All-Star Comics #6

Issue Details

Synopsis

THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA INITIATES JOHNNY THUNDER Former Chairman of the JSA, and now Honorary Member, the Flash is invited to a special dinner in his honor at JSA HQ. Faced with finding a new member for the group, the members decide to put Johnny Thunder to the test to see if he is an appropriate replacement. They order him to track down Killer McPanzee. Johnny reluctantly agrees and leaves, not knowing that McPanzee is a harmless old codger who thinks he's tough. He even prints horrific crime-ridden newspapers, detailing crimes he supposedly has committed on his own printing press.  After having been shown phony newspapers about Killer McPanzee, Johnny heads out to capture the phony felon at his residence at 222 Park Lane Drive, unaware that the criminal element has also seen the newspapers and decided to take advantage of the situation. Johnny disguises himself when he arrives at McPanzee's home, but the criminals see through that and try to attack him, especially when they find out he's being initiated as a new JSA member. The Thunderbolt gives the crooks good manners, and they politely wrap Johnny up in a blanket and throw him in the river.   The Flash is contacted by Johnny's Thunderbolt and told that his pal is in desperate need of assistance from drowning at the hands of a counterfeiting gang headed by Edwards. Flash uses his speed to aid the counterfeiters in designing the currency and getting the plates to the presses. They run off so much money that it pours out of the house the press is in, alerting passersby. Then Flash rounds up Edwards and gets him jailed, while the duped McPanzee leaves shore in a rowboat for Europe.   Saved from drowning by the Thunderbolt, Johnny is once again pursued by a criminal element, and wishes that a pretty girl would come to comfort him. Inza appears, and Johnny wishes that Dr. Fate was also there because of the crooks attacking him. The Thunderbolt warns Fate of what is happening to Johnny and Inza, and, by the time he arrives, Johnny has disappeared, and Inza has been left behind. Doctor Fate then takes Inza with him to search for Johnny and runs into more crooks, who pose as mechanics in order to enter into and successfully rob banks. He enters their den and makes short work of them, depositing them in the city jail.   Johnny, hidden in the trunk of Inza's car when the crooks stole it, entered a garage where Dr. Fate had tailed the crooks. Johnny accidentally falls down a laundry chute into the midst of walking skeletons and asks for the Sandman to help him. Sandman discovers Johnny in the Playhouse of Horrors and shows Johnny that the skeletons are only actors However, Sandman discovers that crooks having been trying to extort protection money from the Playhouse and fights them, eventually locating and rounding up the entire organization in one fell swoop.   Back at JSA HQ, several members wonder where Johnny is, because the other members have been unable to locate him. Hour-Man heads downtown and notes a movie theater showing a film on Africa titled "Thrills of Africa" and reasons Johnny may be at the movies. What he finds instead is a group of felons disguised as gorillas, trying to heist the day's receipts. Tracking them to a museum, Hour-Man captures the gang and their leader, Wade, a former night watchman fired for drunkenness.   Johnny, meanwhile, is dejectedly walking down the street, not believing himself worthy of JSA membership, when some fellows offer him a chance to gamble and win some big money. Johnny loses, calls the men cheaters, and is kicked out. The Thunderbolt tells Al Pratt what happened to Johnny, so Al heads for the gambling den to search for him. Noting that the gamblers are using marked cards, Al leaves the room and returns as the Atom to wreck the joint and calls the police to arrest the crooks.   The Spectre now heads out to find Johnny and is suddenly attacked by a man with no head After dispatching him to the outer realms, the Spectre decides to track down the evil genius behind these headless creatures. He uses Jean, the fiancée of Bob Randall, as bait. However, Bob is taken prisoner by a mad scientist, as is Jean. The Spectre enters the scene again just in time to overcome the zombies and scientist.   Deciding to look for Johnny Thunder himself (and actually spotting him once), the Green Lantern sets off to seek out crime, running into a team of truck hijackers. Green Lantern rounds up several groups of hijackers and continues his search for Johnny.   After being thrown out of the gambling den, Johnny wishes for an airplane to whisk him away from the scene, and the Thunderbolt complies. Johnny wants to be down on a ship that he sees below him, and, again, the Thunderbolt complies. Johnny is then faced with a group of thugs, and Johnny calls out to Hawkman for help. The Thunderbolt tells Hawkman that Johnny now faces another peril, and he races off to help. Meanwhile, Shiera learns she has inherited a fortune and is kidnapped, forcing Hawkman to locate her and save her, while also locating Johnny, allowing him and the T-Bolt to clean up the ship's evil crew. The Thunderbolt finally rescues Johnny from the kidnappers and returns him, the ship, and McPanzee to JSA HQ where Johnny is finally approved for JSA membership. DR. MID-NITE THINKS FAST! Charles McNider is in his library dictating an article to his assistant Myra Mason when he sees the killer "Snakey" Scarlatti through the window holding a gun and aiming at him, Scarlatti had been recently featured in one of the doctor's articles against the mob and he had written about him that he was a vicious animal lower than the common rat. Scarlatti was furious and wanted to kill Mcnider as a revenge. Mcnider didn't want to run out of the room in order to not reveal his secret identity as Doctor Mid-Nite to his assistant, neither did he want to suddenly turn off the lights as Myra could get hurt in the confusion. Finally McNider says out loud that he has found out in which place the "Guinness Mob" has hided a big quantity of diamonds, as that organization is the rival of Scarlatti's Carlo gang he lowers his gun wanting to listen where are that valuable diamonds. Once he has stopped the killer from shooting McNider asks Myra's to go to the public library to get him some books, saying that once he returns he will tell her about the diamonds, as the girl leaves and Scarlatti stays hidden in the garden to listen to McNider's story, the Doctor leaves the room, changes into Doctor Mid-Nite and taking his owl, Hooty, with him goes out to find Scarlatti, knocks him out and leaves him tied up, then he calls the police and once Myra comes back he is once again waiting for her as Charles McNider having stopped the killer and preserved his secret identity.