(Zip Comics 003, 1940)
The Scarlet Avenger looks out his window one sunny day and sees "DEATH TO THE SCARLET AVENGER" in skywriting. This, it turns out is a very effective ploy, as when he flies up to check it out he is swarmed and captured by some very off-model pterodactyls.
The beasts take him to a dirigible, where he is is introduced to Texa, an eight foot tall woman and self-proclaimed "Queen of Crime," who is looking to rob Fort Knox and wisely set out to eliminate the Scarlet Avenger ahead of time rather than wait and do it on the day.
The Scarlet Avenger is of course loaded down with little gadgets, and he manages to escape from Texa's deathtrap by employing, in turn, his personal electric field, smokescreen and capsule parachute, proving once again that super-villains should have better procedures in place for searching captives.
Please note the companionable arm that Texa has around one of her minions (called variously the Tribe of the Hood and the Hooded Tribe, FYI) in that second-last panel. I like that! It suggests a better-than-average minion work experience.
Believing that the Scarlet Avenger is dead, Texa proceeds with her admittedly very cool plan to use a big magnet to pick up the entire Fort Knox vault and fly away with it, upon which the very much alive Avenger and his legion of operatives fly up and release the magnet using anti-magnetic rays. Fort Knox is saved, albeit probably very banged up.
The Scarlet Avenger is shot down by a very cool bubble weapon, leading to a cliffhanger as he is pinned by dirigible fire in the Kentucky desert*. Will he make it out of this overwhelming display of firepower?
*just why is there a desert landscape in Kentucky? It's equally likely that:
a. That wasn't literally supposed to be Fort Knox but a fictional US Gold Reserve in a more Western state
b. The air battle ranged a bit farther than depicted on-panel
c. the artist just kind of drew what they wanted and hang the geography
The answer is of course yes, and for the simple reason that as the story in Zip Comics 004 begins, Texa abruptly decides to capture the Scarlet Avenger rather than kill him. Out come the "pterodactyls" once more! Plus the Tribe of the Hood decide to put on shirts.
Texa employs the mind-bending properties of the Chamber of Disks to render the Scarlet Avenger susceptible to hypnotic mind control so that she can use him and his network in her next plot: to kidnap FDR!
Spoiler: the Scarlet Avenger is not really hypnotized and rather than aiding Texa he is working against her.
A faceless FDR is saved from the now-fully-clothed and jetpack-equipped Tribe of the Hood by the last-minute intervention of the Scarlet Avenger, which is good, but I can't help but think that he could have mitigated the danger to the president somewhat by turning on Texa before she had him encased in an electric force field.
Our second cliffhanger! Texas men have the Scarlet Avenger's operatives under heavy fire, as their boss rides a jetpack man up to the dirigible to help them! Will they make it out of this one alive?
Indeed they will! The Scarlet Avenger arrives just in time to prevent Texa from killing his top aide Operative 12, upon which the villain dumps the entire Scarlet Avenger organization out a trap door. Everyone floats down using their personal parachute capsules and presumably feels grateful that the Scarlet Avenger isn't the kind of boss who keeps all the gadgets for himself.
Texa's final ploy involves raising a criminal army by doing a mass jailbreak of Alcatraz, which always seems to me like a way to acquire a pretty motley crew of henchmen with a really wide range of skills and attitudes toward employment as faceless cogs, but who am I to critique a plan like this? I've never even broken one guy out of jail to be my minion.
It's no surprise that the Scarlet Avengers operatives show up to stop this operation, and since Texa is once again employing her super magnet, they are all kitted out in cool non-ferrous outfits and wielding... copper machine guns I guess. It's very good look for them!
Texa's dirigible ends up on the wrong end of one too many ray gun blasts from the Scarlet Avenger's rocket plane and goes down in flames, taking the entire Tribe of the Hood with it, but Texa herself escapes in perhaps the coolest possible manner: in a transparent cube carried by pterodactyls. It's a heck of a way to make an exit and one that stands, as she never appears again. Somewhere an eight foot tall gandma is reminiscing about the glory days, I guess (obviously I reckon that Texa should be BROUGHT BACK in a more modern Archie super-hero comic. People would go nuts for this big tall crime lady!).
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