Green Lantern #12 is an issue of the series Green Lantern (Volume 1) with a cover date of June, 1944.
Synopsis for "It's Bad for Business!"
Doiby hauls Green Lantern out to a junkyard, and asks him to use the powers of his ring to turn wrecked cars into taxis so he can expand his business, and make money to buy war bonds. Green Lantern does so, eager to support such a patriotic cause. As he does, some down-on-their-luck crooks observe this over the fence and get an idea. They get jobs as drivers in Doiby's new company, they'll rob a bank, then change back into their cabbie uniforms before the police get there, so no-one suspects they never left the scene of the crime. Green Lantern and Doiby get wise, and as the gangsters close in from all sides to attack in their cabs, Green Lantern defeats them by undoing the magic that made their vehicles roadworthy. A dejected Doiby gets a visit from a man who wants to buy his business secrets off him...but since Doiby doesn't know what "Inc." means in a business's name, the man's there to buy the formula for the ink he thinks Doiby's company sells.
Appearing in "It's Bad for Business!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Boss
- Chum
- Other Taxi Thieves
Other Characters:
- Dickles "Ink" employess
Locations:
- A junkyard
- Alan Scott's apartment
- Dickles "Ink"
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Doiby Dickles Enters High Sassiety!"
Doiby's approached by two spinsters, Amanda and Zenobia, who insist on enrolling him on their school of etiquette. The cabbie perceives their comments on his total lack of manners as a compliment. He and the other students are taken to a wealthy man's mansion to show off their training, and while there someone swipes the good silver. The family has detectives on hand, just in case the lowlifes Amanda and Zenobia took in turned out to be up to no good, and accuse Doiby. His instincts kick in and he fights back, with Amanda and Zenobia thinking they must look after their students and join in the melee, telling Doiby to bring his parents to explain himself to their next class. Because his parents are dead, Doiby asks Green Lantern to come instead. When they show up for the etiquette lessons, Green Lantern recognizes the other students as notorious thieves.
A battle ensues and one of the ladies accidentally knocks Green Lantern unconscious with her wooden-handled umbrella. The crooks take the two ladies as hostages, but they think to leave a trail of ink for the pair of heroes to follow. Green Lantern and Doiby find the two ladies stuffed into trash cans, who inform them that the crooks were heading to Grand Central Station to skip town. Green Lantern and Doiby catch up to them, and in the course of another fight a commuter turns out to be carrying gasoline that sets the entire building alight when a wayward bullet strikes it. Green Lantern fires his ring through the ceiling and into a rain cloud, creating a downpour that quenches the flames. It turns out the three crooks aren't carrying any ill-gotten gains, and a sudden realization hits Green Lantern, who flies back and tackles Amanda and Zenobia, who drop a bunch of stolen loot. They were the real thieves, and men in drag. Their etiquette school scam was to make their pupils, who already had criminal records, take the rap for their thievery.
Appearing in "Doiby Dickles Enters High Sassiety!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- "Amanda" and "Zenobia" Hardcash
- "Knuckles" Ryan
- "Butch" Collins
- "Chisel" Jones
Other Characters: Locations:
- Maw Mousse's wagon lunch (Unnamed)
- Grand Central Terminal
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "The Gambler!"
Steven Sharpe tries to prove to his girlfriend Helen that he's an honest man, and not a habitual gambler like his father and grandfather, only for her to run off with a local punk who won a large lottery. Walking home dejected, he tries to save what he thought was a child in the path of a runaway armored car, only to discover it was nothing but a doll he'd risked his life over. Deciding that only idiots try to make their way honestly, he robs the armored car and decides to embrace his heritage as a gambler, taking daring risks to get ahead in the world as a costumed criminal.
One such risk is hanging around a street corner where his own wanted poster hangs. Two of the other people hanging around at the same time are Alan Scott and Doiby Dickles, who realize the notorious Gambler's in town, and set out to capture him. They hurry to the stock exchange, deducing that to be the answer to a riddle posed by the Gambler ("Where can you lose your shirt on a blackboard?"). One of his underlings stages a panic with fake dropping prices, creating confusion for the gang to steal cash and bonds unnoticed. The heroic duo arrive to interrupt the Gambler's scheme, but the gang manage to escape when the Gambler surprises Green Lantern with a derringer that fires not bullets, but bursts of ammonia gas.
The Gambler's next job is to appear as a contestant on a radio quiz show and then stick up the studio. Alan Scott's an engineer on the program and again intervenes as Green Lantern. The Gambler turns his trick gun not on the hero but the program's audience, forcing Green Lantern to surrender and accept the Gambler's proposition that the spin of a labeled top will determine if the Gambler frees Green Lantern or eliminates him. The spin's interrupted when Doiby Dickles suddenly barges in, and the Gambler escapes again by creating a smokescreen with his gun.
The next day the Gambler plans to rob the safe at a horse track when flares he sets off start a stampede with the horses and distract everyone else with the chaos. Green Lantern shows up again as the Gambler had told him where he'd be as a bet. The hero uses his ring to lasso the stampeding horses and then turns the horses on the villain's gang, knocking them insensate. Having seen to the underlings, next Green Lantern blasts the Gambler himself before he can escape, the villain's luck having finally run out.
Appearing in "The Gambler!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- The Gambler (First appearance)
- Joey
Other Characters:
- Helen
- Pool-room Charlie
- Stock investors
Locations:
- A store
- Stock market
- Municipal race track
Items:
- Green Flame of Life Power Ring
- Gambler's Derringer
Vehicles:
Notes
- Published by Jolaine Publications, Inc.
- Also appearing in this issue of Green Lantern Quarterly was:
- Mutt & Jeff (newspaper strip reprints) by Al Smith
Trivia
- In this issue, across several pages, there are footnotes with phrases encouraging the American people not to waste certain items in order to finance the Allies so they can win World War II.
See Also
Links and References
