A Game Most Dangerous, Part 6: Jack Armstrong

Jack Armstrong!

Jack Armstrong?

Jack Armstrong!!

Jack Armstrong?!

Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy was a juvenile adventure serial in the 1940s, famed for shilling its sponsor Wheaties. The program has always been too juvenile for me, but I do have a lot of affection for the 'Jack Headstrong, the All-American American' parody sketches which Bob & Ray performed. From 1947-1949, Jack Armstrong starred in his own ongoing comic book series published by Parents' Magazine Press. They're an unusual publisher when it comes to adventure comics - they primarily published 'true fact' comics and hybrid children's magazine/comic publications. Above all, Parents' Magazine Press promoted itself as educational and wholesome; Jack Armstrong was definitely one of the most wholesome heroes they could have possibly published!

To continue my feature A Game Most Dangerous I'm looking at Jack Armstrong #12 (1949) and the story "Madman's Island". Sadly, no one at the Grand Comics Database knows who created this story, but I would suspect Bruce Elliott wrote it and Howard Larsen drew it.

We open on Jack Armstrong, his pal Billy Fairfield and Jack's Uncle Jim aboard a seaplane headed to a a medieval castle on a jungle island - an island called "Madman's Island", if you can believe it. After landing their plane they use a raft to paddle to the castle so that their landing site can't be located. The castle is inhabited by General Xavier Rojas, an exiled military leader from South America who considered himself as "the second Napoleon". Finally, his own men turned on him and drugged him, then brought him to "Pan-American headquarters" to be tried. The court sentenced him to permanent exile on Madman's Island along with "those of your fanatical soldiers who wish to follow you!" A year into Rojas' exile, Uncle Jim's superiors (at the FBI?) asked him to investigate whether Rojas was scheming to start a new campaign. Uncle Jim is posing as a private citizen to gather intelligence.

As they near the castle, Uncle Jim, Jack and Billy are confronted by rifle-wielding men in sombreros who get into an argument about whether to shoot them or throw them into the castle's moat to be eaten by alligators. General Rojas calls off his men and offers his hospitality to his guests until their plane is repaired. Uncle Jim claims the plane crashed to keep Rojas from investigating further, but Rojas already knows who Jim is and is plotting the three Americans' deaths. At a banquet for his guests, Rojas informs them he is indeed preparing to guide his army back into battle; as a training exercise, he's going to release the three men into the wilds of the island for his men to hunt. "Hunting your boys in the jungle will teach me much about fighting guerrillas," Rojas muses. Uncle Jim is held in the castle to keep Jack and Billy from simply leaving the island, although Jim tells the boys to leave and tell the authorities. Heck, the boys could probably radio for back-up from the airplane, right?

Jack and Billy run into the jungle while Rojas schemes with his hunting parties. Jack builds a few traps using tree limbs (much like in the original story! but these traps are non-lethal). however, the soldiers design a "crude version of the British 'dustbin'" which sets off traps by being pushed ahead of them. However, Jack and Billy still manage to get the soldiers with a swarm of angry bees. Rojas leaves out food for the boys to snare them, but Jack realizes it's bait and sets off the explosives left on the items. Angered, Rojas unleashes his full army and hunting dogs against the two boys (he's looking like a pretty impotent military commander if he can't handle two unarmed boys). Even there the boys outsmart Rojas by tying banana leaves to their feet to get the dogs off their scent.

Billy heads to the castle and feigns surrender so that Jack can knock out a pair of guards with coconuts then they enter the castle and free Uncle Jim. When General Rojas sees them escaping he throws a sword at Jack, which misses; Jack takes the sword and engages Rojas in a sword fight but Rojas clumsily back into a bust of Napoleon. The bust hits him in the head and kills him instantly. What a dope!

Thoughts: This is an acceptable 1940s kid's comic; it's interesting to note how carefully the story avoids violence - Jack and Billy hit various soldiers in the head - until the climax when Rojas is killed. But boy, this is the most tension-free version of The Most Dangerous Game I've reviewed yet - there's never a sense that Jack and Billy are in real peril. Heck, this is the first version I've read where the heroes intentionally walk into the villain's lair!

All images courtesy of The Digital Comics Museum

The Hunter:

• A Russian noblemanSouth American general (1/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (0/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (0/4 points)
• So he hunts men on his secluded island (3/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (0/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (2/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (4/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships (0/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 days; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (0/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (0/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room (0/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (0/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (0/4 points)
• He is cast overboard and finds himself on the hunter's island, alone (0/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (3/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (0/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (4/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (0/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to killinconvenience the hunter or his servants (3/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (0/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the death (4/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the Caribbean (4/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (0/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (0/4 points)
• And high cliffs (0/4 points)

Final score: 28/100

The hunt will continue!