All-American Comics #19

DC ⋅ 1940
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Key Facts

1st appearance of the Atom, Al Pratt, not in costume

Issue Details

Publisher

DC

Artist

Sheldon Moldoff

Writer

Various Writers

Published

October 1940

Synopsis

Alan Scott saves pedestrian Joe Prentiss from being run down by a passing automobile. The following morning, Alan reads the newspaper and learns that Prentiss was ultimately struck down anyway by another vehicle late into the evening. Changing into Green Lantern, he decides to investigate the decedent's apartment. While quietly inspecting the apartment, Alan hears two thugs breaking in who begin rummaging through the place. He overhears them admitting to the Prentiss murder as well as the pending murder of a man named Hodges. Green Lantern bursts out and accosts the two thugs. He forces one of them to tell him where Hodges lives. Green Lantern flies to Hodges' house to warn him. The man isn't home, but his wife tells Green Lantern that he just left with some men in a car. He tracks them down just as the goons pitch Hodges off the side of a cliff. Green Lantern swoops down and catches him as the villains speed off. Alan asks him why the men were trying to kill him. Hodges tells him that they work for a man named Slade who owns a gambling hall. When a patron cannot cover their bets, Slade lets them fill out an insurance policy naming him as the benefactor should the insured ever die by accident. Green Lantern disguises himself as a gambler named Titus and goes to Slade's gambling hall. He gambles until he loses a large sum of money at which point Slade and his lawyer, Mister Wolfe, offer him an insurance policy. "Titus" agrees, and that evening becomes the victim of a seemingly random mugging. The muggers however are actually Slade's goons. Reverting to his Green Lantern guise, Alan follows the thugs back Slade's home. He phases through the wall, but Slade is ready for him. Although his bullets pass harmlessly through the Green Lantern, he is briefly felled when Slade strikes him with a wooden club. He prepares to pitch Green Lantern's body through a trap door filled with lye. Alan quickly revives though and turns the tables on Slade. Slade falls backwards into his own trap and dies a gruesome death.

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