BULLSEYE BANNON MYSTERIES - THE STRANGE CASE OF EZRA ARK

The third and final instalment of the innovative marketing stunt.

This case really makes a meal of setting up the various suspects over three of the four strips, but crucially does not give away any vital information in the title, which is a marked improvement. (Jumbo Comics 015, Fight Comics 005, Jungle Comics 005, Planet Comics 005, 1940)

In a break from tradition and a major disappointment, the actual solution is not given along with the list of winners, so while it's pretty clear that the dentist did it we are not privy to his actual motivations beyond being sick of taking shit from a rude old man. (Jumbo Comics 018, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 706: ROCKO

(Planet Comics 005, 1940)

Rocko is a totally awesome alien (from a species called the Nethermen, a totally awesome name) who looks like a human with one great grandparent who was a toad and dresses in pulp sci-fi armour as he scours the spaceways for a star of sufficient heat to run all of his planet's industry. Bad luck for humanity: the first adequate star that he manages to find while aimlessly noodling around in space (as opposed to picking one ahead of time and heading directly there) turns out to be our own.

This comic is a real five-star example of the very muddy understanding of astronomical terminology at play in the comic book sci-fi writing community: the term "universe" is used consistently and with 100% confidence in place of "solar system" (though the other option, that Rocko did in fact come from another universe entirely and that he is so bad at finding stars that he flew right past entire other galaxies of them before bumping into ours, is a tempting one to entertain).

Earth is of course placed in quite the pickle by the siphoning off of the Sun's heat, and all of the planet's hopes and dreams of future survival are placed in the hands of the heroic Space Admiral Curry, who proves that he his the right man for the job by getting into his spaceship and aimlessly noodling around in space hoping to bump into the solution to his problems, just as Rocko had before him. And it works! Curry tracks down the missing solar energy, beats up seemingly every Netherman on the planet and then... leaves without shutting off the heat siphoning machines. For some reason.

Instead of, again, simply destroying or even turning off the machines that are dooming his planet, Curry comes up with a more complicated plan: he builds his own machines to siphon the energy of the Netherstar and give the Nethermen a taste of their own medicine. This goes pretty well, as all the Nethermen that can flee the planet (leaving the rest to freeze) and the rest are shot down by the Earth spacefleet as they try a last-second invasion. Rocko himself is the only one tomake it all the way to the solar siphons and he falls to a simple deathtrap. Earth is saved! Via genocide!

BULLSEYE BANNON MYSTERIES - THE CASE OF THE FRIGHTENED KILLER

Time for the second Bullseye Bannon mystery: everyone get ready to cut up some comics for a chance at a small cash prize.

This time, Bullseye Bannon is for some reason reading the will of the late Dean Earl, who has carefully crafted the kind of situation that murder mysteries thrive on. By the terms of the will, son Titus Earl gets everything, unless he dies, and then someone else gets everything. Bullseye Bannon doesn't exactly help things by pointing all this out in plain language either - when Titus is blown away six panels later it's not even really a surprise. (Jumbo Comics 014, Fight Comics 004, Jungle Comics 004, Planet Comics 004, 1940)

Was this a good mystery? No it was not. Will-based murders are all about slow-burn revelations about motivations and finding hidden documents and so forth, so having everything laid out in strip one really robs the form of its impact. Plus, the title of the mystery clearly points out that Clarence is the killer. (Jumbo Comics 017, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 704: ZIRGO

(Planet Comics 005, 1940)

We've seen it before and we'll see it again: comic book plots spun out of the popular pre-Pearl Harbor US position that America should stay out of the burgeoning European conflict. This time, we're treated to a political allegory in the far future, as planet Jupiter (Germany, presumably) attacks tiny planetoid Cato (Belgium, I guess) and draws the ire of the rest of the Solar System (the nascent Allied Forces). Many on Earth (America) want to join the anti-Jupiter taskforce, but Captain Nelson Cole advocates caution.

And he is right to do so!  The entire space war is a ploy by Cato's ruler Zirgo, in league with Earth munitions king Morgo, to weaken Jupiter sufficiently that they can then step in and take over the larger planet..

A perfectly reasonable sci-fi plot, but it does fall apart somewhat when scrutinized as an allegory. The US shouldn't get involved in WWII because it's just a big set-up by Belgium to weaken Germany in preparation for a counter-invasion? And if the Jovians know about this plan and are in fact only attacking Cato because of it... why attack in the first place? Why not simply expose him?

Lucky for the Jovians, Captain Nelson Cole is on the case. He exposes Zirgo's treachery and leads a force to bring down his evil regime, though I'm not sure why this police action is okay when the other was not. Political allegories... are hard.

BULLSEYE BANNON MYSTERIES - THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND DEATH

In 1940, Fiction House tried an innovative new method to sell their comics: a serialized contest! Specifically, they printed a series of adventures by detective Bullseye Bannon across issues of Fight Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics and Planet Comics, and to enter the contest you had to send in your solution to the mystery along with four little coupons clipped from the issues. I can only assume that the whole exercise was more trouble than it was worth, because they only bothered to do it three times.

It's a fun little bit of comics ephemera, though, and since I've never really seen it talked about anywhere and I recently finished reading the 1940 issues of the four titles in question, I have gathered together all of the Bullseye Bannon Mysteries for your edification and entertainment. Today we have: the Case of the Diamond Death!

Can you work out the solution to the mystery? You might have been eligible for a small cash prize 85 years ago! Solution below. (Jumbo Comics 013, Fight Comics 003, Jungle Comics 003, Planet Comics 003, 1940)

It this a good mystery: kind of? It would have been better if the only indication that the nameless ex-wife had a diamond ring wasn't the name of the mystery. (Jumbo Comics 016, 1940)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 014

Don't bother asking to see their degrees.

This unnamed scientist has been kidnapping preteens and changing them into hulking brutes via some pretty fantastical brain surgery. He of course gets his ass fatally handed to him by the Red Panther but not before he goes on about producing a new super race and as always I have to question your devotion to science if you think that your physical alterations to these kids are going to be passed on. Who are you, Lamarck? You're going to be performing brain operations on babies all day every day. (Jungle Comics 009, 1940)

Von Blumb is a scientist who is saved from death and treated well by Camilla in her Lost Empire, then heads off into the wilderness to further his research. When he doesn't return after a few weeks, Camilla and Sir Champion head out to check on him and he repays their consideration by capturing them and subjecting them to his reducing serum and adding them to his collection of unwilling subjects. Long story short, they get loose, defeat his pet spider in gladiatorial combat and he gets squashed by a rock. (Jungle Comics 012, 1940)

Von Lohfer is a scientist with a grudge against John D Rockefeller stand-in J B Rockland, who called him a fake and ruined his life. But if Rockland was claiming that von Lohfer was unable to mind control a bunch of cops into doing his bidding he was dead wrong, because that's just what he does until he is ultimately stopped by Quicksilver. (National Comics 005, 1940)

Dr Morbidd has a great name and a really remarkable facial deformity, and he's been using science to raise people from the dead to do his bidding. This is all solid stuff but it doesn't amount to much actual super-villainy. There's some allusion to Morbidd's science zombies being sent out to do murders but the major thing he seems to be interested in is being a real creep to this one young woman he has captured. It would be quite narratively satisfying if he met his end at the hands of his own creations, but sadly he gets his head blown clean off when Merlin the Magician reflects his own death ray beam back at him. (National Comics 005, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 703: THE GREAT INTELLIGENCE

(Planet Comics 004, 1940)

Flint Baker and co are making their return trip from Mars and due to an unscheduled diversion to Pluto in Planet Comics 003 they end up passing Jupiter on the way, at which point they are forced to make landfall to avoid an attack by outer space organisms referred to as "stratosphere serpents" despite being more like starfish crossed with octopuses. While there, Flint and gal pal Mimi Wilson do a bit of exploring and discover the city of Zu, inhabited by a wretched mass of oppressed Jovians and ruled over by the Great Intelligence.

The Great Intelligence is... probably a rogue AI of some description? It watches over the city via the Great Eye, listens with the Great Ear and issues orders with the Great Mouth. It also has flamethrowing capacity. (the reason I hesitate to conclusively say that the Intelligence is a machine is what the Jovian says in the first panel to feature the Great Eye: "our master has lost all human identity." This could easily be interpreted as a bit of flowery language to describe the declining relationship between the city's inhabitants and the machines that run it, but how weird and cool would it be if the whole operation was wired into some wizened cyborg in the middle of everything? And as the comic does not bother to resolve the question it could be either, though given the roasting of that poor old man we can at least confirm a distinct lack of humanity)

Baker manages to fry the Great Eye with his ray gun, upon which we meet the final piece of the city gestalt: its Will, embodied as a bunch of beefy cyborgs.

For fomenting discord in Zu, Flint and Mimi are  sentenced to death via being ground up and fed to the Great Mouth (and this unusually grotesque method of execution did contribute to my theories about the Intelligence having an at least partially organic makeup, thanks for noticing)! Lucky for them, then, that Mimi stumbles upon the Will's one weakness: a thin exposed wire at the back of their necks. They escape their fate in the grinder, destroy the Great Ear and Great Mouth, and evacuate the surviving citizens of Zu back to Earth with them. 

But what of the Great Intelligence itself? Certainly all of its external organs are gone, but the mind itself... who knows?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 702: THE DRAGON MAN

(Planet Comics 003, 1940)

The work of the Lord of Jupiter is never done, as Auro (Lord of Jupiter, natch) learns one day when he receives the alarming news that a giant flame-breathing dragon has been carrying off dozens of his subjects.

And indeed, not only is there a dragon running around causing trouble but that dragon is actually a guy who can turn into a dragon and who has used his humanoid powers of reasoning to correctly identify Auro as the biggest threat to his lifestyle. Fortunately for Auro, the power of thought goes hand in hand with the ability to be fooled, and he manages to bluff the Dragon Man into fleeing from a common apple by pretending that it is a grenade.

Auro sets out to deal with the Dragon Man once and for all and upon finding him learns the reason for his actions: making a kingdom of his own, plus snacks. That really does have to be the one big perk of being an anthropophageous monster - if you're looking to establish a food supply, a group of humans will organize and try to keep themselves alive. They are more likely to periodically try to kill you than a flock of sheep, though.

Too late does the Dragon Man learn the important corollary to to plan of "seeking out and preemptively killing the greatest threat to your life," which is "and then make sure to kill them, because now they know." Having not followed through, he must perforce be stabbed.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 701: FELON

(Planet Comics 003, 1940)

In his first appearance Felon is a fairly ordinary space pirate captain, terrorizing the spaceways with a fleet of cool black delta-shaped ships and a device that intercepts and disrupts communications across the Solar System.

In this capacity, Felon gets absolutely trounced by Captain Nelson Cole: his men are beaten up and then blown out of the sky by Cole and the Solar Force. The survivors are taken into custody - Felon is not specifically mentioned but he either crashed somewhere or ended up in jail.

Whatever happened,  the defeat must have really stuck with Felon, because he returns for revenge in Planet Comics 004, blasting a ray gun wildly into a ballroom occupied by celebrating Solar Force officers, killing at least twenty people but completely failing to achieve his goal of murdering Captain Nelson Cole.

It's shaping up to be another extended narrative of space cops vs space crooks when Felon, Cole and the entire Solar Force fleet just kind of blunder through a time portal (well, a time beam, technically) into the 20th Century. What a twist!

While Cole and his crew are taking in the historical sights, Felon weighs up his options and immediately allies himself with the Nazis the Axis the Aggressor Nations, leading a surprise attack on the US that destroys half of New York City but crucially yet again completely fails to kill Cole or his men.

Once it's no longer a matter of humans vs aerial bombardment but futuristic space fleet vs 1940s aircraft, things quickly turn against Felon and the Aggressor Nations. Cole and his men force a global peace by the simple expedient of paralyzing all of the armies until the treaties are signed, and then chase Felon around until he hops back through the time beam ex machina vulcano to the relative safety of the future.

Now the comic turns into an extended outer space chase but honestly it was all over for Felon once the bombing of NYC failed to take out Cole. The two have a final confrontation in Felon's old bombed-out asteroid base that ends with Felon in the hoosegow.