The Black Dragon versus Dr. Mid-Nite

Have you been thrilling to the wild adventures of the Justice Society of America repeatedly clashing with the insidious Axis organization, the Black Dragon?  Well, worry not; Dr. Mid-Nite is here to put a stop to that! Nobody can stop a party faster and more thoroughly than the benighted knight.  Thrill as Dr. Mid-Nite, alone of all the JSAers, actually READS HIS ASSIGNMENT OUT LOUD.

Out loud TO HIS OWL.
Imagine that your most boring history teacher got promoted to vice-principal.  And had an owl.

For the record, x-rays were discovered by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895, but comic books gotta do what they gotta do.  They also do not "heal wounds".

That's the Purple Ray, and it was invented by Wonder Woman, who, like Batman, is a scientist.

Note that Dr. Mid-Nite (and his creative team) don't think you are smart enough to follow his tediously slow line of thought and so uses panel arrows.

Like, forty cakes terrible.

Dr. Mid-Nite is clueless! But he comes up with a plan to lure the Black Dragons to him, and you, young man, are going to listen to every details of it before you can go back to class.

Mid-Nite's ventriloquism hobby was fun, but he never managed to convince anyone that Hooty could talk.

Mid-Nite takes advantage of the fact that all doctors' handwriting is so bad that no one can tell them apart.

And... could he only do that with the lights off?

Next, we rejoin Dr. Mid-Nite back at home where -- HO-HUM -- the Doctor is even boring himself. 

How bad it is when the OWL find you too boring to listen to?

Oh, good, the police! Maybe the po' will liven things up.

"The doctor will see you now. Um.. figuratively, I mean."

Sigh. Let's take our time reminding everyone that Dr. McNider is blind. Or is supposed to be blind.  Or is blind except when it's dark. Honestly, I could never make any sense of it.

"Well, you're stupid and I'm blind; perhaps my secretary can help us."

O M G JUST READ THE WHOLE FORMULA OUT LOUD.

Okay, that's not how "formulae" work but, whatever, Golden Age science.

It's sequences like this that make you appreciate truly Golden Age writing mastery such as you find in Batman stories.  In a Batman story, this would have taken three panels MAX:

1. Batman says, "Hm, but I have an idea!"
2. Next panel you seek the fake headline that the newspaper has placed at Batman's request, perhaps with a caption telling you, the reader, that it is fake;
3. final panel would be the panel of the target reading the headline.

Lest you imagine that I'm exaggerating:

"Knights of Knavery", Batman #25 (Oct-November 1944).
"One doesn't wear court emeralds with tweed; it simply isn't done."

Of course, in "Knights of Knavery", it's a classic Batman gambit; Batman is actually relying on the Joker and the Penguin being too smart to be fooled by the fake article.  But Doc Mid-Nite is no Batman and the Black Dragon is no United Underworld.

As repeatedly established, they are fiendish but not especially bright.

So Doc's plan to lure the Black Dragon to him seems to be working and he makes himself an easy target by NOT going into hiding.

Did Myrna ever figure out that McNider wasn't blind?  I bet she was FURIOUS.

Are they really going to take this long to show the Black Dragon kidnapping a blind man?

You bet they are!  I think McNider's specialty must be sleep science because he sure is an expert at making readers nod off.

In case you are wondering, Hooty is a rare Chekov's Owl.
If you see him loaded in the first act, you just know it's going to go off in the third act.

 At least we are spared the entire ride to the far off sanitarium.

"ACH!"? Oh, no, there's going to be an evil German scientist as the shadowy mastermind, isn't there?

Ach.
For the record, NO ONE is named "Smallheimer". Not on our Earth, at least.

Finally, through in the same dungeon with the missing scientist, Dr. McNider makes the switch to Dr. Mid-Nite under the cover of darkness.

So, Dr. Mid-Nite has finally arrived at his goal.
You know, the thing Starman did in the FIRST PANEL of his story.

Ack.

Dr. Mid-Nite reappears just in time to prevent Dr. Smallheimer from y-viscerating Dr. Stander with The Y-Ray.

Exactly how Dr. Stander intended to use a Death Ray to save lives remains unclear to me.

Look out, Mid-Nite!

I'd like to think Dr. Mid-Nite's punches only generate black stars because it's thematic, but I'm probably overthinking it.

For a doctor, Mid-Nite is AWFULLY ready to die:

"Well, I am a brilliant inventor, you costumed kook, and I have no desire to die before I have even DISCOVERED the Z-ray."

THEY ARE DOOMED. ALL IS LOST. NOTHING CAN SAVE THEM!

Except...

You know, very few things are more hilariously humiliating than getting hit in the head by an owl.

All the villains get y-cinerated by the errant Y-Ray.

To his credit as a doctor, Dr. Mid-Nite does actively regret not being able to save them.
It's a nice touch.

Then, as in so many stories of stolen inventions, the inventor decides to destroy the Y-Ray machine to prevent it from every falling into the wrong hands again.

Again, how Y-Rays can save lives remain unclear. Maybe he's going to target cancer cells?

So, with some tedious subterfuge, a few punches, and Chekov's owl, Dr. Mid-Nite has completed his assignment.

Tomorrow, we will awaken from our Mid-Nite slumber to embrace the sad and soulful Spectre as he looms forward toward his assignment: recovering Reagan's Rocket-Bomb!