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"Star-Spangled Kid: "Citadel of Crime"": Breezy is a young orphan who helps Sylvester and Pat fight off two would-be kidnappers. The boy's arm is broken in the process. While he's healing in the hospital, Sylvester's parents invite the lad to stay with them at their mansion. Professor Stanton st

Star-Spangled Comics #6 is an issue of the series Star-Spangled Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1942.

Synopsis for Star-Spangled Kid: "Citadel of Crime"

Breezy is a young orphan who helps Sylvester and Pat fight off two would-be kidnappers. The boy's arm is broken in the process. While he's healing in the hospital, Sylvester's parents invite the lad to stay with them at their mansion. Professor Stanton stops by to get Sylvester's opinion on the book he finally finished writing, about a radical new theory he came up with. Of course the boy genius merely browses through the pages to find major problems and discrepancies with Stanton's theory. Coincidentally, the professor has also been looking for Breezy. Once he learns that the orphan is staying with the Pembertons, he drinks his formula that transforms him into Dr. Weerd.

Dr. Weerd has Breezy framed for pickpocketing. Breezy gets sentenced to live at a private Orphanage called the Sunnydale Home . It is of course, secretly run by Dr. Weerd, and is run more like a prison for children than a loving orphanage. The doctor and his gang are trying to get Breezy to sign his name on a document. It is actually an inheritance letter that he unknowingly received from his family. Sylvester, as the Star-Spangled Kid, infiltrates the orphanage disguised as one of the boys, and stops Breezy from signing away his right to a fortune. Dr. Weerd angrily attacks his costumed nemesis, who calls for his partner Pat Dugan, a.k.a. Stripesy, for assistance. Meanwhile, Breezy goes and sets all the kids free so they can help in the fight! Dr. Weerd escapes out a window, his plan a failure.

In court the next day, Mr. Pemberton asks the judge for permission to build a home for troubled children where they can learn to be good citizens in society, called "Freedomland". He and Mrs. Pemberton also announce to Breezy that they are officially going to adopt him into the Pemberton family. Later, Breezy tells Pat and Sylvester that he believes families should be honest with one another, and not keep secrets, letting on that he may know about their secret identities as crime fighters.

Appearing in Star-Spangled Kid: "Citadel of Crime"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Dr. Weerd
  • Marvin Dudley (Single appearance)
  • Gus (Single appearance)
  • Mike (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Link (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

  • Weerd Formula
  • Paralysis Gun

Vehicles:


Synopsis for Armstrong of the Army: "Menace of the Jungle Cats"

A pack of jaguars are attacking the Army's camp set up in Costa Blanca. The cats are too crafty to deal with using normal means, leading Captain Quinn to believe there is a human behind it. He summons Lieutenant Armstrong for help. Armstrong and the Captain track the jaguars using specially trained dogs, and find that it is indeed a person who has trained the cats to do his bidding. Professor Jung runs off, chased by Armstrong while Captain Quinn returns to the camp to gather reinforcements.

Armstrong gets captured and taken to an underground cave by the sea where Professoir Jung plans to escape. He speaks to his trained jaguars, telling them to kill Armstrong once he leaves. Armstrong notices the language Jung uses, it's German, and tries speaking a counter command to the cats. It works. They tear Jung apart and leave him for dead. But they also go after Lieutenant Armstrong as well! But before they can get their teeth and claws into him, the captain and his reinforcements show up, with repeating rifles, and eliminate the jaguars.

Searching through Jung's belongings, an ID and a newspaper clipping identify him as an animal tamer, one of the greatest in the world! Armstrong tells Captain Quinn that Jung trained the cats to understand German commands, and so when he ordered them to kill him, Armstrong tried a command in German to get them to attack Jung instead.

Appearing in Armstrong of the Army: "Menace of the Jungle Cats"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • The Army
    • Captain Quinn (Single appearance)

Antagonists:

  • Professor Mannfred Otto Jung (Single appearance; dies)

Animals:

  • Cougar Dogs
  • Jaguars

Locations:

Vehicles:

  • Army Transport Plane

Synopsis for Tarantula: "The Menace of Bandana Bardon"

A Wild West show blows into town, but the police confront Bardon, the owner, with a warrant for having swindled it from the original owner. Fancying himself a modern Western outlaw, Bardon engages in a crime spree across town. Sheriff Merrit, an old enemy of Bardon's, arrives in town and Bardon sneaks into his hotel room and throws Merritt out the window. Fortunately Merritt is saved by the Tarantula, but before he can capture Bardon, the hotel's house detective hears the noise and busts the Tarantula over the head, mistaking the masked man for a thief. Tarantula recovers but by then the real criminal is long gone.

Bardon sneaks back to where Merritt is recovering, afraid of being identified for some reason even though the police are already hunting him. The convalescent sheriff turns out to be Tarantula in disguise, and after a merry chase Bardon gets bonked on the head falling out of a motorcycle and surrenders.

Appearing in Tarantula: "The Menace of Bandana Bardon"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Sheriff Merritt (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

Synopsis for Penniless Palmer: "Introducing Penniless Palmer"

A Wanted poster for Link the Slink hangs on the wall of Penniless Palmer's detective agency. Bunny, his secretary, tells Penniless to try going after Link so they could make some money and pay the rent. Bored of reading crime novel, and very much annoyed at his assistant, Oxie, for leaving his banana peels on the floor, Penniless Palmer agrees with Bunny. And he has an idea on how to lure Link to him.

Bunny's father, a rich socialite, holds a gala that will surely grab the attention of Link the Slink. Of course Link sneaks in, just as Penniless planned, and goes for the safe hidden behind a painting upstairs. A trap has been set, though. A trapdoor to be more precise. Link the Slink tumbles down a chute, landing in a cage! Oxie frisks him for weapons, but forgets to check the guitar case that Link brought with him.

Penniless brings the caged crook to the gala to show him to the chief of police, who gives him a five thousand dollar reward then and there. Link the Slink grabs a machine gun out of the guitar case and forces Penniless to hand over the reward money. He blows the cage door open and runs out of the room. But, in a twist of fate, a lone banana peel left on the steps trips the crook. Penniless and the chief are on top of him! The police take the Slink away and Penniless recovers his reward. But he decides to donate all of it to the U.S.O., feeling that because Link slipped on a banana peel, he shouldn't really take credit for capturing him.

Penniless doesn't realize until afterwards that the banana peel was most likely the work of his oafish assistant, Oxie.

Appearing in Penniless Palmer: "Introducing Penniless Palmer"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Link the Slink (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Colonel South (First appearance)
  • Police Chief Cassidy (Single appearance)

Items:

  • The Sultan Diamond

Synopsis for Captain X: "The Decoy Air Raid"

An air raid siren shrieks in London, bombs go off. Buck Dare rescues a woman from being blasted. She seems at first to be delirious, she tells John that she just regained her memories. She's had amnesia for two years and the Gestapo agents made her believe she was a Nazi spy! In her previous state, she had sent a fleet of convoy ships carrying secret plans and supplies on a course towards Germany. The Nazis are going to attack the ships with their submarines, and they were doing it today. Buck hurries to his hidden hangar in the hills. He changes to Captain X and climbs aboard his invisible plastic plane Jenny, while his mechanic Stuffy calls out that he left his axe in the cockpit... but the plane and its pilot were already gone.

At the Nazis' naval base in Kiev, Germany, Captain X starts rolling some heads, punching and kicking his way to a mounted cannon at the edge of the dock. He starts firing shells at the moored U-Boats, sinking them one after the other. Submarines break rank and begin firing back with their deck guns. Captain X finds a rack holding torpedo shells and topples them; they roll off the runway into the air and smash onto the decks of the subs. The remaining boats head out into the ocean to escape.

Captain X flies over the Atlantic, searching for signs of the U-Boats. Jutting out of the water are periscopes. The flying Captain finds Stuffy's axe on the floor of the cockpit and, with it in hand, begins to perform a most daring maneuver. He flies low, leans out over the side of his plane, and begins smashing the glass of each periscope with the axe! The Nazis are blinded, and have no choice but to surface, and surrender to the heavy guns of the American convoy fleet.

Buck Dare visits the hospital a few hours later, to inform the woman that he heard the daring pilot Captain X foiled the Nazi plot, and all was well.

Appearing in Captain X: "The Decoy Air Raid"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Stuffy

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • A woman (Unnamed) (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

  • Stuffy's Axe

Vehicles:

Synopsis for Star-Spangled Kid: "The Plot to Destroy the Statue of Liberty"

France, heavily occupied by Nazis, yet still fighting back thanks to the Underground Forces that use the image of the Statue of Liberty as their symbol. Hitler is furious and orders his Gestapo leader in France to do something about the rebels. Herr Hunt believes that the best way to smash the rebellions spirit is by smashing their symbol: Lady Liberty, herself. One of his men, actually a spy, transmits a message to America's own heroes, the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy.

The heroes do, in fact, receive the transmission from the radio in Sylvester Pemberton's lab above the garage. Sylvester responds, and is told about the Nazi plan to destroy the Statue of Liberty, before the transmission is cut short. Their contact had been found and killed. Herr Hunt and his four best agents try in their own fashion to attack the statue; an earthquake machine, whose operator tries to capture the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy in a current of electricity, but is shocked instead after a punch from the kid knocks him backwards. Next a submarine with a wind maker, that has its wind bounced back to its source thanks to the capabilities of the Star Rocket Racer. One of the agents tries using a destructive beam fired from his boat, but the Star Rocket rams through the vessel, destroying the ray gun. The duo notice activity on their scope, coming from inside the statue. They land at Lady Liberty's base and head in to find one of the Gestapo with a time bomb! They easily knock the agent out, but the bomb is still ticking. Sylvester quickly hurls it into the water, where it goes off harmlessly. But there is one more agent to deal with, Herr Hunt himself, and he flies above in a large plane with a claw attached. He was going to pull the statue off her base entirely! The Racer and Herr Hunt's plane engage in aerial combat.

In France, news broadcasts announce that the Nazis have succeeded in destroying the Statue of Liberty, crushing the hope of any underground rebels who listen. But the broadcast is premature, for soon Sylvester and Stripesy do manage to ram their Star Rocket Racer into Herr Hunt's plane, destroying it and saving the statue. The correction is made in a newsflash, and all of France cheers! The Fuhrer is naturally furious at being made a fool of. It's another victory for the Allied Forces, and a loss for the Nazi Party.

Appearing in Star-Spangled Kid: "The Plot to Destroy the Statue of Liberty"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Adolf Hitler
  • Nazi Party
    • Herr Hunt (Head of Gestapo in France) (Single appearance)
    • Schwein (Single appearance; dies)
    • Blitz (Single appearance)
    • Pheffer (Single appearance; dies)
    • Krieg (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Carl Schultz (Single appearance; dies)

Locations:

Vehicles:

Notes

  • This is the last issue to feature multiple Star-Spangled Kid stories.
  • The Tarantula gets another concussion.



See Also


Links and References

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