Nickel Comics #2 is an issue of the series Nickel Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of May, 1940. It was published on May 17, 1940.
Synopsis for Bulletman: "Who Is Bulletman?"
Bulletman has been in business for several weeks now. Whatever city he lives in, the Trumpet is the local paper, published by Stephen Doone. Bulletman uses early-Superman-style strongarm tactics to shake this creep down, in a dispute over an unpaid posted reward, and seemingly earns himself a lifetime of bad publicity in the process.
In his civilian identity, while examining the late Dr. Danton, Jim Barr finds an extremely improbable clue, which leads him to arrive at the Fifth National Bank at just the right time to suspect an impending robbery, and to conceal himself in the vault, and to change clothes, and set an ambush. Robbers soon show up, to steal Dr. Danton's deadly freezing gas formula from a safe-deposit box. Bulletman is bulletproof, and he rips a huge slab out of the bank's floor and uses it to block the front door, then chases most of the robbers into the vault, but the one with the formula slips out thru the front door, and drives away! Bulletman can't chase him, because armed gangsters are still in the bank with the civilians, so he chases them back into the vault, and they lock themselves in, and he's not quite strong enough to open the vault, but he does hear them identify Blackmask as their boss.
Since he can't open the vault, Bulletman yanks the whole vault out of the bank, and smashes as many walls as it takes to pull it out into the open and fly away with it. Seems like the whole building should fall down about now, but it doesn't. He tosses the vault into a river; it floods through the ventilators; the crooks open the door; he grabs one and flies away with him, until the crook points out Blackmask's farmhouse hideout. Blackmask has already cooked up a batch of the freezing gas and loaded it into grenades, and as Bulletman lands, a capsule of freezing gas explodes at his feet, putting him into a frozen sleep, and the badguys quickly tie him up and carry him to the attic to murder him, instead of doing so right away, and their boss tells them to hurry up and murder him, but also is just now leaving for the city, and doesn't stick around to help or supervise or even gloat. Unsupervised, Bulletman wakes up, and can't break the ordinary-looking ropes, but he can levitate himself up to the rafters, lift the roof loose from the farmhouse, and THEN burst his ropes. He rounds up one batch of thugs and drops them at the jail; the rest of the bank vault thugs must have gotten away by now.
Next day at the police lab, Jim spends the day developing an antidote for the freezing gas, and he has a big canister of it ready by quitting time. Blackmask's gang attacks the neighboring city of Linkville, and is looting it. Bulletman and his big canister of freezing-gas-antidote flies to the rescue, and is machine-gun-attacked by a 2-engine bomber while he zooms about, cropdusting the town. Soon local citizens start to revive, and turn the tables on the looters. Then Bulletman snaps off a big steel flagpole, and smacks the bomber to pieces, almost certainly killing its crew. As it will soon turn out, Blackmask wasn't aboard the plane at the time.
Appearing in Bulletman: "Who Is Bulletman?"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Dr. Danton (Appears only as a corpse)
Locations:
- New York City (not yet identified)
- Linkville
Items:
- Gravity Regulator Helmet
- Danton's deadly Freezing Gas Formula
- Barr's Freezing Gas Antidote
Synopsis for Jungle Twins: "The Vengeance of Ali-Bekr"
The craven Ali-Bekr is standing directly behind Bill Dale, preparing to stab the unconscious Steve Dale in the chest with a spear. Directly in front of Bill is the spitting cobra, which squirts a flying wad of venom at his face, but Bill ducks, and the venom hits Ali-Bekr. Blinded, the slave trader tries to bring his spear to bear, but Bill punches him until he runs away, yelling for his gang. Bill unties Steve, then fireman-carries him into the jungle, following his Pygmy guide Dagoo.
Ali-Bekr soon recovers his vision and his nerve, rallies his riffs, and gives chase. Dagoo and Bill are attacked by an enormous eagle, and after a terrible struggle they barely escape from it. An elephant charges out of the bush and attacks them; Bill shoots it thru the eye, killing it. This animal turns out to be only a calf, and its titanic mother elephant charges out of the forest. Just before this beast tramples Bill, Steve regains consciousness, and yells commands at the elephant in a strange, little-known jungle dialect, "VAYANA GONDA!" The elephant obediently stops. Steve climbs aboard its gigantic head and, having no memory of Bill being his brother, rides away alone into the jungle.
As soon as Steve leaves, Ali-Bekr and his Tourag raiders catch up to Bill and Dagoo, and capture them. Under the whip, they march along under the blazing sun, doomed to be sold into slavery. Ali-Bekr has taken an interest in these elephants, and wants to start killing them for their ivory, and is now pursuing the tusker that Steve rides. Ali-Bekr directs his men to only wound the elephant, so that she will lead them to the legendary Elephants' Graveyard. They comply, and the giant beast leads them out of the veldt and into some bleak and rocky territory. In one canyon are a large number of large skeletons, including many huge tusks of valuable ivory. Unexpectedly the wounded elephant turns and attacks Ali-Bekr's party; they gun it down. But just then Steve, riding another giant elephant, and leading a charge of many more giant elephants, gallops into the canyon. The Arab riflemen manage to wound Steve, who falls from his mount, as the now-leaderless elephants rampage thru the small valley. Bill and Dagoo and the Arabs flee, hotly pursued by the berserk herd of monsters.
Appearing in Jungle Twins: "The Vengeance of Ali-Bekr"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Dagoo
Antagonists:
- Ali-Bekr
- his gang of Tourag slavers
Locations:
- Africa
- River of Skulls
- Region Beyond the River of Skulls
- Elephants' Graveyard
- Region Beyond the River of Skulls
- River of Skulls
Animals:
- giant sparrow
- giant eagle
- elephants
- giant elephants
Synopsis for Warlock the Wizard: "The Curse of Kor Deno"
One day in "the forest of evil", Warlock the Wizard encounters two young lovers, and the girl (Valya) is under a terrible family curse, where she can't get married, lest her boyfriend get killed by a demon monster. This demon, Kor Deno, Lord of the Black Kingdom, has already carried off the girl's old nurse and several other people. Warlock the Wizard challenges this demon. The demon sends, or becomes, a big black stormcloud, with wolfheads and snakefaces all over it, but the Wizard holds high his magic wand, the Golden Hand, and shouts the mystic word of power which serves him "ABRAXAS!" and the hand gets real big, and grabs the demon monster, and strangles it until, with a crackle of lighting, the sky-monster abruptly vanishes.
But as soon as Warlock has left them alone, the two young lovers are snatched by a giant birdlike flying monster, and flown away. The Wizard sends his raven Hugin to find the demon's lair, and follows for several miles thru the woods. In the midst of an old graveyard, Warlock sees a half-ruined abbey, built a century before, and now abandoned and desolate. The gravestones expand and form a complicated maze, imprisoning Warlock, who pulls out a large spool of thread, and it unwinds itself, rolling thru the maze, guiding Warlock out of it. When he reaches the abbey, a strange gnomish old man comes forth and accosts him. He calls himself Simon the Hermit and claims to have lived in the abbey for years. Simon opens a concealed trap door and leads Warlock down a winding stairway thru the rock, reaching a big flaming threshold, the gateway to the Black Kingdom.
They leap in thru the flames, and wend thru a forest of huge misshapen toadstools, until an army of phantom warriors appears overhead, brandishing spears, which they fling at the two. The Wizard again conjures the big Golden Hand, and it deflects the spears. The warriors vanish. The Wizard and the Hermit reach a cliff, with a rope ladder hanging down from it. Warlock immediately starts climbing down. He's attacked by a vulture AND the rope breaks, so he grabs the vulture by the feet and by the beak, and uses it for a parachute, safely reaching the ground. Here there are a bunch of still-alive statues, including Jim and Valya, and a big door with "Kor Deno" painted on it.
Warlock goes thru the door and there's Simon the Hermit on a big throne. Kor Deno, in his own lair, cannot be harmed by Warlock's magic. The demon proposes a bargain: Warlock should give him the Golden Hand, and he can go free. The Wizard wants to take the other prisoners with him, and Kor Deno doesn't actually agree to that, but Warlock hands over the Golden Hand, and casually picks up a few pebbles from the ground. Meanwhile Hugin quietly flies out of the scene, on an errand, then Kor Deno's weird servants carry Warlock out, thru the Black Kingdom, to the surface of the Earth. Back in the Forest of Evil, Warlock pulls out the pebbles and whispers a mysterious magic spell, and they turn into living people, the formerly enstatuated prisoners from Kor Deno's anteroom, whom he had stealthily transmogrified into pebbles while the demon was gloating.
But by now the demon has figured out all that, and he brings his phantom army to the forest. But Hugin's side-errand turns out to be that he went back to the Warlock's home in the city, and fetched the Mystic Lamp of the Gods, with which Warlock the Wizard conjures up a sky full of lightning, with which he blows up Kor Deno, who vanishes, dropping the Golden Hand.
Appearing in Warlock the Wizard: "The Curse of Kor Deno"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Hugin, a raven
Antagonists:
- Kor Deno, a demon (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Valya
- her boyfriend
Locations:
- Forest of Evil
- old graveyard
- half-ruined abbey
- old graveyard
- Black Kingdom
Items:
- the Golden Hand
- the Mystic Lamp of the Gods
Notes
- Nickel Comics is published every other Friday by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
- Bulletman:
- Blackmask is a super criminal whose identity has long baffled police. These are the same police that haven't noticed that lab nerd "Bullet" Barr is now several inches taller and 60 lbs more muscular, so probably a lot of things baffle them, and for long periods of time.
- Bulletman smacked that flying bomber to pieces, and we don't see any parachutes come out of it.
- Warlock the Wizard:
- Caption confirms that the demon Kor Deno was slain by the lightning strike.
See Also