Mr. Satan returns and, expectations aside, he's still a good guy! Ed Ashe's artwork here is growing on me. I love the cryptic letter-plot hook and the use of shadows on this page. There's a real sense of menace here, despite the fact it looks suspiciously like the monster has a periscope. Can this story live up to the art...?
Actually, things are going great halfway through page 2. They start to go weird when Mr. Satan, wondering why Mrs. Heaslip locked Blake's door, decides he'll get the answer by investigating at the pond, rather than following her, or just saying, "Hey, Mrs. Heaslip! Why did you lock Blake's door?"
Satan is lured out onto the lake by a scream. First his canoe is capsized (I skipped showing you that page) and then the Monster tries to grapple him and misses. Rather than surface right away, Satan dives deeper to escape the Monster...in its natural element. That's a creepy third panel, with the three corpses floating in the whirlpool. Satan either makes a save vs science or a Strength check to pull free from the whirlpool (I would accept either mechanic).
It seems curious to me that he can see the three scientists clearly underwater, at night, but he can't see the Monster, but I suppose this is bound to happen sometimes from random search rolls.
The "bomb" looked like a grenade (I skipped that page too) and while it isn't explained to us why it went off too soon, the implication is that his wife rigged it to happen to kill him.
I think this is the first mention of the radium ray, unless I missed it in there somewhere. It's hard to believe that monster costume would fool anyone; Scooby Doo villains get more convincing monster costumes than that.
The motive of the affair is surprisingly adult.
It may seem ridiculous to suggest there can be a newly discovered planet, but remember that Pluto was not discovered until 1930, and for many years afterwards people wondered if there might not be more planets further out. The Mount Wilson Observatory in California was the largest telescope in the world in 1940, unless this is a fictional rival.
It's pretty hard to take "Stargaze" seriously as a surname; it must be a nickname?
Every time someone calls out for help anywhere, Zambini's "radioscopic" mind picks it up? Is he hearing voices constantly, then? Although, it actually says "any" distress calls, not "all." So maybe it's random or, more likely, happens whenever the Editor wants to drop him a plot hook.
His first cast spell must be a reverse of Word of Recall, where the spell teleports you from home to where ever you sense danger.
Some sort of low-level Untying spell, or simply Unseen Servant?
Oh boy...now, magic-user comic books tend to always err on the side of the ridiculous...but the magic tree that grows over 3 billion miles tall overnight is waaaaay crazy. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the tree is made of glass? That's not even flexible! How did this make sense to the people who made this?
The best part of this story is the glass men, living robots made of glass, hard to surprise because of their telescopic eyes, and immune to heat and fire.
Maybe the second best part is the name Zambini's Shower Ring, which seems like a great name for a spell. It may be a unique spell too, as I can't think of any Resist Fire 5' Radius spells out there -- which this seems to be, with some flavor text added.
It almost goes without saying that Zambini casts a Polymorph any Object spell in this story.
H&H really needs a low-level version.
The glass men are called Inferians here, which does seem like a better name.
It's ...interesting how Zambini chooses to polymorph the Inferian into a hunky guy in short shorts. Is this for his benefit or the girl's? We never do learn the girl's name. Apparently the radius of Zambini's Shower Ring is so narrow that there was no room for their prisoner, and Zambini had no problem with handing out a death sentence, even though the Inferian cooperated.
Is that a fern in the king's chamber? How would any vegetation grow on this planet?
Will Zambini survive the lava flow? Of course he will. He's a golden age magic-user; he'll probably turn all the lava into butterflies or something.
(Scans courtesy of
Comic Book Plus.)
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