DCRO 4- More Fun Comics (1936) #9 [AC Story]

 Story title: "The Vampire Master, Part 4" (This is the final part, and there aren't any signs of this being the official title, but it is the one the DC Wiki uses, so maybe it was established later in some encyclopedia or something? I don't know).

DCRO entry

Cover Date: March 1936

By: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Today, in More Fun Comics, it concludes the saga of "The Vampire Master".

That's right, this is the end of this serial, so let's go ahead and find out just how much (or how little) it resolves.

One more time, the Doctor is at the mercy of the Vampire Master, but he and Sander Amster empty their pistols onto him. Then Sander recognizes him as a former suitor of his wife, which I guess explains the obsession of the guy with the couple. 

So, either Occult and Sander have some stormtrooper-level aim or the Vampire Master is immune to bullets because apparently, he isn't dead yet.

Then, the weirdness begins, because a clone of the Vampire Master walks in, and he's carrying a clone of Mrs. Amster! (who still doesn't have a name).

So, I guess the "original" Vampire Master died from the bullets and a clone is taking his place? At least that's what I would say if we didn't see them together in the very next panel.

He really was immune to bullets...

He kills his own clone and proceeds to do the mandatory master plan explanation. He really was paying attention at supervillain school. Apparently, he has created a machine called "The thought materializer" (What the hell?), which turns his imagination into reality, allowing him to create an army of  "Monsters of the mind". So the guy is able to make his thoughts into reality and he chose to create an army of vampires? Don't get me wrong, vampires are cool and all, but they wouldn't be my first choice to take over a city. And honestly, with an invention like that, he probably didn't need to extort the city in the first place.

Anyway, it turns out that the creatures this machine creates don't have a soul, so he's going to destroy the fake Mrs. Amster and keep the real one to rule by his side as queen of the world... Sure.

More importantly, though, we are now presenting... The Monsters of the Mind!

Frankenstein('s monster)

Dude that practices Judo and maybe has a sword but I can't tell.

The mommy (that's not a typo)

Vampire in a nightgown (I guess they did have wings after all)

And last but not least... The Gruffalo!

Leaving this lovable ensemble cast of villains aside (Spoiler alert: We'll never see them again), we're back with the actual story and Mrs. Amster (the fake one) attacks the Vampire Master. To be honest he should have seen that one coming, in fact, it's weird that it hadn't happened before.

In the next panel though, the clone is attacking the real one.

Now that's kind of an asshole move, I'm sure there was a way for both of them to coexist. 

Anyway, the Vampire Master presses the button in time to save Mrs. Amster, who in turn presses another button to free Occult and Sander.

The three of the escape as the Vampire Master presses one last button that starts a fire in his own laboratory. 

But why though? It wasn't a suicide: He was going to die anyway from being stabbed. I guess he was trying to kill the Doctor and Sander out of spite, but if that succeeded, Mrs. Amster would have died as well... I mean, if he was going to die, at least he could have left that awesome machine for the world to use. I suppose he was just a prick.

And after all of this, we still don't know why Occult's poker chip only worked once! I guess the Vampire Master imagined the vampire stronger the second time, but then why didn't he do so in the first place?

Whatever, the trio escapes, the building goes up in flames, and the vampire master (who sadly was just a mad scientist and not an alien) dies. And that's how this story ends:

 

That's right, in the next issue of More Fun Comics, we'll see a new Doctor Occult story, but in the next "issue" of this blog, we'll meet a new character.

Anyway, onto the ratings:

Quality/ Enjoyment: 3/5 This last part of the story went batshit insane, but it was fun. With how absolutely absurd the "Thought materializer" is, I think it's an interesting concept, and it could make for a great story with more time and space. Of course, this is a four-page serial, and honestly, it makes a great job of telling a surprisingly complex story for so little space. However, the four pages do feel a little disjointed from each other, kind of as if they were written by different people, but to be fair, they were probably written over four months, and it's hard to keep your vision focused like that. It was fun seeing this story evolve from a generic vampire attack to... whatever this last page is.

Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 2/5 Still just one more Doctor Occult entry.

April 10, 2023 Update: One extra point to this for having the first mad scientist of the order, leaving it at 2/5.

Not to hate on the uploader, but the scan of this page that you can find on the link I always post here is almost unreadable, so I found a better one here.

Apparently, it's from a podcast network called "Fire and Water" so credit to them.

And so we've reached the end of this story, and as an introduction to the DC universe, it's not perfect but it could've been a lot worse. So let's see how this massive world grows from here, one story at a time. Thanks for reading and have a nice rest of your day!