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"The Ray: "The Curse of the Marshwoods"": A young man throws himself off a pier, but Happy Terrill's nearby and saves him. The young man says he's Timothy Marshwood, heir to an unworked gold mine, but also to a family curse where the men died premature deaths. Usually at their own hands. He was

Quote1 It's necessary for our country to learn if the PEACE MAKER'S act is on the level, Spinner .. and it's our job to find out! Quote2
Wings Wendall

Smash Comics #20 is an issue of the series Smash Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1941.

Synopsis for The Ray: "The Curse of the Marshwoods"

A young man throws himself off a pier, but Happy Terrill's nearby and saves him. The young man says he's Timothy Marshwood, heir to an unworked gold mine, but also to a family curse where the men died premature deaths. Usually at their own hands. He was trying to kill himself because he couldn't pay $500k in legal fees from his father's death, the latest victim of the curse. The duo travel to Marshwood Manner, where Timothy's uncle Jud refuses to allow them on the premises because the legal fees still haven't been paid. As soon as he's out of sight, Happy of course transforms into the Ray to look into this mystery.

The hero flies at the speed of light across the country and finds the hidden mine, which is guarded by a pair of lowlifes who are quickly seen off by the Ray. With superhuman strength and speed he starts loading gold with his bare hands to transfer to Timothy so he can pay his legal fees. When Uncle Jud finds out, he turns out to be behind the underhanded attempt to steal the wealth, and tries to hang Tim (upside down). Fortunately the Ray returns just in time, and in the ensuing scuffle Jud's knocked over a high bannister to his doom. Slyme, the lawyer, confesses to everything, including that the curse was all staged.

Appearing in The Ray: "The Curse of the Marshwoods"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Tony, Happy's friend, cab driver

Antagonists:

  • Jud Marshwood (Dies)
  • Slyme, butler
    • two thugs

Other Characters:

  • Timothy Marshwood
  • Mr. Marshwood (flashback, death)
  • Western Banker

Locations:

  • New York City
    • Waterfront
  • Marshwood Manor
  • Mountains, Out West
    • Marshwood's hidden gold mine
    • Large Western Bank


Synopsis for Wings Wendall: "The Peace-Maker"

An old man known only as "the Peace-Maker" tours war-torn Europe, promoting peace in public rallies, and gathers millions to his banner, but avoids all contact with the press. In Paris, an American reporter recognizes him, and is shot down just before he can report his findings. Wings and Spinner are sent to Europe to look into the Peace-Maker; they travel there in an ocean liner. One night during the crossing, they're attacked by a pair of knife-wielding thugs, who are quickly knocked overboard.

Arriving in Paris a few days later, Wings and Spinner spot beautiful international spy Olga Varick, and follow her by car to a castle in the countryside, where they snoop inside and discover that the "Peace-Maker" is really Zaroff, the infamous spy. He'd been trying to rally people to overthrow their governments so he could take over! Zaroff ducks into a secret hangar, and flees in a plane, but Wings finds a second plane in the same hangar and flies after him. Wendall uses his landing gear to smash the wings of Zaroff's plane, making it crash.

Appearing in Wings Wendall: "The Peace-Maker"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Spinner Benson
  • U.S. Army Intelligence

Antagonists:

  • The Peace-Maker (Zaroff) (Dies)
  • Olga Varick

Other Characters:

  • Steve Conroy, veteran correspondent (Dies)

Locations:

Items:

  • Zaroff's smoke-screen spewing umbrella

Vehicles:

  • fast ocean liner
  • two Paris taxis

Synopsis for Midnight: "Chango the Magician"

A gawky kid tries to ask out his crush, but this is forgotten when the safe in the office where she works literally sprouts legs and runs away. The kid flees and runs into Dave Clark in the street, who sees that all kinds of valuables are running or flying away from their owners. Clark jumps on a trunk as it runs past and is taken to the hideout of Chango the magician, evidently an old foe, who's using his otherworldly powers to gather all the city's wealth. When Clark tries to tackle him, Chango uses Pig Latin to change Clark into a pouch of tobacco and smokes him. The smoke reforms into Dave Clark and he falls into a lake, with amnesia, but a meeting with the gawky kid a few minutes later restores him memory. He puts on his Midnight outfit and confronts Chango again, who conjures snakes to draw and quarter the hero. Fortunately the first thing Midnight had done was shoot Chango with a dart laced with sleeping venom, and it kicks in before Midnight's pulled apart like fresh bread. Dave Clark then flashes a message into police headquarters where to find Chango and the stolen money.

Appearing in Midnight: "Chango the Magician"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Chango (First appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Twitch
  • Rita

Locations:

  • Midtown
    • Office Building
    • Police Headquarters
  • Chango's hideout, abandoned mine
  • Knoxville, Tennessee
    • U.S. Treasury Vaults

Synopsis for The Purple Trio: "Rocky the Champ"


Appearing in The Purple Trio: "Rocky the Champ"

Featured Characters:

  • The Purple Trio:
    • Rocky Hill, strongman
    • Tiny Todd, midget acrobat
    • Warren, ventriloquist

Antagonists:

  • Joe
  • Charlie
  • three more hoodlums
  • Mazie
  • 2nd gang girl

Other Characters:

  • pharmacist
  • Clancy, cop
  • Patrick, cop

Locations:

Synopsis for Invisible Justice: "The Ghost Rider"

Kent Thurston heads out to the country to meet up with his old buddy Jerry, who's participating in a big auto race. His car's nicknamed "the Ghost Rider", after Jerry's father, who was also "a racing fool" and would go so fast it looked like nobody was driving his car. Underworld hustler Abe Gaffro sends thugs to sabotage Jerry's car, but Kent fights them off. With Plan A thwarted, somewhere out on the 500-mile race course, Abe sets an ambush and kidnaps Jerry instead. But at Gaffro's remote cabin, the Invisible Hood is already on the scene, having invisibly hitched a ride on the back of a sedan full of henchmen. Kent invisibly steals the stolen car, and speeds back into the race, passing himself off as an actual Ghost Rider, winning the race for his friend. Then Thurston reappears, picks up Jerry's mechanic Biff, and races back to the cabin, where he and Biff jump Gaffro and free Jerry.

Appearing in Invisible Justice: "The Ghost Rider"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Abe Gaffro, gambler
    • his henchmen

Other Characters:

  • Jerry Sears, racer
  • Biff Benton, mechanic
  • Pop Sears, original "Ghost Rider" (Mentioned only)
  • other racecar drivers (two die)

Locations:

  • a Western State
    • Centerville
    • 500-mile cross-country race course

Vehicles:

  • "Ghost Rider" racing car

Synopsis for Espionage Starring Black X: "Madame Doom Strikes at Sea"

A big U.S. warship gets blown up while on strenuous maneuvers in the mid-Pacific. Then a week later another one does, and so do two submarines, and so Black X flies out to a never-named "refueling island" where the sinkings took place, and infiltrates a movie company, as a deep-sea diver, and encounters other deep-sea divers, who turn out to be commanded by the formerly-apparently-dead Madame Doom, who now has a stationary automated torpedo-launcher on the seabed, and has been nailing these ships.

Before their struggle ends, in a gunfight, Black X gets captured and tied up, but bursts his bonds with superhuman strength. After some more shooting, Black X stands on the bridge, steering Madame Doom's ship, with her supposedly still aboard it, steaming slowly across the electric eye that activates the launcher. Her ship sinks with almost all hands, including a bunch of knocked-out and bullet-wounded enemy thugs.

Appearing in Espionage Starring Black X: "Madame Doom Strikes at Sea"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Locations:

Items:

  • stationary automated torpedo-launcher

Vehicles:

  • two U.S. surface warships (Destroyed)
  • two U.S. submarines (Destroyed)

Synopsis for Abdul the Arab: "The Story of Salome"

Akim Ben Talmar, Abdul's cousin, seeks to make himself the Sheik of Arabia by abducting and executing Abdul. Hassan tracks the kidnap team to Ben Talmar's palatial house, then invades it, killing some guards and one executioner, then frees Abdul. Akim and his henchwoman Salome flee on horseback, but are captured alive.

Appearing in Abdul the Arab: "The Story of Salome"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Hassan, the Turk

Animals:

  • Bethsheba, Abdul's horse
  • other horses

Antagonists:

  • Akim Ben Talmar, Abdul's cousin
    • Salome
    • three hench Bedouins (some or all die)
    • Executioner (Dies)

Other Characters:

  • Fatima

Locations:

  • Arabia
    • Cafe Shebal, notorious dive
    • Ben Talmar's palatial house

Synopsis for The Scarlet Seal: "The Sabotaged Chutes"

A wounded man stumbles into Barry and Pat's precinct, mumbling "Army..Panasians..Silk..Para-" before his pursuer leans in the door and shoots him dead. Searching the corpse, they find he was attached to army intelligence. His colonel informs them the dead agent is the fourth one killed on the case, involving suspected military sabotage in Chinatown, and voices his hope that the Scarlet Seal would investigate. Barry sees to it that he does, slipping away to put on his yellow makeup and Mandarin outfit, then goes to talk to his tong buddies. He's told about the "despised Panasians" being seen around Chinatown a lot, and even having the "effrontery" to buy a large building. Which, it so happens, is next door to one owned by a member of the tong, allowing Scarlet Seal easy access by just jumping from one roof to the next.

Inside he overhears the villains' plan, but in trying to escape back out the skylight, the box he's standing on collapses. The Panasians tie up Scarlet Seal, but thanks to the tricks he learned from Houdini, he easily escapes and knocks out the saboteurs. Passing along what he learned to the Colonel, all paratrooper training exercises are called off. Sodium hypochlorite was put on the parachutes by the saboteurs, which rotted them and would've killed the paratroopers.

Appearing in The Scarlet Seal: "The Sabotaged Chutes"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Captain Pat Moore

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • Lieutenant John Himson, 256th Infantry (Dies)
  • Colonel Arthur, Chief of Military Intelligence, G-2
  • Manchu Sing, boss of On Sing Tong
  • Brother Fong, building owner

Locations:

  • Center City
    • Police Headquarters
    • Lt. Moore's Secret Laboratory & Loft Building
    • Chinatown
      • On Sing Tong House
      • 222 Pell Street, Panasian-owned Building
      • Fong's Building on Pell Street
    • Military Aerodrome

Synopsis for Magno: "The Framing of Tony Segora"

At night, the First National bank gets robbed, and Tony Segora, holding the loot bag, is set up by his own gang, with no car keys and no gun, to get cornered by the police, who shoot him dead. Tom Dalton reads about it the next day, along with the allegation that Segora had bumped off Boss Malone before the bungled robbery, and Tom decides that the published explanation is all baloney. Tom works through the rest of that day, then that night, as Magno, he breaks into the Medical Examiner's office and finds a report on the death of Boss Malone, who was killed by a round from a .45 long-bore Colt, which isn't at all like the .38 auto that Tony Segora used to pack.

Magno visits the Golden Slipper, one of the late Boss Malone's hangouts, and beats up a random guy, who turns out to not be one of Malone's gang, but who pays protection to Malone's mob. He warns Magno not to go into the bar, because about six gunmen are inside; Magno goes in anyway. He sneaks up on and knocks out one thug (Gimpy), takes his gun, and shoots at the ceiling, which draws out two more thugs from an inner office; he beats them up, then goes in and confronts the new, Mexican boss of Malone's mob, who throws a dagger at him. Magno deflects the dagger right back at him, pins him to the wall, and grabs two guns off him, and one of them is a .45 long-bore Colt while the other is Tony Segora's .38. The new boss makes one last stab at fighting Magno, but is thrashed, and punched through a wall, which knocks him out. Magno then turns him over to the police.

Appearing in Magno: "The Framing of Tony Segora"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Mike Harvey

Antagonists:

  • Tony Segora (Dies)
  • Boss Malone (Dies)
  • Mexican Boss
    • thugs: Gimpy, others

Locations:

  • Hillcrest
    • First National Bank
    • Electric Company
    • Medical Examiner's Office
    • Golden Slipper nightclub

Synopsis for Chic Carter: "Mongol Menace"


Appearing in Chic Carter: "Mongol Menace"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Pop, Chic's Editor (Mentioned only)

Antagonists:

  • Won Kai, Mongol Warlord (Dies)

Other Characters:

  • Gordon Bruce, Explorer
    • his Aerial Expedition: mechanic (Apparent Death), others
  • Princess Chin Lu
  • Chin Lu's father
    • his guards and other servants
    • his army
  • Tartar Tribes (Mentioned only)

Locations:

  • Central Asia
    • Chin Lu's Father's Palace
    • Wong Kai's Palace

Vehicles:

  • Bruce's twin-motor airplane (crashes)

Synopsis for Bozo the Robot: "The Building Racketeers"


Appearing in Bozo the Robot: "The Building Racketeers"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Moe Acton
    • Acton Construction Co. (One dies)

Locations:

  • Acton Construction Office, fringe of the city
  • Apartment Building (collapses)
  • Waterfront construction site (demolished)

Notes

  • Abdul the Arab:
    • Abdul gets head-konked unconscious with a blunt instrument.
    • According to this story's villain, Abdul's cousin, Akim Ben Talmar, Abdul is "Sheik of Arabia."
  • Bozo the Robot gets head-konked unconscious with a wooden club, and inside it, Hugh Hazzard is stunned. Two fights later, he is again knocked out, when a girder falls onto the robot.
  • Chic Carter survives a plane crash. And he kills Wong Kai with a sword, foreshadowing his imminent adoption of his short-lived alternate identity, as "the Sword."[1]
  • Espionage
    • 1/ Quality Universe WWII History: Panama, Nicaragua, and Mexico just got invaded, by a not-named "oriental power," back in Smash Comics #16 (Nov 1940). There also were several large-scale naval battles over the Pan-American Caldwell Line back in Smash Comics #7 (Feb 1940).
    • 2/ It takes a crew of deep-sea divers to reload this idiotic torpedo weapon, and it only shoots when a ship sails across one particular spot. Which, in fairness, has already happened at least four times in this story, so the weapon had SOME moxie, but for what it costs to operate, the unidentified bad guys could have laid a dozen minefields.
    • 3/ This is Madame Doom's sixth appearance in this series. We never learn or even ask WHO Madame Doom is working for this time around, or HOW she survived her seeming suicide last time around.
    • 4/ Batu hasn't done any telepathy since Smash Comics #15 (Oct 1940).
    • 5/ Based on internal and prior timeline evidence in the Black X series, events of this story are thought to have taken place circa 1941-April.
  • Midnight:
    • Chango was Midnight's first super villain, and this is his first appearance, but he and Midnight have clashed before, in an unrecorded episode. Chango's formidable magical powers are real; we aren't told how he got them.
    • Midnight packs a hypodermic dart.
  • The Ray:
    • Per page 5 panel 8, the Ray can use "ray power" to move very heavy objects in a manner that looks just like exerting super strength.
    • Jud Marshwood is the eighth man that the Ray has killed.[2]
  • The Scarlet Seal:
    • The "Panasian" villains are known to, and despised by, the local Chinese tong men, which implies that they are pretty much Japanese.
    • Moore doesn't mark any bodies with his trademark scarlet seal, for the first time.
    • Police Commissioner doesn't appear or say anything stupid, for the first time.
  • Also appearing in this issue of Smash Comics were:
    • "$200.00 in Prizes! The Easiest Contest in the World!" (contest, soliciting reader suggestions).
    • Archie O'Toole: "The Ghost of Old King Ghoul", by John Devlin, first issue for Devlin.
    • "Just Laugh It Off", by Arthur Beeman.
    • Wun Cloo: "Gat-the-Rat", by Jack Cole, unsigned.
    • "Pharaoh's Daughter" (text story, featuring Jimmy Christian), by Robert M. Hyatt.

Trivia


See Also


Links and References

Superboy Vol 4 69
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