In the raging fury of a North Atlantic storm, thundering waves hurl a fishing trawler towards the jagged rockbound coast. Its inhabitants, Cappy and his daughter Jane, are thrown overboard by a big wave and are separated by the strong undertow. Jane is swallowed by the raging surf, while Cappy is swept ashore. Once upon the sandy beach, Cappy, knowing that Jane is doomed, lashes out in agony; his words are as bitter as the taste of seawater in his mouth. Wishing that he could save his beloved daughter Jane, Cappy holds a sea-worn yellow bracelet with a red-jeweled facet that he found in the sand. Suddenly, green mists start to swirl about him from an opening in the jewel, and, in an instant, an almost eight-foot-tall being stands before him. It's Super Slave!
Cappy tells Super Slave to rescue Jane. Growing to a height of eighty feet, Super Slave parts the ocean waters with a swish of his gigantic arms. He lays the unconscious Jane next to the exhausted Cappy on the beach. That night the strange creature stands guard over them under the gaze of the crescent moon. The next day the pair asks Super Slave who he is. He replies that he is their slave, who will do their bidding when the bracelet is rubbed, for they have brought him to life from a rest of a thousand years. To return him to the jewel, they only have to scratch the bracelet again.
Cappy and Jane make their way up the deserted coast to civilization. The pair spots a wooden shack with smoke rising from the chimney and decides to go ask for aid. But they discover that the cabin is inhabited by criminals. Seeing Cappy and Jane as a threat to their illegal operations, the thugs take them outside and line them up against the sea-cliff wall. But as they raise their weapons to fire, Cappy scratches the bracelet and again from the green smoke steps the Super Slave. The criminals shoot at Super Slave, but it does them no good. The magic being takes one of the thugs and uses him to bash the others. The criminal leader grabs Jane and tells Cappy to get rid of Super Slave or he will shoot young Jane. Cappy complies, and Super Slave seemingly disappears.
The thugs take the beaten duo back inside the cabin, keeping Jane near the leader in another room. Cappy notices that Super Slave has made himself very tiny and is hiding on his shirt. He tells the distraught Cappy not to fear, for he will not fail him! Cappy can’t believe that the miniature Super Slave can fight the criminals. But Super Slave proves him wrong. Swinging onto a shade, Super Slave gains access to the other room, where he empties the bullets from the criminals’ guns. When finished, he grows large again, and in the process knocks over a table which gains the crooks’ attention. The crooks go for their guns, but there is no ammunition in them! In short order Super Slave mops up the room with the evil criminals and Jane and Cappy are freed in no time. Thus ends the only adventure of Super Slave!
Comments
Paul Gustavson created this character, the possessor of one of the lamest names in comics, who appeared only once in Mystic Comics. The idea of a genie superhero was probably a natural at the time. Aladdin’s lamp was a natural power-fantasy for many young readers, and Jess Nevins notes that the genie from the popular movie The Thief of Bagdad [sic] (1940) may have inspired this new blonde-haired, blue-eyed magic slave. Green Lantern’s creators have acknowledged that Aladdin was one of the sources for that hero. Johnny Thunder was a humorous modern Aladdin with his sarcastic Thunderbolt.
But here the magic failed, probably because it wasn’t the human viewpoint characters Jane and Cappy who performed superhuman feats, but rather the Slave, whom they controlled. This development weakens the story’s human interest-the main characters do nothing, and the action is carried by the non-human invulnerable genie. And Jane and Cappy are very flat characters, who don’t generate much reader interest, unlike the funny Johnny Thunder. There have been no later manifestations of the Super-Slave.
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