Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Dial E For Eternity--PIRATES!!

Generally, since the advent of Kid Eternity's solo magazine, the longer stories in Hit Comics have been better--the increased space making for deeper and more developed plots, better villains, etc.

But not in this case. We have a wafer thin plot, a repetitive story, and in all honesty, Kid doesn't accomplish a single thing: the story turns out exactly the same as if he had never showed up!!

We start with much confusion in Eternity's bureaucracy.


My guidance counselor never told me that "bookkeeper for Eternity" was a career option!


OK, that is at least the third major cock-up since we've been following this series--Keeper took Kid's soul 75 years early; another collector brought Kathryn to Eternity early to look for her dead cat, even though the cat wasn't dead and Kathryn didn't die; and now this! Let's just say that Eternity really needs to get its act together!!

Well, it doesn't take Kid long to find a clue as to who is missing from the afterlife:


Ye olde tyme pirates sailing modern oceans?!?!? That's gotta be our missing deadites!

So Kid calls for help...

But...summonus interruptus!!

What gives? A quick jaunt back to Eternity reveals...

True--Kid had summoned Kidd before!

Seriously. I think 3 times in 23 stories is pretty "often," Kid. Heads need to roll in that Collection Bureau!!

So it's back to Earth...

John Paul Jones!! (No, not the Zeppelin bassist!) And he puts up a mighty battle!!


...but loses!

The Kid gets the Billy Batson treatment...

...but finds a painful way out:


To finish the escape, he call upon...

Breitbart?!?! No, not that Breitbart--it's Zishe Breitbart, famous circus strongman!!

And to take care of the sword-wielding pirates on deck?


D'artagnan!! (Before you quibble, he was a real guy...Dumas created a highly fictionalized version of him for his romance novels!)

Anyway, D'artagnan holds off the pirates.

But...


The U.S. Coast Guard!!

Well, that ends that...even a skilled 17th century pirate wouldn't stand a chance against a modern naval warship, right?

Don't tell that to Captain Kidd!


Well, this can't go well...


Sir Francis Drake!!

But, seriously, do you really think even he can beat a modern naval vessel?

Anyway, Captain Kidd seizes the moment...


...to be a treacherous dickweed!!

Hey, he's a pirate--what do you expect?

Anyway, the whole adventure is for naught, as...


How convenient for you, Kid!

Back in the afterlife...


So...Kidd & crew would have been sent back to Eternity anyway by the Coast Guard; John Paul Jones and Francis Drake were failures, and got messily "re-killed" for their troubles; and really, the whole thing was as exciting as a bookkeeping error.

But still...PIRATES!!

After 23 stories, the standings are...

Achilles 2
Antony, Marc 1
Atlas 2
Attila The Hun 1
Attucks, Crispin 1
Barry's father 1
Bernhardt, Sarah 1
Bertillon, Alphonse 1
Blackhawk 1
Boone, Daniel 1
Breitbart, Zishe 1
Bucephalus 1
Bunyan, Paul 2
Byron, George Gordon 1
Caesar, Octavian 1
Canary, Martha “Calamity” 1
Cannon, John W. 1
Carden, Foster 1
Cherry Sisters 1
Clancy, Patrick 1
Cody, “Buffalo” Bill 1
Columbus 1
Corbett, Jim 1
Custer, George Armstrong 1
D'artagnan 1
de Leon, Ponce 1
Decatur, Stephen 1
Dockstader, Lew 1
Don Quixote 1
Drake, Sir Francis 1
Emery 1
Ericson, Leif 1
Galahad 1
Grant, Ulysses S. 1
Greb, Harry 1
Griffiths, Albert 1
Hercules 1
Hickok, Wild Bill 1
Holmes, Sherlock 1
Houdini 2
Hyer, Tom 1
Jackson, Andrew 1
Jeffries, Jim 1
Jones, John Paul 1
Khan, Genghis 1
Kidd, William 1
King Arthur 1
Leander 1
Lee, Robert E. 1
Leonidas 1
Lincoln, Abraham 1
Marable, Fate 1
Mercury 3
Murphy, Charles 1
Napoleon 1
Nation, Carrie 1
Nightingale, Florence 1
Noah 1
Nobody 1
Osceola 1
Paddock, Charley 1
Pheidippides 1
Pinkerton, Allan 1
Plastic Man 1
Porthos 1
Prometheus 1
Robin Hood 2
Russell, Lillian 1
Samson 2
Sandow, Eugen 1
Schleyer, Johann 1
Siegfried 1
Solomon 1
Sullivan, John L. 1
Tell, William 1
Thor 1
Thurston, Howard 1
Tiglath IV 1
Tut-ankh-amen 1
Twain, Mark 1
Vercingetorix 1
Washington, George 1
Webster, Daniel 1
Zbyzko, Stanislaus 1

NEXT--It does NOT take a thief to catch a thief!!

From Hit Comics #41 (1946)

6 comments:

Green Luthor said...

Hm... so if you could get ahold of the Book, and erase your own name, could you go back to Earth whenever you wanted...? (As long as you didn't do anything to draw attention to yourself, it'd probably take the chuckleheads running Eternity quite a while to figure out you're the missing person, it seems...)

snell said...

Yeah, Eternity is not the most tightly run outfit, it seems.

Mista Whiskas said...

If you could summon Atlas or Hercules why in the world would you summon a circus strongman when you needed someone strong?

snell said...

Variety!

George Chambers said...

A quite Batsonesque peril (and solution!) Kid found himself in there. Wonder if that was the first time someone tied and gagged him? (I'm too lazy to go back and look for myself right now, but I might later.)

snell said...

No, it's the 3rd or 4th time. Still, Kid was gagged nowhere as nearly as often as the marvel Family...