Gone! Now I know who he really was! The Genii of Mischief and Laughter! That's why he could make everyone laugh so ... HEY! I'm on fire! That little rascal gave me a hotfoot! 
Ibis #5 is an issue of the series Ibis (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 1946.
Synopsis for "The Devil's Ibistick"
In a lonely grotto, Azaroth convenes a conclave of evil beings, laying diabolical plans, when Prince Ibis casually walks in among them for a confrontation. Azaroth orders his evil minions to attack, but Ibis opens the ground beneath them and they plunge into the Inferno. Azaroth's harsh-disciplinarian boss is on his way here, so in a panic he lunges at Ibis, who punches him to the ground, then magically makes him burst with the weight of his own sins, leaving only a bad smell. No sooner does Ibis leave than a pillar of fire and smoke erupt from the ground, and The Master of Evil steps forth, in his tuxedo and red cape, learns what has happened, by animating a nearby oak tree, then summons Beelzebub, the last of his chief lieutenants, to discover the secret of the making of the Ibistick.
The next day Ibis and Taia are at the museum meeting with the curator about loaning him a lot of Ibis' artifacts for display. They leave. That night, Beelzebub appears, and starts fiddling with some mummy wrappings, some dust from a flask, and other items, working up some wicked magic. He burns some relics and intones some rites and invokes the name of Lucifer, and time-travels back to the time when Ibis first received his Ibistick. There/then, he invisibly observes as an elderly high priest removes the Ibistick from a six-armed idol of Thoth and entrusts it to Ibis, who vows to use it only for good. The vengeance of Thoth would be terrible, were this not the case. But there's a new wrinkle: "Know this, my son! Only one other Ibistick exists in all this world! It lies buried in the tomb of our greatest pharaoh, Cheo Ra Tep !" Armed with this knowledge, Beelzebub returns to 1946, and slips out of the museum undetected. A guard finds and extinguishes his small magical fire, and brings it to the attention of the curator who brings it to the attention of Ibis and Taia, and Ibis figures out what's going on from examining the ashes. Later in his apartment Ibis consults a book on demonology and confirms his suspicions, correctly deducing the identity and plans of his demonic opponents. Using the Ibistick he transports himself to the buried and still-undiscovered pyramid of Cheo Ra Tep, where he finds cloven hoofprints. Not far away, Beelzebub has just found and stolen the Other Ibistick, when Ibis catches up he tries to use it against him, and Ibis tries to use his against Beelzebub; neither one works. They fight physically, that's pretty much a draw also. Beelzebub summons a demonic squad of monsters and uses his Ibistick to magically protect them from Ibis' white magic. They converge on Ibis, who fights them physically, while Beelzebub runs out of the room and into another, where he encounters the giant six-armed form of Thoth, who smashes him like an insect. Ibis either defeats all the monsters or they die as a result of Beelzebub's death; Ibis runs into the next room and finds dead Beelzebub but no trace of the second Ibistick. He hears the voice of Thoth: "The Devil's Ibistick is destroyed! Go, Ibis, and follow the path of peace!" Ibis magically returns to his modern apartment and tells all this to Taia while she bandages up his wounds from the monster-fight.
Appearing in "The Devil's Ibistick"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Azaroth
- lesser demons
- The Master Of Evil
- Beelzebub
Other Characters:
- Thoth
- unnamed elderly high priest of Thoth
- museum director
- museum night watchman
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- the museum where Ibis now displays his royal artifacts
- Ibis' palace in ancient Thebes, circa 2000 BC
- Pharaoh Cheo Ra Tep's tomb, location unknown
- New York City
Items:
- the Ibistick of Prince Amentep
- the other Ibistick of Pharoah Cheo Ra Tep
Synopsis for "Fairy Genii"
In Fairyland, Zurti the mischievous genii plays annoying pranks on King Oberon and other fairies until Oberon loses his temper and banishes him to Earth. On a rainy day in the big city Zurti meets Ibis and Taia, and gets hit by a car, but Ibis turns the car to rubber just before impact, and back again afterward. Zurti hates it on Earth and decides he needs to do a good deed, in order to get back into Fairyland. Ibis quietly follows and observes him. That night Zurti encounters a burglar, with cheap burglar tools, failing to break into the front door of a jewelry store; Zurti naively helps him do so with a magical spell. The burglar loads up a satchel with gems, then asks Zurti to help him open the safe, but Ibis walks in and gives the safe arms to defend itself, and magically kapoofs the burglar and his loot into a jail cell. Ibis confronts the genii, who is so embarrassed to find out about his mistake that he vanishes in a puff of smoke. Ibis invisibly transports himself to Zurti's next location, which turns out to be an Italian restaurant, where he eats a prodigious amount of food, complaining about it the whole time. Guiseppe the very frustrated chef has a tantrum about the situation, and Zurti decides to do a good deed by cooking up the most wonderful dish he knows. Just as he's finishing, Mr. Richmore the evil mortgage banker, in his tuxedo and top hat, arrives to grab Guiseppe by his handlebar mustache and bully him over his overdue mortgage payment. Zurti offers Richmore a taste of his wonderful cuisine, which nearly kills him; Ibis has to intervene to save the old scoundrel's life because a Fairy potion can be fatal to mortals. Richmore promises to make legal trouble for Guiseppe, and Ibis suggests Zurti could do a good deed by smoothing over that problem, but Zurti can't do it without his magic pipes, so Ibis conjures up the flute, and the two men negotiate a new deal with better terms for Guiseppe. While Ibis is pronouncing this to be a satisfactory resolution, Zurti gives him a hotfoot.
Appearing in "Fairy Genii"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Richmore, a greedy banker
Other Characters:
- King Oberon
- Zurti, the Genii of Mischief and Laughter
- Guiseppe, a struggling restaurateur
Locations:
Items:
- the Ibistick of Prince Amentep
- Magic pipes of Zurti the Genii
Synopsis for Mystic Moot and His Magic Snoot: "Sentenced to Fry"
Appearing in Mystic Moot and His Magic Snoot: "Sentenced to Fry"
Featured Characters:
- Mystic Moot
Antagonists:
- Speeder McBleeder, the big gang leader
- rival gangster
- convict
Other Characters:
- Judge Grudge
- cop
- prison guard
- Warden Borden
Locations:
- big city
- Briglouse Big House
Synopsis for "Talon of Terror"
Scientist and experimenter Jason Reliom, in his crumbling old plantation house next to a miasmic swamp, has performed over a hundred autopsies on alligators, seeking the secret of telepathy, which he knows they have. As he rants, a huge lizard face watches him thru the window, then vanishes. The next day out in the swamp with his really large rifle, Reliom shoots another gator, then is attacked by a dinosaur-sized upright-walking lizard, which retreats when Jason shoots it, leaving behind one enormous talon, which has apparently been shot off. Several days pass, during which Reliom becomes convinced that he knows what the monster is thinking (about revenge, of course), so he crates up the talon and mails it to his friend Ibis. Several days later the box arrives at Ibis' apartment and his Ibistick vibrates to warn Ibis of evil. Ibis and Taia go visit Reliom's home and find him inside, dead, amid signs of a violent struggle, and with a scrawled note: "He doesn't need to talk ...... " This is puzzling to them, but Ibis resolves that the next day he will venture into the swamp and exact revenge. That night the shambling creature returns to Reliom's house, flings Ibis across a room, grabs the crate containing its lost talon, and Taia, and lurches back out into the swamp. Ibis rallies up, gets his Ibistick, and pursues. He magics up some shoes that walk on water, and magics his way past a pack of alligators by turning them against each other, but a large constricting snake jumps him and makes him drop the Ibistick, which a rat grabs and races away. Soon Ibis is being carried into the swamp, unconscious, on the back of an alligator; it's clear that these animals are acting under some outside control.
Ibis regains consciousness in a cave, Taia and the monster are both there, as is the Ibistick and the severed talon, which the big lizard is trying to reattach to itself. Ibis reviews some earlier events and decides that the monster is telepathic, and has Taia solve some math problems in her head, while he attempts to regain the Ibistick. As soon as he's got it, he conjures up a second giant telepathic lizard, and they fight each other until both are dead. The talon ends up in a glass case in Ibis' trophy room.
Appearing in "Talon of Terror"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- unnamed giant lizard (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Jason Reliom (Dies)
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Miasmic Swamp
Items:
- the Ibistick of Prince Amentep
Synopsis for "Loch Ness Dragon"
Ibis and Taia in a rowboat are fishing on Loch Ness and just not catching anything at all, and Taia just won't give up, so Ibis does a little bit of stealthy magicking to get one poor fish to bite, then he rows them back to Evelina's Boarding House on the shore. Meanwhile at Evelina's Michael O'Bier has shown up with a bouquet of flowers and a romantic question for Evelina, but gets rudely chased away by his rival for her affections, mean-looking Tom Taggert, owner of the biggest fishing sloop in the village. Evelina wants no part of Tom and invites him to leave, which he does after making some vaguely threatening remarks. Evelina confides her problem to Taia who puts Ibis onto the case. But first, oddly, a large crowd has gathered in the small village square; Ibis checks this out. It's a fistfight, Tom versus Michael, and dirty Tom packs some brass knuckles; Ibis turns these to cotton. Michael flings Tom to the ground, clearly the better fighter; Tom's back-up plan is to wager on tomorrow's fishing haul, with the loser to leave the village and never see Evelina again. To rig the contest, Taggert sends a henchman to keep O'Bier's netman from reporting for work the following day, which he does by konking him on the head and leaving him in an alley. Next morning, all the fishing boats but Michael's have embarked an hour ago when Ibis gets to the dock and finds out about the problem, and volunteers to fill in as netman today. He's pretty efficient at it too, even without using the Ibistick, which his ethics prevent his doing.
Seeing this thru binoculars, Taggart sends his netman over the side with a knife, to slice O'Bier's net; he does so, but right away a tentacle reaches up from the depths and drags him down to the bubbling depth of a watery grave. O'Bier pulls in his sliced net and misattributes the damage to the Loch Ness Dragon, but Ibis points out that the cut is too clean for anything but knifework, then he uses the Ibistick to mend the net. Just then the Loch Ness Monster heaves itself to the surface and attacks O'Bier's boat; Taggert's boat is nearby but he cravenly flees the scene. O'Bier is snatched into the air by a tentacle, but Ibis magicks up some giant hands to pry him free, then a giant fishing rod and a giant hook, which they bait with a big netful of fish, and Ibis goes angling for the Dragon, which snaps at the bait right away. After a colossal fight, the great water beast lies dead just under the surface of the Loch. So back at the dock, Tom Taggert tries to claim victory, having caught a record-setting 400 pounds of fish, but then Michael O'Bier and Ibis show up with the Loch Ness Monster, and wins the hand of fair Evelina; Ibis and Taia are invited to the upcoming wedding.
Appearing in "Loch Ness Dragon"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Tom Taggert
- Taggert's unnamed netman
Other Characters:
- Evelina
- Michael O'Bier
- O'Bier's unnamed netman
Locations:
Items:
- the Ibistick of Prince Amentep
Vehicles:
- fishing sloops
Notes
- Third story, "Talon of Terror": We never do find out how this dinosaurian lizard got so big or so telepathic.
- Also featured in this issue of Ibis the Invincible was:
- Bagdad
- "Lake of Madness" (text story) by Joe Millard
See Also