A short-lived comic from Fawcett. Nickel Comics was not only half the price of other titles but it was issued every other week, rather than monthly. It made up for this by being only 36 pages -- a bit more than half the length of other comics at the time. It was best known for the introduction of superhero Bulletman. Issue 7 was the penultimate issue for the title'
We start with Bulletman as he tackles the railroad saboteurs. Bulletman is police police research bureau scientist Jim Barr, a physical weakling who could not qualify for the actual police force. When Barr discovers a serum that destroys the toxins in the body that weaken ordinary men he becomes the most powerful man on Earth -- Bulletman! When the city's transportation system begins to have accidents, killing a number of people, Jim discovers that acid had been used to weaken the train tracks. When the bad guys blow up both entrances to a tunnel under the river, trapping a trainload of passengers, it's time for Bulletman to act! With his blue knee-length boots, bright yellow tight pants, red v-neck shirt the out "v"s every other v-neck in the world, tiny yellow cape, and bullet-shaped gravity helmet that enables him to fly, Jim leaps into action! Not to rest on his laurels, Bulletman -- having saved the passengers trapped under the river -- must stop an el train from being wrecked and prevent the destruction of a train carrying the governor and Jim's sweetie, the lovely Susan Kent. With people saved, the bad guys caught, and an evil plot revealed, Bulletman flies off to more adventures.
"Warlock the Wizard, the last of the white magicians, spends his life fighting evil, aided by his magic golden hand, the mystic lamps of the gods, and his talking raven Hugin." In this issue he faces off with Dr. Andro, who uses a machine to transfer the minds of criminals into the bodies of escape zoo animals. Why? To commit crimes, of course.
In an on-going story arc, Bill Dale, who has found his long-lost brother Steve in the jungls of Africa, is captured, along with Steve by the ruthless leader of an island kingdom. "The Jungle Twins" manage to escape the island with the Seal of Sulieman, a large ruby that had been given to Steve by a strange African tribe. The ruby, alas, is stolen by an evil Arab trader and Steve is held captive by a tribe until Bill and his pigmy companion Daggo must retrieve the ruby or Steve will be killed. It is not as easy as you might think -- the ruby has been stolen from the thief by crime lord Li Yeng, who traps the pair in a pit and is about to toss deadly cobras into the pit after them. But Bill and Daggo are resourceful and escape, only to learn that the ruby has been sent ot the Gold Coast for sale. Hot on the trail, Bill and Daggo find the torn body of Li Yeng's messenger, but no ruby. they are attacked by a giant man-eating lion and we must wait for the next episode to find out where the ruby is and whether or not Steve will be rescued.
Captain Venture and Princess Zyra of Saturn are forced to land their spaceship for repairs on a small unknown planet. The only inhabitant of the planet is Zalko, who had once came close to conquering Earth and was placed on the planet with no possible escape as his punishment. Zalko uses his horde of giant robets to capture Captain Venture and the Planet Princess. Needless to say, for Zalko, this was a bad idea.
Born in South America by American parents, the Red Gaucho becomes known throughout the land for "his dashing, smashing methods of battling crime and oppression." In this episode, he is captured by the thugs of Punchez, who plots to seize control of Santa Palos -- something that would be "super easy, barely an inconvenience" once the Red Gaucho is removed. But holding the Red Gaucho captive was not the wisest move Punchez could make.
There are a good variety of characters and a lot of evil plots in the issue and the art and story-telling are about average for a 1940 comic book. Check it out.
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