Keen Detective Funnies #18 - pt. 3

We're getting to the back of the book now and this month's semi-colored installment of Spy Hunters.

There is a village in Punjab, India called Abdal, but I don't know if that already existed in 1940, or would be a place an American author then would know about. There is an Abdal people in India, Urdu-speaking Muslims, that might be where the author learned the name from.

It's also worth reminding players that this was a time before portable radios, so communication by flashing light off of mirrors was a thing your Heroes might have to employ.

I'm including this page because it's important to note that not everyone everywhere had a radio by 1940. This whole village has no radio, and it's not just natives in the village.

You don't see "Unlimber your machine gun" every day, so I thought I'd include this page, and then look up what "unlimber" means. Apparently, it's a real word that means "detach (a gun) from its limber so that it can be used."

Okay...then I had to look up what a "limber" is. It's 
"a two-wheeled cart designed to support the trail of an artillery piece, or the stock of a field carriage such as a caisson or traveling forge, allowing it to be towed." Huh, who knew?

I'm interested in this page for the map, and wondering how authentic it is. Again, series creator Lochlan Field (according to comics.org) has done his research; Chitral is a real place, both a state and a city that serves as the capital of that state. The Mahi River flows past Chitral at the same angle as that road in the drawing. 

Chitral is significant for the British because of the
Chitral Expedition. It was, according to Wikipedia, "a military expedition in 1895 sent by the British authorities to relieve the fort at Chitral which was under siege after a local coup. After the death of the old ruler power changed hands several times. An intervening British force of about 400 men was besieged in the fort until it was relieved by two expeditions, a small one from Gilgit and a larger one from Peshawar." In other words, a major wargaming scenario.

And this page I'm sharing because it's a rare time when we see first aid being administered (rare, despite how common it is in all Hideouts & Hoodlums scenarios).

Moving on, we have another adventure of the inspiration for the floating eye mobstertype in H&H -- The Eye. We see here that there is a peculiar feature to its invisibility, as one of the workers is able to see it. Does everyone in line of sight need to save vs. spells to see through its special invisibility (the spell does not act this way)?

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The other reason to share this page is to speculate as to which real country "Osthania" represents. Remember that, this early in 1940, Germany has hardly invaded any countries yet. Further, "bombarded on all sides" seems to only apply to Poland, uniquely caught between Russian and German advances.

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The Eye can talk! Or is it telepathy, like I had floating eyes use? It's hard to tell because the "science" of word balloons is still in its infancy; there's not even a uniform balloon shape for thought balloons yet, let alone ones that denote telepathy.

Here the Eye demonstrates telekinesis, and not particularly strong telekinesis either, just like the spell. Though maybe he's just being very careful at not setting off the explosives.















"Alfonsky" even seems to confirm this is Poland. But there wouldn't be a Pole in charge of Poland past September 1939, meaning this story had to have taken place earlier than that. The President then was Ignacy Moscicki, which doesn't even rhyme with Alfonsky. Our ambassador to Poland at the time was Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr. -- and we know what date he left Poland, September 5, 1939, so we can date this story to the specific day thanks to this page. Anthony even had two daughters, though they were named Mary and Margaret, neither being Sandra.

Further, applying Polish history to this scene explains why the bombers are coming; this would be Day 5 of the German Invasion of Poland.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)