirty Mr. Gouge"
Kid Dixon defends his championship again, against Lefty Gouge, a dirty fighter in or out of the ring. Also, the referee is corrupt. Lefty does a lot of cheating and gets away with it. Dixon is knocked out, and loses a tooth too.
After the fight, Dixon barges into Gouge's dressing room and starts a more informal, and shorter, bare-knuckle fistfight, and Gouge goes down at the end of it. The crooked referee walks into the room and blurts out what amounts to a confession, and Dixon punches him out too. The Kid's manager, Bottle Topps, is quite optimistic that the fight will be declared phoney.
He's right; newsreel footage from the fight show a ton of flagrant cheating, and a re-match is set up. Dixon spends the time developing one new set of tactics, and on fight night, he applies his new technique. It's a 15-round fight, but Gouge doesn't even make it through the first one. Dixon punches his foe in the adam's apple, then knocks him out while he's still choking. So Kid Dixon is again the champ.
Appearing in Kid Dixon: "The Dirty Mr. Gouge"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- B. Galsworthy "Bottle" Topps, Dixon's Manager
Antagonists:
- Lefty Gouge
- Gouge's Manager, Plootz (wears a monocle)
- corrupt referee
Locations:
Synopsis for Quicksilver: "Feuding Sons of the Kentucky Hills"
Two clans of hard-drinking hillbillies have been shooting it out with each other, just for the excitement, for at least twenty years. While sprinting thru this area, Quicksilver trips over a local girl, Miss Clementine, and they fall down. By the time they stand back up, each of them is halfway smitten with the other. Gunshots are heard; Quicksilver steals a kiss and races away to deal with it. Inside a barn he finds a fistfight, and at the middle of it is the biggest, strongest hillbilly around, named Sonny. Quicksilver completely demolishes him, and then five other yokels close in, but Quicksilver dumps them down a corn chute. Then he races back to the daisy field, where he left Miss Clementine, but she's already found a new romance.
Appearing in Quicksilver: "Feuding Sons of the Kentucky Hills"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Hill Folks
- Sonny
- Valley Folks
Other Characters:
- Clementine
Locations:
Synopsis for Kid Patrol: "The East Side Raiders"
Sunshine, Porky, and Teddy join a youth league football team, the East Side Raiders. Their rivals, the West Side Wildcats, are backed by a gangster named Ragatti, who sends some of his punks to lean on the new players. The three Patrol kids thrash them.
On game day, it's apparent that most of the Wildcats are too old, and big, to be in this league, but their coach displays birth certificates showing them to all be age twelve. A lot of other cheating goes on, but the Patrol Kids have some amazing football talent, and in the end, the Raiders win. The vengeful Ragatti corners the Raiders' coach in the locker room, and tries to shoot him, when the three kids show up and disarm him with a thrown football, then the coach demolishes him.
The coach gets hired by the owner of the Brooklyn Bears, on the condition that he's able to bring the kids along with him.
Appearing in Kid Patrol: "The East Side Raiders"
Featured Characters:
- Kid Patrol
- Teddy
- George Washington Abraham Lincoln "Sunshine" Jones
- Porky
Antagonists:
- Ragatti
- his toughs
- West Side Wildcats
Other Characters:
- East Side Raiders
- Coach Tom Hawkins
- owner of the Brooklyn Bears
Locations:
- Lower East Side of New York City
- Practice Field
- Griffen Stadium
Synopsis for Jack and Jill: "The Stolen Fake Pearl Necklace"
While attending a performance at the Opera House, Jack and Jill witness the theft of a valuable-looking string of pearls. They shadow the thief, and the next day they follow him into the Bank, where he places the stolen pearls in his safe-deposit box. Jack tussels with the thief, who almost gets away but is tripped up with his own thrown walking stick. One bank clerk turns out to be an accomplice of the necklace thief, and is also arrested.
Appearing in Jack and Jill: "The Stolen Fake Pearl Necklace"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- necklace thief
- corrupt bank clerk
Locations:
- Opera House
- Elegant Apartment Building
- Bank
Synopsis for Pen Miller: "The Death of the Laundry Truck Driver"
A laundry truck driver is found dead at the wheel, of asphyxiation. His last stop was at the Wildcat Brewery. According to the dead man's boss, the brewery's laundry was always stained with green ink. Pen Miller and Niki visit the small brewery. The brewery manager doesn't have good answers for Miller's questions, so he pulls a gun, which gets him punched out. Loud noises have been coming from behind a locked steel door, at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Niki finds a blow torch, but when he gets downstairs with it, the flame goes out. Miller tries to light a match; it fizzles. This tips off the detective that the room is full of carbon dioxide; he grabs Niki and sprints up the stairs. Now they know what happened to the laundry truck driver.
Miller rousts up the knocked-out brewery manager, and at gunpoint forces him to enter the gas-filled room and get that steel door open. He pounds and yells at the door, but his stooges inside think it's a police trick, and they don't open up until the noise dies out, at which time so does the manager. When they do open up and make this discovery, Pen Miller fires a pistol shot right between them and gets their attention. Inside the locked room is a printing press, producing fake ten dollar bills. Miller arrests all the printers and turns them over to the police, then goes home to draw the story about it.
Appearing in Pen Miller: "The Death of the Laundry Truck Driver"
Featured Characters:
- Pen Miller, Cartoonist Detective
Supporting Characters:
- Niki, his valet
Antagonists:
- counterfeiter
- his gang
Other Characters:
- Police Chief
- Coroner
- Laundry Truck Driver (Appears only as a corpse)
- Laundry Company Manager
Locations:
- New York City
- 144 Spruce Blvd, Pen Miller's residence
- Police HQ
- Wildcat Brewery, on the outskirts of town
Synopsis for Paul Bunyan: "The Blasting of Bald Rock"
After leaving Army life, Paul Bunyan returns to logging. Using an incredibly long saw and a team of three horses, he can saw down twenty trees at a time. Bunyan and his exremely productive company are out-producing all of their competitors, and driving them out of the business.
Two guys from one company decide to sabotage Bunyan's operation, by blasting Bald Rock off the steep bank of the river, down which the trunks are floated to the sawmill. A stupendous log-jam is created, and a dozen loggers look at it and despair of ever breaking it loose. Paul Bunyan rolls up his sleeves, rigs up a giant-sized fulcrum and lever, leaps upon it, and flings the giant rock aloft. It falls onto the rival camp's mess hall; they all flee. Their leader tries to rally them, then he flees. Some remain behind and put up a brief fight, but Paul and his team just dust them off. The leader sneaks back into the fight and swings a heavy log-rolling peavy at Bunyan's head, but it just snaps on the back of his neck. The remaining enemy loggers are tossed into the river.
Appearing in Paul Bunyan: "The Blasting of Bald Rock"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Bunyan's Boss
- Lumberjack Crew: Axel, Cookee, others
Antagonists:
- rival logging company
Locations:
- North Woods
Synopsis for Merlin the Magician: "The Last of the Kelloggs"
In a wartime case of mistaken identity, Jock Kellogg is listed among the dead after an air raid. This prompts an impostor to impersonate Jock's kinsman Jepson Kellogg, and claim the estate; this guy in turn is ganged up with an untrustworthy pack of thugs, who double-cross him as soon as they reach the manse. Merlin plays a series of magical pranks on the impostor and his colleagues. The thugs are demoralized and defeated, and the impostor (the estate's gardener, Angus) is pardoned and reforms.
Appearing in Merlin the Magician: "The Last of the Kelloggs"
Featured Characters:
Other Characters:
- Jepson Kellog (in the South Seas)
- Lady Daphne MacLane
- Old Ronnie Kellogg (As a spirit)
- three claymore-wielding Kellogg Ancestors (As a spirit)
Antagonists:
- Angus (fake Jepson Kellog)
- Harry
- his hoods
Locations:
Items:
- Merlin's Magic Cloak
Notes
- First issue for Al Bryant art on Jack and Jill, replacing Chuck Mazoujian.
- Jack gets his head cracked against the wall, and is stunned for a moment, but he shakes it off.
- Jack and Jill apparently enjoy attending performances at the opera.
- Again it's mentioned that Jack Doe carries a police badge.
- First issue for Klaus Nordling script and art on Kid Dixon, replacing George Tuska.
- Kid Dixon loses a tooth in this story. Also he gets knocked out, with a ten-count and everything.
- First issue for Emil Gershwin art on Merlin, replacing Alex Blum.
- First issue for Reed Crandall on Paul Bunyan, replacing John Celardo.
- Story opens with "After leaving Army life [...]", and with no more explanation than that, ever, Bunyan is back in the North Woods as a civilian.
- Witmer Williams returns to Prop Powers, replacing Arthur Peddy.
- Prop's rank is still not revealed. Neither is that of his sidekick Lank Loomis. Their unit is also not identified.
- The U.S. military aircraft in this series have gone back to being colored solid bright red. After page 3, Prop's PBY Catalina changes from bright red to solid bright yellow, but only for one page, then back to red.
- Enemy agents in this story use Italian exclamations instead of German ones.
- Sally O'Neil:
- The key witness, Mr. Kelly, gets shot. We're not told if he's dead or alive. Or for that matter, why his nephew Fred Kelly was murdered.
- It's also not explained how a visiting policewoman from New York City is placed in charge of a murder investigation in Hollywood. But in this story, Sally is in Hollywood long enough for a feature movie to be filmed and put into distribution, plus several weeks before a witness emerges to identify the dead man.
- Movie and comics characters in the 1930s and 1940s stopped a lot of passenger trains, by yanking on an emergency brake cord which ran through the passenger cars and was accessible to the public. This might or might not work in real life but in no case would it be a good idea.
- First issue for Mort Leav art on Uncle Sam, replacing John Celardo.
- Uncle Sam appears in a courtroom, as a witness in a criminal trial.
- First issue for Chuck Mazoujian art on Wonder Boy, replacing Nick Cardy.
- Also featured in this issue of National Comics were:
- Miss Winky by Arthur Beeman
- "The Bones of Squatter Jim" (text story) by Anthony Lamb
- Windy Breeze: "The Sandhog" by Ralph Johns
Trivia
- Jack and Jill with art by Al Bryant is credited to "Lowell Riggs".
- Kid Dixon by Klaus Nordling is credited to "Bob Reynolds".
- Kid Patrol with art by Charles Nicholas is credited to "Dan Wilson".
- Merlin the Magician by Toni Blum and Emil Gershwin is credited to "Lance Blackwood".
- Paul Bunyan with art by Reed Crandall is credited to "Storey Weaver".
- Prop Powers with art by Witmer Williams is credited to "Lynn Byrd".
- Sally O'Neil, Policewoman by Toni Blum and Chuck Mazoujian is credited to "Frank Kearn".
- Wonder Boy by Toni Blum and Chuck Mazoujian is credited to "Jerry Maxwell".
- Toni Blum signed her text story as "Anthony Lamb".
- Jack Cole signed his Windy Breeze gag strip as "Ralph Johns".
See Also