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"Uncle Sam: "Sabotage"": Several skyscrapers in an American military zone are smashed and crumbled by explosive blasts. Uncle Sam and Buddy observe this from a hill overlooking the city, but they do not detect a mysterious aircraft overhead, a thousand feet above the cloud layer. Unc examines th

Quote1 I'll be back in the next issue of NATIONAL COMICS, folks! Quote2
Quicksilver

National Comics #6 is an issue of the series National Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 1940.

Synopsis for Uncle Sam: "Sabotage"

Several skyscrapers in an American military zone are smashed and crumbled by explosive blasts. Uncle Sam and Buddy observe this from a hill overlooking the city, but they do not detect a mysterious aircraft overhead, a thousand feet above the cloud layer. Unc examines the wreckage, and finds steel coil wires leading to the demolition site, from deep underground. While he's thinking that over, Sam gets blown up in another explosion, high into the air, but he lands intact and unruffled. Now he spots the mystery plane. Based on earlier sightings of this plane, and the lack of any sighted aircraft carriers in this vicinity, Uncle Sam is curious about the aircraft's base. He and Buddy hire a motor launch ride from a fisherman, and set out to see what's what.

They cruise around that part of the ocean all that night, and at dawn they find what looks like a steel raft. This turns out to be the landing field for a submerged foreign aircraft carrier, and just then the mystery plane arrives and lands on it. Concealed elevators whisk the plane belowdecks. Sam submerges, and peeks into the vessel thru an unlocked porthole. He sees mask-hooded submariners and their foreign military commander, then resurfaces and tells Buddy and the fisherman to call in the Coast Guard. Then he dives again, and rips his way inside thru the foreign vessel's hull, then closes it behind him, mostly. Armed hooded sailors run into the compartment to investigate; Sam punches them around while one of them sprints away to warn his bosses. In the conning tower, the commander has detected an approaching USCG cutter, and takes evasive action, diving to the bottom.

Meanwhile in the motor launch, Buddy has found an old diving suit, and pumps and hoses, and an oxy-acetylene welding rig, and jumps into the ocean to help out Uncle Sam. He finds the gap in the carrier's hull, and Sam finds him peeking inside. Sam grabs Buddy's helmet and yanks him inside the ship, and unhelmets him. They climb back to the flight deck and rejoin the fisherman in his motorboat. The submarine part of the foreign warship has escaped the scene, leaving only the floating flight deck behind. The Coast Guard cutter isn't fast enough to catch it. Sam correctly guesses that the sub is headed to Mexico, and the cutter follows accordingly. The sub indeed transits Mexican waters and ties up at a Mexican port; the Cutter arrives shortly later. A messenger from the sub meets a mask-hooded motorcyclist on the wharf, and hands him an important portfolio. Sam jumps onto the motorcyclist and punches him out; Buddy grabs the folio and runs to safety. Unc punches out all the foreign crewmen on the pier, and their captain, and turns them over to the Coast Guard.

Appearing in Uncle Sam: "Sabotage"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Foreign Commander (wears a monocle)
    • Foreign Submersible Aircraft Carrier Crew
    • Carl, pilot

Other Characters:

  • Fishing Launch Skipper
  • USCG Cutter Captain
    • his crew

Locations:

  • American Military Zones, #s 1, 2, & 3 (each blown up)
  • Mexico

Vehicles:

  • Foreign Submersible Aircraft Carrier (Captured)
  • Foreign Remote Control Warplanes
  • U.S. Coast Guard Cutter


Synopsis for Sally O'Neil, Policewoman: "Mademoiselle Morgue"

The police force hires a hall and throws a big party, and as an announcer is introducing Sally O'Neil to the room, a gunman steps up and shoots her, then flees the scene amid the confusion. Sally is on the floor but the bullet caught her in the badge, so she's still alive. She and her brothers keep quiet about that as they carry her out of the room. A brick flies in thru a busting window and whaps Officer Mike O'Neil in the head, and there's a note tied to it, threatening first the O'Neil family then the entire force.

Sally has three suspects, and a plan; she gets telephone numbers for the city's top three gang leaders from an undercover cop, and calls up each of them, to congratulate them for the murder of Officer O'Neil. The third boss reacts in a way that tips her off to his guilt. Calling herself "Madamoiselle Morgue," and plying her feminine wiles, Sally arranges a meeting for herself with "Scar" Celleni. She wears a blue dress and a domino mask to the meeting; Cellini brings along three gangsters. Pretending to have been chased out of Paris, she sells him a line of balderdash about how she's got a plan for the greatest bank robbery of all time. Meanwhile her dad and three brothers, in civilian suits and domino masks, pretend to be her henchmen. They arrive at the Clayton National Bank early, before opening time, and Mlle. Morgue knows enough combinations to get them inside. Scar Cellini gets to work opening the vault, and as soon as he does so, Sally arrests him, or tries to. Cellini throws a tear gas bomb, which inside the closed vault is very effective. Cellini flees and Sally pursues, first on foot then in cars. Meanwhile the male O'Neils capture Cellini's gangsters.

The chase goes for several miles, out into the countryside. At Dead Man's Cliff, Cellini tries a driving stunt meant to knock O'Neil off the road. His own car gets sideswiped badly but it mostly works, and Sally's car skids over the cliff, but lands on a jutting rock not far below the road. Abandoning his undriveable car, Cellini hikes away from the scene, but Sally climbs back up to the road, spots him, cuts ahead of him thru the woods, ambushes him, and arrests him again.

Appearing in Sally O'Neil, Policewoman: "Mademoiselle Morgue"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Sgt. O'Neil (Sally's father)
  • Pat O'Neil (Sally's brother)
  • Mike O'Neil (Sally's brother)
  • Tom O'Neil (Sally's brother)

Antagonists:

  • Scar Celleni
    • his gang

Other Characters:

  • "Slip", undercover cop

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • Sally's Car (wrecked)
  • Celleni's Car (wrecked)

Synopsis for Kid Patrol: "Dead Street"

New neighborhood arrival Chamberlain Bumbershoote effects an appeasement of a rival kid gang, and when that doesn't work out, he trounces them. Despite his mannered affectations and ridiculous attire, "Chamby" is a very capable umbrella fencer.

Appearing in Kid Patrol: "Dead Street"

Featured Characters:

  • Kid Patrol
    • Teddy
    • George Washington Abraham Lincoln "Sunshine " Jones
    • Porky

Supporting Characters:

  • Tony

Villains:

  • rival kid gang

Other Characters:

  • Sir Chamberlain Bumbershoote (First appearance)
  • his sister (First appearance)

Locations:

Synopsis for Kid Dixon: "The Story of Joey McGraw"

Formerly crooked boxer Joey McGraw abandons sports-cheating criminality and hires on as Kid Dixon's sparring partner. Kid Dixon beats up McGraw's racketeer "managers," and the police take them away.

Appearing in Kid Dixon: "The Story of Joey McGraw"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • B. Galsworthy "Bottle" Topps, Dixon's Manager

Antagonists:

  • McGraw's two Managers

Other Characters:

  • Joey McGraw
  • Joey's Ma
  • Police Raiding Party

Locations:

Synopsis for Wonder Boy: "The Johnny Doring Case"

One evening in New York City, Johnny Doring, age 17, is strolling along whistling absent-mindedly, when a gunman steps out of the shadows, shoots another man, then hands the gun to Johnny, jumps into a nearby car, and leaves. Johnny is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to the electric chair. On the day before his scheduled execution, Johnny's distraught mother is sought out by Wonder Boy, who promises to get Johnny out of this jam.

Wonder Boy runs directly to the penitentiary, arriving after dark, scaling the outer then inner walls, and moving from window to window looking for Johnny. When he finds him, he gets a description of the gunman (who has a distinctive scar), and the name of a friendly witness (Christy Deems, child of the murdered man), but their conversation is interrupted by a bright searchlight focusing on Wonder Boy. He runs roughshod thru some guards on his way out, but makes sure that none are killed.

The next morning Wonder Boy hunts up Christy Deems, who gives him some info which, along with a lucky coincidence, leads Wonder Boy to the scar-faced gunman, just as he is visiting Christy's mom, at their 5th-floor apartment. This punk is extorting money from the widow Deems, until Wonder Boy bursts into the room, punches him out, and throws him over his shoulder for a quick trip to Police HQ. Except on the stairs, two more punks are in place and already aiming at him. Wonder Boy yanks the staircase loose from the rest of the structure, and flings them off of it, thru a skylight, and onto an adjoining roof. But that gives the scarfaced killer time to slither out a window and down a fire escape. Wonder Boy pursues him outside, and the hood runs down the stairs to a subway station. At the platform, he falls onto the tracks, so Wonder Boy has to manually stop an oncoming subway train, without breaking it, to rescue him. He shoulders him back up and sprints toward the penitentiary.

On the tenement rooftop where they landed earlier, the two henchmen are pulling themselves together, and correctly guessing about Wonder Boy's destination. They race out of town in their big red sedan, from which they spot Wonder Boy sprinting along on a parallel railroad track. Wonder Boy is closely followed by a speeding passenger train. Wonder Boy, with his prisoner, leaps onto the top of the locomotive's pilot, and when the thugs try to beat the train across a grade crossing, he catches their car, and them, lifts them clear of the ground, and brings them all along with him to the prison. They arrive just in the nick of time, bursting into the execution chamber thru the roof! Wonder Boy forces confessions out of his three prisoners, and thus Johnny Doring is set free.

Appearing in Wonder Boy: "The Johnny Doring Case"

Featured Characters

Antagonists:

  • scar-faced gunman
    • two cronies

Other Characters:

  • Johnny Doring
  • Mrs. Doring
  • Mr. Deems (Dies)
  • Mrs. Deems
  • Christy Deems

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • Subway Train
  • Streamlined Train

Synopsis for Quicksilver: "The Blades of Baron Hoff"

Fires of unknown origin break out in waterfront structures all around the island of Manhattan until the entire borough is ringed with flames. This is done to distract and impede the police, while Baron Hoff robs a huge bank in the center of town. He blockades the bank's entrance with the propeller of his remarkable aircraft, and uses a Tommy gun to murder at least one bank teller.

Quicksilver shows up at one dockside fire, and throws a small capsule at it, which extinguishes the flames. Police mistake the speedster for the firebug, and chase him, but he easily loses them, then goes on to extinguish many more fires, then he shows up at the bank robbery. Quicksilver can dodge submachinegun fire at close range, and he rapidly subdues Baron Hoff, who is left for the police.

Appearing in Quicksilver: "The Blades of Baron Hoff"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Newsboy

Locations:

Vessels:

  • Hoff's Yacht
  • Hoff's Magno-Gyro aircraft (Captured)
  • Quicksilver's Fire-extinguishing Gas Capsules

Synopsis for Pen Miller, Cartoonist Detective: "The European-American Band"

Pen and Niki go fishing at a lake, where they overhear some shooting, and investigate. There's a compound, with a belligerent rifeman guarding the gate. He punches Miller in the face; Miller punches him out, then punches out the first three of the reinforcements to run up, while Niki throws at least three of them onto the ground. Then their boss shows up, with a handgun, and informs them that this is the base of the European-American Band, and that a remarkable fellow such as Miller should join up. Miller plays along, even when this martinet declares Niki to be racially unfit for membership, and has Niki taken into custody. Miller helpfully tells him where his supercharged car is parked, and the Band leader orders him to drive a two-man bomb-planting team to a nearby government arsenal. Upon arriving, Miller punches out both of the team, and absconds with their bomb. He then dupes the leader into contacting his foreign office by radio, and the transmission is detected by the FCC, which alerts the FBI.

Meanwhile at the compound, the Band leader's boss, and a turncoat arsenal guard, show up together, and expose Pen Miller's double-cross. The Bandists lock him up in the same building as Niki. Miller uses his E.A.Band membership badge to cut out a glass window, or at least to start to, but he's interrupted by the Band leader, who is being chased by the FBI, and now needs to silence Pen and Niki. He already has the gun in his hand but he's still just not quick enough; they take him out easily, just before Pen's FBI pals show up. Miller turns over the bomb to the federal agents. The Band leader's boss has escaped, but one FBI man recognizes him as Capt. Wrath, a foreign consular attache, whom they now can easily nab him at his office later. After the excitement all dies down, Pen and Niki go back to fishing, but they don't catch anything.

Appearing in Pen Miller, Cartoonist Detective: "The European-American Band"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Niki, his valet

Antagonists:

  • Capt. Wrath, foreign consular attache (wears a monocle)

Other Characters:

Locations:

  • Lakeside E.A.Band Hideout
  • Nearby Government Arsenal

Items:

  • E-A Band membership pin

Vehicles:

  • Miller's super-charged car

Synopsis for Paul Bunyan: "The Ape-Man Strikes"

King the Ape-Man joins Paul Bunyan's lumberjack crew.

Appearing in Paul Bunyan: "The Ape-Man Strikes"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Bunyan's Boss
    • Lumberjack Crew: Axel, Cookee, others

Antagonists:

  • Barnham, Circus Owner
    • Joe, hench
    • Barnham's circus crew: Strongman, others

Other Characters:

  • King, an ape-man, as tall as Paul, wears trousers

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • Buckboard Wagon

Synopsis for Prop Powers: "The Secret Nazi Air Base"

Prop Powers and his copilot Jim fly a big airliner from Brazil to the USA. Along the way, in the passenger compartment, a two-man kidnap team fits one girl into a parachute, and tosses her out of the plane, with both of them para-dropping after her. Prop spots the chutes, just as a passenger walks in thru the open cockpit hatch and informs him about the crime. Powers hands off the rudder to Jim, takes off his jacket, puts on a parachute, and jumps out of the plane. To catch up, he has to delay opening his chute for a long time, but he lands intact in the water, next to a dinghy with two indignant fishermen. They pull him in, but no, they haven't seen any other parachutes, and no, they don't want to go to the nearby island where Powers figures the other chutists are. So Powers pulls a gun on them and forces them to go there anyway, but at least he does all the rowing, after he gets the fishermen tied up.

Powers gets the rowboat past the rocky reefs around the island, and into a sheltered cove, then leaves the fishermen behind as he checks out the island. He finds a secret Nazi air base, with at least four Stuka dive bombers. In a nearby shack he finds a Nazi agent, interrogating the kidnapped girl, jumps into the room, and punches him about. A second agent charges into the room, but Powers knocks out both of them, and unties the girl, who says she is an American secret agent.

Just then Jim brings down the big transport plane, to land beside the island. Defenses are activated; dive bombers get into the air and antiaircraft cannon roll out of their hiding places. The transport climbs away from the shooting, while Prop Powers jumps onto one cannon crew and knocks them out. The secret agent picks up a big stick and joins the fight. Above, the dive bombers are almost fast enough to get within machine gun range of the fleeing transport, but before they do, Powers opens up on them from the ground, with their own cannon. One by one, he knocks them all down. Then he and the girl hike back to the dinghy's landing place; the fishermen and the boat are all still there; he negotiates a transportation-swapping deal with them, and they all paddle over to where the airliner is landing, then resume their flight to America.

Appearing in Prop Powers: "The Secret Nazi Air Base"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Jim, copilot

Villains:

Other Characters:

  • kidnapped secret agent
  • other airline passengers
  • two fishermen

Locations:

  • Brazil (departure point)
  • concealed landing field, in U.S. territory

Items:

  • antiaircraft cannon

Vehicles:

  • 4-engine amphibious airliner
  • dinghy
  • four Stukas (Destroyed)

Synopsis for Merlin: "Unboring Mr. Marlow"

Grumpy old bored millionaire J.D. Marlow is accompanied by Merlin on a series of hallucinatory adventures, which inspires him to write a big check to the Red Cross.

Appearing in Merlin: "Unboring Mr. Marlow"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • J.D. Marlow

Antagonists:

  • Wild Indians (As an illusion only)
  • Pirate Crew (As an illusion only)
  • Giant Ogre (As an illusion only)

Items:

  • Merlin's Magic Cloak

Notes

  • Kid Dixon ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #32.
  • Kid Patrol ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #35.
  • Merlin the Magician ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #26.
  • Paul Bunyan ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #22.
  • Pen Miller ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #22.
  • Prop Powers ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #26.
    • Unlike Uncle Sam's adversaries this month, or Pen Miller's "European-American" foes, Prop Powers' antagonists are clearly labeled as "Nazis." U.S. entry into WWII was still about a year in the future when this was published.
  • Quicksilver ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #5 to #73. National Comics itself only lasted for four issues after that.
    • Baron Hoff's Magno-Gyro aircraft could fasten itself to a bank building with a suction cup, and could adjust its propeller from overhead to frontal, while hovering in place near street level. It presumably ended up in NYPD custody.
    • Quicksilver breaks the Fourth Wall in the last panel of the last page, bursting thru a giant newspaper heralding his latest triumph, and announcing that he would return next issue.
  • Uncle Sam ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #45.
    • Several skyscrapers were knocked down, in two densely populated "American Military Zones," inflicting an unknown number of casualties. Afterwards, this is never mentioned again.
    • The foreign enemy's submersible aircraft-carrier crew are hooded and robed at all times, but their commander wears a conventional uniform, with a big peaked officer's cap and a monocle, and in moments of stress yells "Himmel!", so their national identity isn't really much of a mystery.
    • The foreign submariners are captured alive, a relatively rare outcome in a 1940 comic book.
  • Wonder Boy ran in National Comics Vol 1 from #1 to #26.
    • Closing caption: "Wonder Boy easily forces confessions out of the criminals .. they then face the extreme penalty, and now --- "
  • Also appearing in this issue of National Comics were:

Trivia


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