Meanwhile, in Detective #18, we find:
We join this episode of Speed Saunders, already in progress!
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| Yes, this is the first panel. Speed has work to do and can't wait around for you to catch up. |
Who is the corpse? Who's the non-chalant blond kid? Does getting a chemical report involve stomach-pumping? Who knows! It's Speed Saunders, just run with it...
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| So, the blond kid nonchalantly staring at the corpse is the corpse's son. But, because English has no clear way to distinguish between an appositive and a vocative, it's perfectly ambiguous whether Jim is name of the corpse or of the corpse's son. Or both. |
Something big and dangerous, Speed? Like.... a bear? Do you think the diamond merchant was shot by a bear? Or maybe a talking gorilla, like the one you fought before? Curious to see where this hunch takes you!
Turns out, this is a "locked room" mystery.
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| "He entertained someone?" "Sorry to have to break it to you, kid, but... your father was a veritable strumpet." |
"Your father was not ready for bed." He looks pretty ready to me, Speed. He's wearing a robe and lying in bed. But if he did commit suicide, would he really "get ready for bed" first? Pretty sure that's not a thing suicides do. "Must remember to set the alarm before I shoot myself; wouldn't want to oversleep!"
Speed, however, is not some methodical fanciful fop like Hercule Poirot; Speed is an active action-oriented fop. As such, Speed does not have time or patience for "locked room" mysteries and so dismisses THAT part IMMEDIATELY.
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| There was a time when you needed a key to lock a door from the inside, as weird as that now seems. That's the time Speed lives in. |
Jim -- or is it Jim Junior? -- is disconsolate. Having lost his father, in his despair he naturally chooses Speed as a role model and immediately starts to look like him.
In mere moments, Jim Junior's transformation into Speed Junior is nearly complete.
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| Speed Junior would later become a founding member of the Teen Ace Investigators, along with Slap Bradley, Denise Colt, and Coco, Maid of Disguise. |
Speed has a hunch! Let's see how THAT turns out...
3 comments:
A Speed Saunders “hunch” is the equivalent to an Adrian Monk summation.
That is eerie how, if Speed Saunders tells you your father was murdered, you turn into him. It's like that "You Got the Dud" Simpsons video.
Though personally I'm a fan of the lovingly-rendered stripes on Speed's coat. Just as Speed Saunders does not obey normal causality, even his clothing is not bound by the rules that normally apply to garments.
- HJF1
If I didn't know better, I'd think the stripes were a digital display. That pattern, by the way, is called Glenurquhart Plaid, or "Glen Check" for short, which would also be a great name for Speed's research assistant if he had one.
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