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!

The Black Dragon versus Dr. Fate

I jibed at yesterday's Starman story for its vague applications of the "star power" from his "gravity rod", but Starman seems like hard sci-fi compared to the mystic operations of Dr. Fate. Who knows what magical shenanigans we're in for!  Let's dive in, shall we?

Like Starman, Dr. Fate is too important to wait around for NPCs to give him the information he needs to locate the stolen invention and simply STARTS at encountering it.

If I didn't know that was Kent Nelson, I'd suspect Speed Saunders was under that helmet.

Fate Fact: Somehow, Dr. Fate's body is composed of pure energy, but he still needs oxygen to breathe.  I guess that's why he shortened the helmet.

Forgot? You... literally just SAID so, in the previous panel.
I think your helmet might be a little tight, doc.

Fate Fact: the more two-dimensional your racial caricatures are, the easier it is to knock them around like cardboard cutouts.

Having knocked out the pilots and acquired the super-tank, Dr. Fate's job (and story) is done.

OR IS IT...!?

I like that the writer works in the backstory that Dr. Fate WAS clued in by the government where the stolen invention might be; we simply caught up with him at the moment he found it.  That's tight writing.

But Dr. Fate's usurpation of the tank has not gone unnoticed, for, nearby...

By the way, you know where a tank is absolutely useless?
In a desert in the middle of nowhere. ALL YOUR CACTUS ARE BELONG TO US.

Swiftly, the Black Dragons call to heel the cliff-dwelling natives who are their unwilling accomplices.

And I do mean "natives".

I love this guy and his outfit.  You just know that if Roy Thomas had ever noticed him, he would wind up being Super-Chief's grandfather or some such.

Anyway, Captain Caricature sends Chief Noble Savage and his tribe off to capture the tank BACK from Dr. Fate.  This is at least an interesting variation on the previous formula where The Hero just makes mincemeat out of the Black Dragons.  

Turns out these warriors are no dummies; they have no illusions that their arrows can down a tank.  But they CAN take down Dr. Fate!

Glass vials full of knockout gas? I take it back; this guy is clearly the grandfather of Man-of-Bats.

Ah ha. That's why pains were taken at the beginning of the story to establish that Dr. Fate is vulnerable to breathing-related attacks.

Natives 1, Mystic Master 0.

Dr. Fate may not deserve his own comic, but I'd read "Glass Arrow" Comics, for sure.

So now we get the Searching The Desert sequence we skipped before.

Dr. Fate doesn't do stupid puns and he's not flippant with or about his foes.
He's got class.

Dr. Fate pays the warriors a surprise visit, reminding us that he is impervious to fire.

I like the fact that only one of them reacts with surprised "superstition" before being corrected by Grandpa Man-of-Bats.  This tale is not kind to the Japanese, but I appreciate the respect given the natives.

Once they all get on the same page, Dr. Fate goes to rescue.

TO THE JAPCAVE!

At the cave, Dr. Fate doles out beatings and weak puns, but I'll mostly skip that part because it contradicts my earlier assertion the Dr. Fate is above such things.

That flag looks AWESOME when they turn on the black light.

The Indians join in the set-to.

Ugh, indeed.

Well. That's awkward.

Yeah... maybe it's time to rethink having a flag that's a giant target.

The Black Dragons having been defeated, the natives are reunited.

The Indians get to share credit for capturing the Black Dragons, which is nice after having been used as their pawns.

We will always remember you, Nameless Brave.

Then Dr. Fate has a great--

well, he has AN idea.

Because what could prepare you better for fighting in The Asiatic Jungles than being a horse-riding Desert Cliff-dweller?

I bet in Roy Thomas's private universe, these guys pitched to help the Blackhawks on Dinosaur Island at some point.

Note that, other than being fireproof, Dr. Fate did nothing mysticky at all. And he didn't need to be fireproof for the story to work either, he could have just NOT walked in front of the flamethrower and NOT jumped into the campfire.  Honestly, he might as well be Dr. Asbestos.

Next up, things even MORE doctory, with that benighted knight, Dr. Mid-Nite!

The Black Dragon versus Starman

I know I said earlier than Gardner Fox is listed as "writer" for each part of this epic tale, but I contest that.  Perhaps he was responsible for the plotting overall and outline of each segment.  But as you reader each tale the hand of the individual characters' usual writers are evident, despite not being credited.  It's why each of them has their own stamp.

Such as Sandman being a ****.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the Starman tale.  The other heroes need someone else inform where The Bad Guys are and then get there, and that takes several panels.  Starman has no patience for such huevonada; to get the DRAMA going immediately, Starman simply STARTS with encountering the villains thus:

What do you mean, "What's this?" Can't you read the caption?
Aren't these the people you were assigned to find, Ted?

Q.E.D., Ted.

When you are as mega as Starman, Japanese aerial attacks with stolen planes rank only as "mischief".

Just for the fun of the surprise, he decides to PUNCH a pilot in the face.

Anybody else doing this would probably seem like a goober, but when Ted he just seems like a WAG.

But don't worry; Ted hasn't forgotten he wields the awesomely ill-defined power of the cosmic rod.

Or the gravity rod. Or whatever he's calling in this week.
We all know that, like a magic ward, it's merely a conduit for Ted's raw awesomeness.

Well. That's handy.

In case you are wondering about the training field being oddly-named "Ralph", it is almost certainly meant to the DCU's version of famous Randolph Field.

Naturally, these Black Dragon pilots are cowed in the face of the maddening awesomeness of STARMAN.

You can certainly see by the DRAMATIC art typical of Starman stories that each JSAer has their own artistic team.

As odd it may seem for just, you know, a scientist with a stick, Starman really was the "Superman" of the JSA (when he was around).  

Starman doesn't hesitate to chase after a whole Vulture squadron of enemy planes, which strongly hesitate to engage HIM.

But by flying away in panic, the enemy has unwittingly exposed Starman's kryptonite!

THE COLD

I find it ironic that "Starman" can't seem to get anyway near SPACE.

Gee, Ted, you know who figured that his second day on the job?

Your simpleton slacker son.

Anyway, Ted's a SCIENTIST, so he's not going to stoop to some simple expedient like wearing warmer clothing.  But first a spoonful of backstory from Ted's government contact.

Despite their many downside, dirigibles have always been popular in comics. They make quite a visual impression.

Hey, wait a minute.  A dirigible invented by Weldon? A Weldon dirigible? Why does that sound so--

Ah. Right. Now I remember; the one with the Phantom Zone cats.

Anyway, Ted INVENTS himself a costume-warmer on the spot, because that's how awesome he is.

Yeah, I mean; who could see a blimp coming?

Yes! Tungsten powered by ASTRAL EMANATIONS. That should be toasty.

I have a new theory about why Ted's sons turned out the way they did.

The Black Dragoneers confidently assert that they definitely will be able to spot Starman as he approaches the dirigible, but then somehow, just by being Starman, he pops in unexpectedly anyway.

Defying expectations is one of his many powers.

"Your bullets cannot harm me;
my star power is like a shield of steel!"

Heel joke;

Knuckle joke;

NO RIB JOKE.
See? Defying expectations.

Starman is halted only by a threat to innocent life!

Useful, war-weapon-inventing, innocent life.

Then in the same vein as the Black Dragooners who tried to throw Hawkman to his death from a great height when his only power is flying, these guys try to kill Starman by de-blimping a man whom they have already seen flying with a device literally called "a gravity rod."

Again, a fiendish plan, not an intelligent one.

This turns out pretty much just as you would expect.

I guess evaporating bullets only takes perhaps the Jth or Kth degree of power.
Somewhat like the settings on a phaser.

Inventor Weldon is deposited at the airfield, perhaps to refresh himself with a delicious hot dog.

Up, up, and away!

The Black Dragons attempt to take the high ground, which is not easy to do on a dirigible.

Ted Knight knows that the only person worthy of narrating Starman's adventures is Ted Knight.

That, too, works out pretty much as you'd expect.

Starman hurls rats for BREAKFAST!

Then Starman steers the blimp to safety.

They ain't called dirigibles for nothing.

Tomorrow, we climb even higher on the scale of Undefined Nearly-Omnipotent abilities, past the "sonic screwdriver' that is Ted's gravitry rod to the (literally and figuratively) hand-waving magic of Dr. Fate along with his unexpected allies, the Pueblos!