Police Comics #76

When the perfume shop owner Mr. Morbid creates a melancholy-inducing scent that turns happy people suicidally depressed, Plastic Man and Woozy Winks find themselves up against a villain whose weapon isn't violence—it's despair itself. As Mr. Morbid uses his "What's-the-Use?" perfume to spread misery and lower people's defenses, Plastic Man has to figure out how to stop a crook whose power lies in making the world feel hopeless. It's a genuinely twisted premise that gives even the elastic hero a surprisingly tough problem to crack.

When a character called "Knucklehead" needs ten cents for the movies, his pal Rocky nearly sells his clothes to a junk dealer—until Knucklehead hatches a scheme to sneak in free. It's a quick comic romp through Depression-era desperation and the hilariously botched execution that follows, all wrapped up in this 1948 two-pager from Police Comics called "Specks."

When an artist known for painting monsters is found dead in his studio, Manhunter and his dog Thor stumble onto a scheme far more sinister than petty theft—one involving priceless museum paintings, a smooth criminal named Ritz Regan, and a web of motive hidden in plain sight. Racing against time to uncover the connection between Dauber Dixon's grotesque canvases and the vanishing masterpieces, Manhunter must piece together a puzzle of greed and murder before the real killer escapes.