The Black Dragon versus The Spectre.

Is there a point to reading this part? Or ANY story with the Spectre?  It's always the same; the Spectre simply WILLS his way into finding the targets, punches a few of them, then once he has defeated them the old-fashioned way, grows giant and lifts up whatever hideout they are in and takes the whole kaboodle to jail (OR sends them to another planet). It's the Only Spectre Plot.

But we are committed to this project! And we wouldn't want to make the Spectre sad by omitting him.

The Spectre is morose and it disgusts Starman.

It begins with the Specte seeming uncharacteristically chipper.

What could have the Spectre smiling so?

Ah; it must be the torture of a notable American inventor.  Torture is, after all, Spectre's hobby.

Beaten into submission, Inventor Reagan explains how his magnetic rocket invention works:

Thank goodness Earth's magnetic poles are immobile.

Mr. Reagan may be guilt-racked, but not so the Black Dragons who decide to use his invention to destroy, hm, um, let's see... how about... Chicago? Yeah; Chicago!

At least it's art-deco enough to fit in with Chicago architecture.

Meanwhile, back at Mr. Reagan's lab, the Spectre wrestles with a sense of abandonment.  

"I get no sense from these documents that Mr. Reagan cares about me, The Spectre, and did not consider how his disappearance might affect me emotionally."

He tries to find Mr. Reagan by YEARNING for him, but to no avail. Then... a ray of hope!

"My Spectre-sense is tingling...!"

The invention must be a sadness-seeking rocket because it can't resist honing in on the Spectre.

"What I have been longing for! Is my emptiness now to end?"

Like a psychic sensitive in an occult film, the Spectre clings to the rocket, feeling the Vibrations of the Black Dragons and the Agony of its inventor, Mr. Reagan.

His sweet, sweet Agony of Spirit.  
It is like catnip to the Spectre.

It is unclear, but then the Spectre throws the rocket away from Chicago to either Japan or The Sun Itself.

It sounds like Japan but... I really think that would be noticed. I mean, at least by the Japanese.

Then the Spectre, having locked on to Mr. Reagan as his soulmate, finds him through pure YEARNING.

"How much do I love you?
I'll tell you no lie;
how deep is the ocean?
how high is the sky?"

The Black Dragons try to report in to Japan on their success, but this will prove their undoing, since it allows the Spectre to find them through one of his most profound powers: SUPERSENSITIVITY.

I CAN FEEL IT.

Being the Spectre, he intercepts the radio transmission by... grabbing it. Like, in his hands.

"My supersonic sonar radar will help me!"

Wait, why is this so familiar? Oh, yes, that's right:

LITTLE MISS MARCHY-BOOTS.

Never thought I'd see the sad and sorry Spectre as a Drum Majorette.  But I guess it's true that inside every emo kid is an underconfident cheerleader.

The Spectre phases into the Black Dragon's submarine, intent on saving his soul-mate, who cries out in joyful relief at his arrival.

I will kindly pretend that "yellow" here refers to cowardice.

Find yourself someone who says your name the way Mr. Reagan says "The Spectre".  

"I called him with something you wouldn't understand:
MY SOUL."

The Spectre's priority-- Mr. Reagan --is clear, and he phases him out of the submarine (and I presume magically shields him from the difficulties of, you know, being under water).

"Maybe we can do it, too!!"
Oh. I do not want to see where this is headed.

*sigh*

Again: fiendish but not intelligent.

"Still, the Army High Command doesn't love as much as I do."

The Spectre gently places the treasured Mr. Reagan with the authorities before returning to deal with the Black Dragon.

Do you think the Spectre ever forgets to phase someone he's carrying? 
*BONK*!;
"AAAAAUGH!";
"... Oops."

How weird is the Spectre? So weird that he thinks of sharks and humans as cousins.

Weird, lonely guy.
I mean; not even AQUAMAN stops to apologize to sharks.

But the Spectre (in his "spirit form") is even MORE incorporeal than Dr. "My body is composed of pure energy" Fate; the Spectre doesn't need to BREATHE.  Being dead helps with that.

Now that Mr. Reagan is safe, the Spectre doesn't need to hold back. He does his usual schtick of GROWING GIGANTIC, picking up the submarine IN HIS HAND.

How can a submarine be a space ship? Oh.
Oh, no...

Ah, here's the classic Spectre; he simply HURLS the submarine (and its occupants) into space.

I jibe at the Spectre but "Give my regards to the planets!" is an awesome line.

Okay, I am little disappointed in the Golden Age Spectre.  The Bronze Age Spectre would have thrown the submarine into space AND removed their need for air and food, just to prolong their horrible fate.  But the emo Golden Age Spectre is too desperate to be liked for that; so he joins the Black Dragons on their tour of the universe to give them a chance to give up.

"That was no static, boys, that was me!"
Am I right? See how fast I can run, Daddy?
DO YOU LOVE ME NOW?!

Mr. Reagan's heart nearly bursts with joy when he sees the Spectre again.

< heart-eyes emoji>

Then the Spectre helpfully dumps the submarine on the roof, which surely will have no difficulty supporting the additional, hm, let's say roughly 40,000 tons.

"Sorry, boys, I only do the Grow Giant And Pick Things Up bit once a story, so from here on you're on your own."

So ends the Spectre's tale, although it may simply omit the weeklong trip to Cabo that he and Mr. Reagan took to "decompress" and reconnect.

Colonel Frank Nelson approves: "eeeeYEHHHssss!"

This is the end of all the standard subplots and now it's time for the wrap-up.  

Tomorrow: *sigh* 

Johnny Thunder.

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!