Police Comics #58 is an issue of the series Police Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 1946.
Synopsis for Plastic Man: "The Green Terror"
Woozy decides to play some sandlot baseball with a group of ragamuffins, but ends up hitting the ball so it crashes through a greenhouse. The kids scatter in fear, but Woozy makes to be a good sport and go ask for the ball back. The figure inside the greenhouse is too busy ranting about the destruction of his great experiment and exacting revenge on mankind for Woozy to get an answer about the ball, and he decides to come back later.
Plastic Man soon comes to collect his sidekick. There's a murder spree going on, all the victims having smothered to death and with a card simply reading "Mr. Green" found near the body. A sinister figure in a trenchcoat and hat leads Woozy away, promising to show him evidence that'll crack the case. Plas looks around for his wayward sidekick, but the only sidekick he manages to find is Ebony White shooting dice with his friends, and takes no notice.
Meanwhile, Woozy finds himself back at the greenhouse he visited before, and finds the owner loves plants so much, he made the study of them his life's work. So much so, he's experimented upon himself and taken on qualities of plant life as well. Mr. Green announces to Woozy his intention to overthrow mankind and let plants rule the world. All the murder victims were people who in one way or another helped his experiments, who had to be silenced so they couldn't tip anyone off as to his plans. The murder weapon was a custom-bred plant that smothered them with unbreathable carbon dioxide. Plastic Man meets the same sandlot baseball kids as before and agrees to play with them for a bit, deliberately missing a fly ball to let them have their fun, which smashes out another pane in Mr. Green's greenhouse. Going after it, Plas finds his sidekick beset by Green's menagerie of killer plants. The greenhouse catches fire in their struggle, and as Plas and Woozy escape the building, Green tries to kill the hero by catapulting a spear at him. Plas catches it and throws it back where it came from, impaling Mr. Green, who reverts to human form and regretting his evil deeds as he perishes.
Appearing in Plastic Man: "The Green Terror"
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- Green Terror (Dies)
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Synopsis for Flatfoot Burns: "The Monday Men Are Coming"
Flatfoot matches wits with the Monday Men, thieves who hold people's stolen laundry for ransom.
Appearing in Flatfoot Burns: "The Monday Men Are Coming"
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Synopsis for Human Bomb: "The Formez Robbery, Take Two"
A radio broadcast goes out that the crooks who just robbed the Formez Grocery missed a secret stash of $20,000. This was only a ploy by the Human Bomb's partner Hustace, to lure the crooks into coming back for the imaginary loot, but it works. Bomb catches them, but doesn't mind telling Hustace he pulled a stupidly risky stunt. He's more right than he realizes, as Pinky Hooley's gang heard the same radio broadcast and come looking to steal the imaginary $20k too. Fortunately Bomb hasn't gone far and crashes in to arrest these hoods too. Roy still thinks that was a dumb stunt his sidekick pulled, even though they got twice as many crooks off the street.
Appearing in Human Bomb: "The Formez Robbery, Take Two"
Featured Characters:
- Human Bomb (Final appearance)
Supporting Characters:
- Hustace Throckmorton (Final appearance)
Antagonists:
- Common criminals
- Pinky Hooley and his gang
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Synopsis for Candy: "The Dawson Realty Co."
Appearing in Candy: "The Dawson Realty Co."
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Supporting Characters:
- Theodore "Ted" Dawson
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Other Characters:
- Mr. Dawson (Ted's father)
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Synopsis for Manhunter: "The Killer Called Hatchet"
A hatchet-wielding killer slays Noonway the attorney. The cops come running, and pick up a gangley fellow named S.F.R. Lenk who immediately confesses to the murder. When Officer Richards delivers him to the chief, however, the senior cop is amused then orders Lenk out. Lenk always comes to the station and confesses anytime there's a murder, but it's always somebody else who did it, and the chief remonstrates Richards for wasting time bringing Lenk in and letting the real killer slip through their fingers. Dan protests he didn't know about Lenk's tendency, and the chief suspends Richards for a week for talking back. He doesn't realize this gives Dan a whole uninterrupted week to look into the case as Manhunter.
Manhunter goes to the scene of the crime to look for clues, only for the killer to be lying in wait and knock him out. Before he can finish off the hero, Noonway's widow drives by to see where her husband was murdered, scaring off the killer. She brings Manhunter back to her house and nurses him back to health. When asked by the mystery man if her husband had any enemies, she recalls the only time Noonway ever lost his temper in front of her was when he threw out Rufus Knell, another suitor of hers who vowed revenge.
Manhunter turns on the radio to see if there's any updates on the case, and happens to tune in to a station where he hears Lenk at his day job as a radio announcer. Lenk announcing that a sponsor's name is the adjective that describes their product backward, Manhunter gets a strange but very worrying hunch. When he confronts Lenk about the bizarre habit of confessing to murders, Lenk's called back into the booth before Manhunter learns much. Not long after, however, Mrs. Noonway gets a visit from Rufus Knell, who turns out to be Lenk. Manhunter confronts him again, pointing out that S.F.R Lenk is Rufus Knell backwards. The reason he made all those fake murder confessions was to make the police think he was just a crank, so that when he actually murdered his old rival in love, they'd automatically dismiss him as a suspect. Manhunter lays Lenk out with a punch, and this time the police do arrest him for murder.
Appearing in Manhunter: "The Killer Called Hatchet"
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- Noonway (Dies)
- Mrs. Noonway
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Synopsis for Spirit: "The Case of the Headless Burglar"
Out by the cemetery, Spirit and Ebony sees what looks like a headless man walking past and give chase. They lose sight of their quarry but run into Commissioner Dolan, who was also trailing the headless man. Seems the specter had stolen the Von Gelt Diamonds. They find what appears to be the entrance to his hideout, but get a blast of tear gas in the face while the headless man gets away. Spirit makes some plaster casts of the headless man's footprints, and from how small they are, figures it must be Half-Pint Harry, the dwarf burglar.
Following up the Spirit's suspicions, they visit Harry's moll to see if he's hiding out at her place. While Commissioner Dolan argues with an uncooperative Maizie, Spirit spots Harry sneaking in the back and pursues him. He finds a series of fake heads set up on the stair railing, one of which pops and releases tear gas, but Spirit came prepared with a gas mask this time. He funnels a cloud of the gas into the room where Harry's hiding and flushes him out. The headless getup, Spirit figures out, was to make Harry look like a man of normal height to throw suspicion off the midget criminal, and scare the pants off of any of his robbery victims who might've spotted him in the act.
Appearing in Spirit: "The Case of the Headless Burglar"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Ebony White
- Commissioner Dolan
Antagonists:
- Half-Pint Harry, the Headless Burglar
Other Characters:
- Maizie-the-Dip
Locations:
- Will Eisner's The Spirit
- Central City
- Wildwood Cemetery
- Central City
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Notes
- Last issue for the Human Bomb by Paul Gustavson.
- Plastic Man: "The Green Terror" is reprinted in Plastic Man Archives Vol. 5.
- Also featured in this issue of Police Comics were:
- Dewey Drip by Bernard Dibble
- Dick Mace: "The Butcher" (text story)
- Specks by Michael Senich
See Also
Links and References
