(Smash Comics 016, 1940)
It's a classic setup: the embittered villain is released from prison and swears vengeance on those who put them there. In this case, the recently released figure is the mystic Bela Jat, who has just spent seven years behind bars for killing someone in a magical experiment and is mighty unhappy about it. Joining him are his excellently named and very loyal henchmen Shimego and Gar.
Jat sets out to capture and kill the three men who he blames for his incarceration: the police commissioner who captured him back when he was a mere detective, the district attorney who prosecuted him and the judge who handed down the sentence. He does this by the simple expedient of anonymously gifting each with a carved wooden idol containing "ecto-fluid" that Jat is able to animate into a human form via some sort of astral projection, whereupon he simply hauls them back to his underground lair.
This seems like a good place to raise an important consideration: Bela Jat clearly has real, working magical powers, and thus Detective Healy's testimony above about seeing him "transform the victim's body to a grayish fluid" is presumably truthful, but... so what? Like, legally, so what? I can absolutely see a mature super-hero universe like the present-day Marvel or DC ones having legal precedent covering the use of magic, but Bela Jat must have had a terrible lawyer if they didn't raise the question of how exactly he was responsible for this transformation, like, provably. And that's ignoring Jat's assertion that police interference is what caused the victim's death! Given these considerations, we must conclude that Bela Jat acted as his own lawyer.
Legalities aside, Jat manages to get ahold of the commissioner and the DA before the Ray gets involved and prevents his kidnapping of the judge. Showing unusual adaptability, he decides to forego the satisfaction of a triple revenge murder in favour of the more achievable double kill now followed by a single when it's convenient.
But before Jat can actually murder the two to completion the Ray shows up again and spoils everything: Gar and Shimego get their blocks knocked off, the prisoners get released before Jat's deathtrap can take effect and one of them (Police Commissioner Healy) gets to show off his skill at knife throwing by planting one in Bela Jat's back.
JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 0/3 - that's right friends: Bela Jat is one of the worst to ever do it.
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