Crown Comics #4

Buck Farrel welcomes a mysterious woman named Lisa aboard his schooner the Suzy Q, only to have his first mate Corny warn him she spells trouble—and he's proven right when her desperate quest for a giant pearl oyster leads to a deadly dive through shark-infested waters. Forced to rescue her from the ocean floor, Buck discovers Lisa's dark secret: she's fleeing to Australia to clear a man wrongly accused of a crime she committed in self-defense. With the black pearl's sale, Buck helps her find the means to face her past and seek justice.

When young Marvin learns that causing enough annoyance can earn him money, he decides to put the concept of "nuisance value" to the test—starting with his Uncle Harry at a charity bazaar. As Marvin's pranks escalate from wet kisses to bucket-dunking to a dunking in the pool, Uncle Harry finds himself increasingly frazzled, along with the hapless Jeeves caught in the crossfire. It's a rollicking six-page romp where one mischievous kid discovers just how profitable being bad can be.

Flight engineer Edward A. Meeker Jr. recounts a harrowing 1945 mission over Tokyo when his B-29 Superfortress sustained critical damage during a coordinated fighter attack, leaving one engine ablaze and forcing the crew into desperate evasive dives to save the aircraft. With the damaged engine still threatening the plane's survival even as fire and a runaway propeller take their toll, Meeker and his crew must navigate one crisis after another—each maneuver buying them precious time, but at an escalating cost. This firsthand account from Crown Comics captures the split-second decisions and raw courage that defined the Pacific air war.