Action Comics #30

Issue Details

Synopsis

A SUMMER SNOW A freak midsummer snowstorm strikes Metropolis. A voice breaks into a commercial radio broadcast, claiming to be Laura Vogel and calling for Superman to meet her at Park Ferry; she has important information about the crazy weather. Superman shows up, just slightly too late to prevent an unidentified young woman from getting killed with some advanced radium weapons wielded by helmeted Arab agents.   Months earlier, Carlton Vogel, an archaeologist in the Sahara, approaches the lost city of Ulonda with his expedition. Helmeted Arabs attack, using globe-like weapons, killing Carlton and his men.   In the present, Carlton Vogel's sister Laura Vogel nobly refuses to remain silent, after her brother sent her a letter about Zolar's plans (which are to invade Ulonda and obtain a vast supply of radium). Zolar's Arab agents have traveled to the United States and pressured Laura to be silent. She contacted Superman, and Zolar's Arab agents killed her, then they "kidnapped" an impersonator, their own female agent, pretending to be Laura Vogel. This person met with Superman (who had already been contacted by the late Laura). These Arab agents were armed with some globe-like gun-like devices, which disintegrated people and objects, "leaving only their shadows behind." Superman finally catches up to the group that took fake-Laura, but is knocked out by their weapon. He is captured and loaded onto one of the villains' strato-ships, but learns that the man behind everything is a would-be world despot called Zolar. Superman frees himself and fake-Laura, (having quietly regained his full strength), then goes into super action to disrupt Zolar's invasion of Ulonda. He attacks Zolar's fleet of strato-ships and is making quite a bit of headway against them, when Zolar orders his fleet to "Release the meteor death!" They drop a cascade of the blazing globes, engulfing Ulonda in awful destruction. Superman carrying Laura is able to catch his foe's skyship and board it in mid-flight. He gives Zolar an ultimatum, and doesn't seem to be kidding: Zolar must order his fleet to destroy itself; he does and they do. "Obeying Zolar's weird hypnotic powers, hordes of his planes deliberately crash!" But Laura turns out to be an agent of Zolar, as the real Laura was killed some time earlier. Laura uses the globe weapon on Superman, but it backfires, bouncing right off Superman's invulnerable chest, killing her and Zolar, leaving only their shadows behind, and of course crashing the aircraft. The surviving Ulondians are now safe from their deadly nemesis. THE "FRED NORMAN" JINX Fred Norman has won every race he's ever run against Pep Morgan. Pep feels like he's been jinxed ever since his high school track run, when he tripped during the last leg, allowing Norman to beat him. To win the conference championship, Pep's going to need to break the mental jinx he placed on himself. He trains and trains, but Fred beats him in two different races. But a chance encounter with a runaway horse, pulling a buggy that contains Fred's little sister Molly, snaps Pep out of his funk, as he chases down the horse and gains control of it, then notices that Fred also was chasing the buggy, and that he had passed Fred. Finally his "jinx" is broken!   At their next race, Pep wins handily, setting a new conference record. THE ATTACK Jon Valor and his crew have taken over the Red Raiders' stockade, but the cutthroats are swarming over the walls like ants, trying to reconquer it. Cutlasses and rapiers take their toll on both sides, and it goes on for hours, until the desperate Raiders set fire to their own stockade, scattering the surviving fighters. Jon Valor is one of these and he wanders on the island, exhausted, until at last he falls down.   Morning comes, and Valor finds his way to the beach, and spots the Sea Queen, now crewless, anchored just offshore. He swims to the ship, boards it, and loads a small catboat with provisions, then puts out to sea.   A few days out he sights a galley, approaches it unhailed and unchallenged, boards it, and on the main deck meets a pistol-pointing pirate. This lookout marches him aft to meet Captain Treble, who conscripts him into his rowing crew of manacled slaves. Soon the galley approaches a small rocky peak, jutting out of the ocean. Here the ship is moored and a gangplank is extended. A jeering crew of pirates bring all the slaves up from the hold, and leads them onto the island and down a dark man-made shaft, then imprisons them in a dungeon far beneath the surface. According to one prisoner, they are at the bottom of a mostly-submerged mountain, where Captain Treble has discovered a rich source of phosphate. Every few months a new boatload of slaves arrives to mine the phosphate; some live longer than others. Jon Valor resolves to escape. THE HEADHUNTERS AND THE INCAN TREASURE Bill Cortland, an old wartime friend of the Three Aces, survives a plane crash in South America, and is missing. Fog, Gunner, and Whistler read about this in the newspaper, and get airborne right away to search for him.   In the Brazilian Jungle, they encounter a massive hostile force of headhunters, and in a running gun battle are forced to flee up a rocky mountain. As they hunker down for a final stand, the savage tribesmen pause in dismay, and retreat in great disorder. Intensely puzzled, the Aces look around, and find a walking skeleton among them. It seems harmless, and it beckons them to follow it, to a cavern, and up a dark underground stream, to a large chamber with a rock throne. There the skeleton seats itself. Gunner has had enough of this nonsense, he draws his revolver and shoots the skeleton in the head. This draws forth peals of laughter from the skeleton, who now addresses the three of them by name, and asks them why they're there. Gunner tells it they're looking for Bill Decortland, and the skeleton directs them to another chamber of the cave. There they find Decortland, rolling around on the ground, convulsing with laughter. He's been using wires and a speaking tube to manipulate the skeleton, which is what has kept the local headhunters from catching him for all these months.   Decortland also has found an Inca treasure trove, easily a cool billion in gold. In their small planes they can carry away only three massive chests of it, leaving behind the rest. DR. MIXXO'S PROTECTION RACKET DEATH ON THE SET! During a movie shoot which Clip oversees as consultant, the co-starring actress is killed on set. Clip's investigations uncovers a plot by a rival studio to stop the production, because that studio is shooting an identical movie, and wants to release it first. Clip catches the killer before he can murder the main actor. MOTTLED DEATH In one coastal city in America, an outbreak of robbery-murders has the police baffled. A venomous species of South American insect, the Jungle Jumbo, is being used in these crimes. Detective Regan enlists Zatara's help. It soon becomes apparent that his old adversary the Tigress is involved. Her new crime partner, the Master, is able to resist a backwards-verbal command from Zatara, to NRUTER! They get away, but Zatara deduces that they will flee to South America, and follows them there, mostly by levitating. Guided by his psychic sense, Zatara appears at their hotel and makes trouble for them; they flee to the jungle.   For several days, they make their way to the Hall of Magic, in the City of Kilgor, far inland on the Waters of Jagolang, expecting to work a powerful magic that will defeat Zatara. He gets there ahead of them and greets them from a comfortable chair inside. Their meeting is interrupted by a band of spearmen bursting into the Hall, but Zatara easily deals with all of this. When he's finished, one Native warrior has been turned into dust, the others have been distracted away by a man made out of weather, the Master has been teleported into an American prison, and the Tigress is turned over to an American police department.