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August - September 1968 |
Page 1 recaps our last issue (COTU 62). The Legion of the Weird were recruiting. Mistress Wycker tried to kill Ace Morgan with her voodoo doll as her initiation. With some magical help of their own, the Challs reduced the witch to a puddle and chased off the rest of the Legion - who threatened a rematch.  Little do the Challs know... Only hours later, Count Karnak calls upon Om, "Lord of the Netherworlds, Emperor of Chaos and Destruction." And from a puddle of slime, Mistress Wycker, last witch of Salem, is resurrected! |
Vera Wycker gets right back to business, killing Ace Morgan. Count Karnak objects: now Ace knows her face. "Watch, my brother." With a swipe of her hand, the witch turns into a hag, then a blonde beauty. Karnak agrees "your talents will prove more than useful in baiting the trap, but someone else must snap it shut." Magoda, last of the great medicine men, offers "the powers of the wind, the rain, and sun." Hordred, direct descendent of the mighty druids, offers his blade from "the wooded wilds of pre-Britannia". But Karnak calls upon Kaftu, "spawn of the silent sphinx." The Egyptian sorceror calls upon Tukamenon the Undying! |
Meanwhile, the Challs train and wait. Rocky lifts weights with "every muscle inside o' me cryin' out for mercy! Prof, you gold-brickin' creep, get off your rusty-dusty and do some work!" Prof counters, "Not me, musclehead. My brain is what I exercise!" Rocky rushes. Prof ducks. Rocky returns with a choke hold - and gets judo-tossed flat on his back! Are they still fooling? Rocky threatens Prof with a vaulting horse. "If it's blood you want, it's blood you'll get!"  Rocky's tackled by Ace, fully recovered from his ordeal. Ace is mad at everyone. "Cut that out, you boneheads! Right now that band of weirdos is readying some super curse to bring down on us! And you three idiots - Hey, where's Red?" |
Red's in the radio shack, talking to his brother 3,000 miles away. Red says, "You're playing some nutty flower-power club in Frisco this weekend, check?" (So the Challs are in New York?) Tino's under siege by "every chick from 12 to 17 with a bolt missing from her brain!"  Ace tells Red to "get off the horn and prepare for action!" |
Sure enough, in the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Egyptology, in the Hall of Mummies, Tukamenon the Undying burst into life. Yet the mummy rails against his fate. "I am coming, master! Though I hate your evil bidding more than the serpent's tooth or lion's claw!" The mummy crashes into "the shadowy nest" of the Legion of the Weird. Immediately the mummy argues with his master. Yes, he is sworn to serve until his family's debt of honor has been wiped away. But the "son of pharoahs" cannot be forced to shed mortal blood. If the mummy is forced to kill, he is free, and can kill Kaftu! But Kaftu opens a chest and shines a burning ruby, "the sacred eye of Osiris!" into the mummy's eyes. With its hypnotic power, he can even bind a death command. Kaftu orders the hypnotized mummy - his "abject slave" - to "Find the Challengers! Smash them! Crush them all to dust!" |
At the airport, the Challs quit the Gizmo for their rental car. Except it's a three-wheeled menace in red with a lightning bolt. It's Tino, who ditched his gig to help his brother and pals. (Except why are they at the airport? Hand-wave.) Ace figures, "Best way to find the Legion is to make 'em come to us! Only how?" Tino quips, "Is that all you need, a little publicity? All we gotta do is slow down and let the teeny-boppers catch us!" Minutes later, girls are swarming over the car and Tino. WLX-TV catches the action. The Challs watch the tube in their hotel suite. "Nobody can miss that publicity. Even the citizens in the local graveyard!" Cue the mummy, climbing the outside balconies and bursting through the window. "You have defied my master and his sacred circle - you must die!"  |
The Challs wade in, but the mummy sweeps the suite with them. "Now let the death roll begin!" Tino picks up a chair to bash "Fink-enstein", but the door flies open behind him. Kaftu has arrived with the sparkling ruby. He zaps Tino right in the eyes with the glare. (Contrary to the cover, which shows the mummy blinding Tino.) Red tackles Kaftu. "You devil! I'll ram that rock down your throat!" Kaftu squeals and Tukamenon swats Red away. The mummy grabs Kaftu and speeds him to safety, vowing to return. Red comforts Tino. "I'm here to protect you, little brother." Tino cries, "Yeah, Red! Only somebody turned out my lights for good. I - I'm blind!" Red pounds the floor. "I'll kill them! I swear it!" Rocky picks up Tino. "Stop enjoying your pain, buddy! This kid needs more than tears! He needs a roomful of doctors - now!" |
In the hospital, Prof Haley offers the doctor a blank check. "Tino gets the best!.. My father left me quite an inheritance!" (Shouldn't that be Uncle Cyrus?) The doctor insists "the boy hasn't a chance!" Except - a totally untried total eye transplant that requires a close relative as donor! Red volunteers, even with no guarantees, even with his losing an eye. "Just a fightin' chance! Let's go, doc!" "Swiftly, preparations are made for the momentous operation - the world's first total eye transplant!" (This is 1968, before transplants were common.) Three hours pass. Rocky, always emotional, frets. "If they goof - it means Red gave up an eye for nothing!" Prof disagrees, "Wrong! Win or lose, Red's giving up that eye for the same thing - love!" The patients are rolled out, but the surgeons don't know if the operation is a success. The groggy patients come around. What do they see? "A big, bright square - a window! And there's a guy's figure in the window!" It's the mummy crashing in! |
Prof and Ace roll the patients out. Red even jokes, "This is the best flight I've had in years! When do you serve the drinks, stewardess?" The nurse says, "I'm going to need a drink when I get out of this!" Rocky introduces the mummy to "Mister Fist". Ace asks, "Is this a private dance, or can anyone cut in?" But the "taped goliath" is tough! He rips loose a machine bolted to the floor and nails Rocky. He knocks Ace into an X-ray gun - and the X-ray breaks the hypnotic spell! "Tukamenon is no killer! Who commanded me thus?" At that moment elsewhere, Kaftu loses sight of the mummy through his sacred ruby. Rocky tackles the mummy and yells for help. |
Outside in the hall, Red vaults off his sickbed. "My buddies are getting clobbered out there!" The nurse responds by whipping out a scalpel. "I warned you, fool! Now you must - die!" And her face slips back to Mistress Wycker, "that witch dame!"  |
Hearing Red's scream, the Challs drop the mummy and rush to help. They're shocked a nurse would stab a half-blind sick man. Red snaps, "Forget about me! The kid - they got him! Must save him!" Ace counters that Red's "in no shape for anything!" But Red is the only one who can lead the Challs to Tino. "How?" Red stammers, "I - I can see them! With this eye, Ace! I can see everything my kid brother can see with the other one! The eyes we share - they're still linked - even through the space that divides us!" The narration warns, "One heck of a smashing sequel lies ahead, you can bet your last green stamp!" (Do they still issue Green Stamps?) |
Comment Another smashing issue with bravery and battle and sacrifice, if a little disjointed. (Exactly where are the Challs? Not that it matters much.) A nice twist is the link between brothers - science or mysticism? You decide. |
See the spectacular rescue in Rendezvous with Revenge! |