Number 2126: “Good American muscle”

Things look slow at pharmacist Bob Benton’s shop. Slow enough he can shut down the store and take off for Wyoming to visit his uncle Richard’s ranch. Bob takes along his young assistant, Tim, and his girlfriend, Jean. Tim isn’t too happy about Jean coming along. A couple of days ago I spoke of underage pals of grown men in the superhero business, and here we are again. Tim probably needn’t have worried about Jean intruding, since Bob sends Jean into the next room of the ranch while pointing out that he and Tim will be staying together.

The story itself is some hokum about a villain called Dr Ghoul who kidnaps people to turn them into his gang members. I am vague on the motives of Dr Ghoul’s gang. All I took from the story is Dr Ghoul aims to steal Uncle Richard’s ranch payroll. I wouldn’t think it would require such an elaborate setup to make a gang by placing kidnap victims in what looks like an iron lung and dosing them with electricity.

As the Terror Twins are about to be put into the machine Black Terror warns Dr Ghoul not to waste his time, because he and Tim are made of “good American muscle!” He failed to mention the reason for his own powers (super-strong, bullets bounce off) is he ingested some drug with “formic ethers.”

The Grand Comics Database lists Ed Moritz and Ed Hamilton as artists. Ed Hamilton is not Edmond Hamilton, science fiction writer and also scripter for Batman and Superman. The GCD doesn’t guess at a writer. From Black Terror #12 (1945):