Long-time readers would know that I've been a fan of John Law, Scientective, since I first discovered him. This installment has a great opening scene with a challenge Heroes seldom have to face -- get someone to the other side of an angry mob, without hurting anyone. Luckily, John has useful contacts all over, including an autogyro owner at the local airport.
It's interesting that June's jitters isn't a character trait, but a valuable clue.
By "cyclatron," John means a cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator invented in 1932. I'm not sure if a cyclotron big enough to fit in your room would be strong enough to stop your watch...but it's just the sort of plausible science that this feature was so good at.
That the murder weapon is a phonograph is a great idea, no matter how shaky the science behind it is.
Sure, John could have just hopped over to the clock and knocked it over to break it, but taking the bigger risk of relying on the cyclotron to stop it is more science-y!
Lastly, before being critical of how lame The Avenger looks with a white hood over his face, just think of what other bad guys wear white hoods...
Another Hero rendered unconscious overnight, and perhaps the first one ever knocked out by a self-inflicted head blow.
Like I said, the science may be iffy, but it's a situation created by science that can be solved with science.
Too bad we get such an abrupt cliffhanger!
Because next thing we know, we're already in the
Invisible Hood feature. IH is just tagging along on top of the truck and watching all this, but I wonder what players would do when confronted with the cliche of the fallen man in the road -- just drive over him and go faster?
And it's stolen helium again!
It's worth being reminded how primitive communication technology still was compared to today. Public telephone conversations could be overheard, radio signals could be intercepted, so carrier pigeon is actually still a reasonable alternative circa 1940.
This is
Wun Cloo, and while a racial caricature, it's not making up the $1,000 bill -- they were really printed until 1934.
Here's a rare early appearance of FDR and the "conquest-mad dictator" looks more like Hitler than even Eisner has been drawing him so far. Vernon Henkel is on the cutting edge of how the war will soon be treated in all comic books.
Wings seems to have bitten off more than he can chew when he flies over a shipload of smugglers. He stays out of range of their autocannon by staying near the aft end of the ship, but there's a machine gun there and his plane goes down after complications from all those bullets.
(Scans courtesy of
Comic Book Plus.)
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