Smash Comics #40

In the 1943 adventure "Midnight vs. Bullets Balow," a desperate Midnight plummets from a cliff only to awaken in the surreal Land of Flight, a floating circus where gravity seems optional. There, he encounters the enigmatic Velvet and the regal Robustia, the Queen of Flight, who guide him on a journey through sky-high wonders before sending him home in a rocket that vanishes once his mission is complete.

Black X infiltrates a Nazi-held castle on a Japanese-controlled Solomon Island, posing as a Prussian officer to prevent the Axis forces from using the fortress as an impregnable stronghold against the incoming American Marines. When he's discovered by Baroness Elzia and forced to take refuge in a tower room, he encounters her blind father—a man whose blindness proves far less limiting than the ideological blindness that surrounds him. As the battle for the island rages and loyalties are tested, a tragic choice reveals where true sight really lies.

In "Another Iron Man," a brilliant but clumsy inventor named Whipple constructs a mechanical suit inspired by the legendary Bozo, only to find it no match for the real Iron Man’s prowess. When the suit fails to protect him from a mobster ambush, Whipple barely escapes as the device is destroyed in a fiery explosion.

In "The Crossbow," the Marksman faces off against the deadly Nazi arch-foe Cross Bow, a ruthless adversary who's already claimed lives from Povalski's resistance. Though the Marksman lands a blow that pierces Cross Bow’s chest, the villain survives—saved by a cork-lined protector beneath his costume—and the battle shifts to brutal hand-to-hand combat, where the Baron gains the upper hand.

Happy Terrill and his fellow reporter Bud cover the launching of a new Navy destroyer, but when the ship mysteriously sinks shortly after christening, Happy realizes a sinister plot is afoot—saboteurs have switched the christening bottle with one filled with a super-corrosive acid designed to cripple America's fleet. Now, as the Ray, Happy must stop the conspirators before they can destroy a second destroyer at the Bolton Yards, even as he and Bud find themselves trapped and at the mercy of the enemy's deadly scheme.

Archie O'Toole leads his men through a spirited commando invasion practice exercise, rallying them with bold military talk as they land and push forward with mock-heroic determination. But when the action heats up and things get chaotic, the eager soldier suddenly finds himself abandoned and wondering where everyone went—and more urgently, where his hat disappeared to.

When Sergeant Hustace McGinty arrests the criminal mastermind Gurgles and his "Hoodlums, Inc." operation, the wily crook hatches a scheme to break free and steal the evidence against him—by orchestrating a prison riot to draw every cop in town away from the station house. The Jester, working undercover as rookie Chuck Lane, must outmaneuver Gurgles' escape attempt and stop the criminal from destroying McGinty's case before it's too late. A fast-paced 1943 adventure where cunning and disguise prove mightier than muscle.

Rookie cop Rankin catches master criminal Marak red-handed in a murder, but Marak's connections initially get him released—until Rankin's dogged persistence forces a confrontation that exposes the sophisticated scheme behind the killing. With his reputation on the line and a criminal mastermind determined to silence anyone who crosses him, Rankin discovers that sometimes beating the odds requires nothing fancier than grit and a good right hook.

When the vicious crime boss known as the Crow escapes from prison and reasserts his grip over a gang of wartime racketeers, the Yankee Eagle [Larry Noble] picks up his trail through the shadows of the city. Tracking the Crow to a warehouse lair, Yankee Eagle must navigate betrayals, close calls, and a cunning foe with secrets up his sleeve—all while uncovering a scheme to exploit national rationing for blood money.