Wait ... I want the police to follow us! 
- — The Spider
Crack Comics #3 is an issue of the series Crack Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of July, 1940.
Synopsis for Black Condor: "The Black Condor in America"
The Black Condor is asked, via a note tied to a condor's foot, to safeguard the daughter of the Rajah of Singat. She is traveling from Calcutta to New York, carrying a priceless ruby. Black Condor acquires some snappy American tweeds, and boards the same steamship. The notorious Ras Gyn (who is recognized by the Condor) is also aboard, and seeks to steal the ruby during the voyage. At Gyn's signal, the ship is sunk, with a submarine-launched torpedo, but the Black Condor flies about, helping the crew and passengers, including the rajah's daughter, escape to lifeboats.
When they reach New York, a week later, Black Condor loses track of the girl, then scans the city from the Empire State Building's observation deck, and sure enough, in a window that luckily is facing toward the E.S.B., there are Ras Gyn's minions, choking down the princess. They steal the ruby from her, and throw her from a window. Black Condor aerially rescues her, then pursues the bad guys' getaway car, and stops its engine with his black ray gun, and reclaims the jewel.
Finally, he tracks down Ras Gyn himself, at the airport, where he gets headkonked with a big wrench. The crook tries to escape in an open-cockpit biplane, but the Condor catches him, and again kills an internal combustion engine with his black ray gun, yanks Ras out of the cockpit, letting his biplane crash somewhere below. Condor turns Ras over to the authorities.
Appearing in Black Condor: "The Black Condor in America"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Ras Gyn
Other Characters:
- the Princess of Singat
Locations:
- Bombay, India
- Province of Singat (near the province of Delhi)
- the bleak rocky peaks of the Himalayas, Black Condor's current home base
- New York City
- Empire State Building
- Empire State Building
Synopsis for "Ned Brant"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Ned Brant"
Featured Characters:
- Ned Brant
Synopsis for Alias the Spider: "Thomas Andrews Kidnapped by the Spider"
Thomas Andrews, the controlling stockholder of the Mercury Realty Corporation, gets kidnapped, and his company starts to disintegrate, and The Spider is framed. The Spider sends his chauffeur Harry to the stock exchange to find out who's buying up all the Mercury shares, and he then visits the Andrews estate, punching out one security cop on the way in, and scares the jeepers out of Mrs. Andrews (whom he suspects), while playing along with the Spider-as-kidnapper scenario: he wants his half-million ransom NOW. She does act pretty guilty. Harry the chauffeur shows up and talks his way onto the property, without punching out any rent-a-cops, bringing the news that Andrews's own broker is buying up all the shares. Then a swarm of cops show up, and the Spider & Harry punch their way out of the place and flee, but they hang back just enough to lure the cops away from the Andrews house, so Mrs Andrews can make her obvious next move, which is to put together half a million bucks in cash and drive away to a secluded cabin, where of course Mr. Andrews is hiding out.
The Spider meanwhile has shaken the cops AND spotted Mrs Andrews AND followed her here. Andrews stupidly pulls a gun and gets his wrist pinned to the wall with an arrow, then The Spider takes the ransom money, and later has his man Harry redistribute it to the Mercury shareholders who lost money.
Appearing in Alias the Spider: "Thomas Andrews Kidnapped by the Spider"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Harry, Hallaway's chauffeur
Antagonists:
- Thomas Andrews
Other Characters:
- Mrs. Andrews
Locations:
Synopsis for "Molly the Model"
Appearing in "Molly the Model"
Featured Characters:
Synopsis for The Red Torpedo: "The Pirate Subs"
An unidentified flotilla of high-speed submarines are doing piracy and escaping to undetected bases. Jim Lockhart and the Red Torpedo picks (seemingly at random) a big freighter to shadow across the ocean, and gets lucky; at least three pirate subs show up, to massacre and loot and sink the freighter, all with observation but no intervention from the Red Torpedo. Red then follows the subs to an undersea cavern, leading to an air pocket cavern lake, leading to more caves, mooring his super seacraft, then sneaking and punching his way to a great vaulted hall, where the bad guys ("Z-3" et.al.) are on the radio to their boss, "X-1." He eavesdrops.
Their boss is one of the top execs (Wilhelm Wotan) at the Eutonia Steamship Line; this whole piracy thing is essentially an insurance scam. The bad guys detect Red, there's some chandelier-swinging and chasing and shooting and then the Red Torpedo gets away, plus dupes the bad guys into thinking he'd gotten blown up. So the next day the pirates just go ahead and stupidly carry out their plan to raid the SS Harmonia, but by then the R.T. has had plenty of time to bring destroyers and an aircraft carrier to the area, plus he now attacks the subs with his own Torpedo. Wotan is captured alive, but at least one full crew of submariners are killed before it's all over.
Appearing in The Red Torpedo: "The Pirate Subs"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- X-1 (William Wotan)
- Z-3
Other Characters:
Locations:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Lee Preston of the Red Cross: "Captured By Kiroto"
Appearing in Lee Preston of the Red Cross: "Captured By Kiroto"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Kip
Antagonists:
- Major Kiroto
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for The Clock: "Gang Czar's Right Hand Man Arrested"
The Clock pulls off a risky, elaborate, and complicated ruse to get a squealer to squeal.
Appearing in The Clock: "Gang Czar's Right Hand Man Arrested"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- "Pug" Brady
- Captain Kane
Antagonists:
- Scar Sizza
- Spark (Dies)
- Mack (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Lieutenant Foxx
- Benny Selas
Locations:
Synopsis for Wizard Wells: "The Death-Ray Decoy"
Appearing in Wizard Wells: "The Death-Ray Decoy"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Tug
- Mary Perry
Antagonists:
- Foreign Agents
Other Characters:
- United States Army
- Mr. Smythe
Locations:
- Joe Perry Records
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Madam Fatal: "Mystery at Windward Castle"
Right off the coast of Maine, the gold-bullion-laden SS Iris gets torpedoed, from the seaward side, and then robbed by part of its own crew. This is the third such incident.
By absolutely pure luck, Madam Fatal elsewhere foils an attempted public assassination of Betty Gordon, niece of famous inventor John Gordon, who has just recently retired to Windward Castle on the rocky coast of Maine, and behaved like a cranky recluse ever since. She and her fiance Jack Dale are getting ready to visit the old kook. Stanton formulates a suspicion, but says nothing.
A week later he arrives by canoe at the base of Windward Cliff, then changes into his Madam Fatal get-up, THEN scales the cliff. At the castle, Betty and Jack show up to confront the inventor, and get jumped by Gordon's assistant Slade and HIS assistant Max, who is real tall and inexplicably dressed in a weird red robe with a hood. Madam Fatal jumps on Max, from about two stories higher up in the castle, and konks his head with his granny walking stick, then gets his keys, then finds and releases inventor Gordon. They spy out the truth: the half-clever anti-ship weapon used by the main bad guy (Ross) is a cliff-mounted torpedo launcher, shooting torpedos out to sea, which then curve back and strike their targets from the seaward side. By dint of some drape-swinging and bludgeon-wielding, Madam Fatal beats up Ross and his henches, and wrestles Ross right off the cliff to his doom.
Appearing in Madam Fatal: "Mystery at Windward Castle"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Ross (Dies)
- Slade
- Max
Other Characters:
- John Gordon
- Betty Gordon
- Jack Dale
Locations:
- Windward Castle, Maine
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"
(newspaper strip reprints)
Appearing in "Jane Arden // Lena Pry"
Featured Characters:
- Jane Arden (across top halves of pages)
- Lena Pry (across bottom halves of pages)
Synopsis for The Space Legion: "The Escape of Lucky Largo"
Appearing in The Space Legion: "The Escape of Lucky Largo"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Space Legion
Antagonists:
- Lucky Largo
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- Black Condor:
- Black Condor still has no civilian identity.
- The Black Condor gets knocked unconscious with a blunt instrument; this may be his first concussion.
- Condor's remarks indicated that he didn't like the city, and intended to leave it as soon as possible.
- Madame Fatal wrestles a torpedo saboteur off a cliff, definitely killing him.
- The Red Torpedo punches a pirate submariner off a cliff, probably killing him. Red's body count also now includes three submarine crews, and most or all of one battleship crew.
- Also appearing in this issue of Crack Comics were:
- Rube Goldberg's Side Show, by Rube Goldberg
- Slap Happy Pappy, by Jack Cole
- Snappy, art by Arthur Beeman
- Off The Record, by Ed Reed
- They're Still Talking: "About Glenna Collett's Greatest Uphill Fight to Win", by Bob Zuppke and Walt Depew
- Screen Snapshot: "Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.", by Gill Fox
See Also
Links and References
