Police Comics #12 is an issue of the series Police Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of October, 1942.
Synopsis for Plastic Man: "The Sinister Swami"
Lowlife criminal Looie blackmails model Rita Johns with his knowledge that she's secretly bald, until her dog turns out to be Plastic Man in disguise. The pliable hero roughs up Looie and warns him to stay well clear of Rita, or he'll get worse. Looie remonstrates his astrological adviser for the advice he gives always going bust, leading to the swami declaring that Plastic Man's too much of a wild card for him to give accurate predictions. To get rid of him, Looie offers a $10k bounty on the hero's head. Gangs of crooks attempt to assassinate Plastic Man, but Looie sees through his disguise when the hero tries to get the drop him by posing as a hood coming for the reward, and knocks him out with a jet of gas.
Looie puts Plastic Man in a tank of water to drown him, but the hero's saved when a hunchbacked old man surreptitiously knocks out the swami and impersonates him, giving Looie a tip that has him running straight into the arms of the police. The old man turns out to be Rita Johns, who couldn't let Plastic Man die after what he did for her before. Later she visits Looie in jail, who tries to blow her secret, only to find out she has a head of real, healthy hair how. She gives Looie the card of the scalp doctor responsible, since he's losing his own hair with all the stress he's been under.
Appearing in Plastic Man: "The Sinister Swami"
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- Looie
- The Swami
- Numerous underworld killers
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- Rita Johns
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Synopsis for 711: "Carl Von Spunk's Pottery Plot"
A pair of Nazi spies hide their secret communique in the sides of pottery, but are discovered and arrested by 711.
Appearing in 711: "Carl Von Spunk's Pottery Plot"
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Synopsis for Firebrand: "Fifth Column Hospital"
Appearing in Firebrand: "Fifth Column Hospital"
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- Joan Rogers
- Slugger Dunn
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Synopsis for Steele Kerrigan: "The Theft of the Montague Diamond"
Appearing in Steele Kerrigan: "The Theft of the Montague Diamond"
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Synopsis for Manhunter: "Peril In a Candy Factory"
Kit Kelly takes a group of kids to see how candy gets made, but after hearing an ear-piercing scream, Officer Richards rushes inside to find nobody there. Until he comes back as Manhunter, whereupon a cake baster suddenly spells out "Beware Manhunter" in icing. He finds a secret passage, then finds himself beset by a giant guard, but plays possum to find out what's going on. The villainess operating from this secret hideout explains the kidnapped victims are on a remote-controlled boat bound for Turkey to be sold as slaves. They try to drown Manhunter, but he uses Thor's collar to bind the giant and villainess together by their ankles so they fall into the water themselves. The hero then extorts the henchmen operating the boat to turn it around in exchange for saving the others' lives.
Appearing in Manhunter: "Peril In a Candy Factory"
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Synopsis for The Spirit: "The Black Queen"
Appearing in The Spirit: "The Black Queen"
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Synopsis for Phantom Lady: "The Tank Factory Sabotage"
Appearing in Phantom Lady: "The Tank Factory Sabotage"
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Synopsis for Chic Carter: "Captain Blackwolf's Crew of Corpses"
Appearing in Chic Carter: "Captain Blackwolf's Crew of Corpses"
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- Detective Monahan
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Synopsis for The Mouthpiece: "The Waterfront Monster"
A gang of three German saboteurs commit a series of murders in the Navy Yard, leaving the bodies out in gruesome displays, to demoralize the workers. One of these malcontents is "Underwaterman", who uses modified diving equipment to play the part of a monster.
District Attorney Bill Perkins masks himself up as The Mouthpiece, investigating the Navy Yard by night. After some hunting and hiding and fighting, the gang unmasks the Mouthpiece, and recognize him as D.A. Perkins. He escapes them and they chase him into the city's sewer system, where he traps them in a watertight underground chamber, and floods it. They all drown, preserving his secret identity.
Appearing in The Mouthpiece: "The Waterfront Monster"
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- Underwaterman (Dies)
- two henchmen (Dies)
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- Waterfront
Synopsis for The Human Bomb: "The Liebestraum Code"
Jean's complaining to Roy how sick she is of Hungarian goulash, with how they've come to the same place for lunch every day that week. What she doesn't know is Roy's convinced the restaurant's pianist is secretly passing along secrets in code. He pretends to threaten Jean for not paying for the food to cause a distraction, making a bunch of red-blooded men jump to her defense, while a bunch of sailors having lunch also jump into the brawl to help protect a fellow Navy man.
Roy has Jean run the sheet music down to the intelligence department while he tails the pianist and an accomplice to a hideout, where he finds out that Nazis are indeed using the piano music at that restaurant to send coded messages. After blowing up their hideout and killing the spies, he makes sure a doctored transmission goes out as the last part of the chain of relayed messages, allowing enemy ships to be intercepted and bombed.
Appearing in The Human Bomb: "The Liebestraum Code"
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Notes
- Published by Comic Magazines, Inc.
- Firebrand: Captions now refer to Slugger as Rod's shipmate.
- Mouthpiece: In the final panel, Bill Perkins breaks the Fourth Wall and gloats to the reader about having kept his big secret a secret.
- Plastic Man: "The Sinister Swami" is reprinted in Plastic Man Archives Vol. 1.
- Also featured in this issue of Police Comics were:
- Burp The Twerp: "Burp Tries To Enlist" by Jack Cole
- Dewey Drip, art by John Devlin
- "Message From Allah" (text story, featuring Dick Mace) by Robert M. Hyatt
- Super Snooper by Gill Fox
See Also
Links and References
