Story title: "The Invisible Empire, Part 1"
Cover Date: April 1936
By: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
We're back to New Comics and Federal Men, this time with a six-part story! Although for some reason we get only the first two parts now and the rest a little bit later in the order.
The story begins with a fight: an unnamed watchman and an unnamed prowler are facing off atop the Benton reservoir, and for whatever reason, millions of lives are at stake!
Rather anticlimactically, we cut to Steve Carson, who is being filled in by his boss on the situation: That prowler from before was a spy, and his objective was to infest the city's water supply with deadly bacteria. Luckily, it turns out these villains aren't very smart, because he was also carrying a map with a very clearly marked spot, so naturally, Steve heads there.
Upon arrival at the site, Steve finds a diving suit. How so very convenient. This doesn't smell like a trap at all.
Anyway, he goes underwater and there he sees a bunch of men doing a procession to their submarine. Or at least that's what it looks like.
One of them sees Steve, but instead of alerting his allies, he tackles Steve solo and obviously loses. So Steve takes his attacker's position, and because diving suits back then used to be scary as fuck and you couldn't see people's faces, nobody notices.
Immediately though, this plan fails because everyone starts taking out their helmets, so Steve manages to open the flood lock, forcing them to put their helmets back on. Nice one! But how long is it going to last?
A lot, apparently, because in the next panel, another man informs the crew that the president's yacht is in sight and they don't have time to remove their helmets again... I mean, it didn't seem to take too long last time, right?
Anyway, meanwhile...
Wait, that's it!? I know it's a six-part story but still, this is a horrible place to cut. There's not even a "to be continued" or anything like that...
Anyway, the ratings:
Quality/Enjoyment: 2/5
Not terrible but it feels grossly unfinished. I mean, it's supposed to, it's only the first part but it doesn't work by itself at all. It has a lot of inconsistencies, the villains' motivations are really unclear and everything seems very convenient. The thing that bothered me the most, was the cutoff point. It feels very weird for some reason. Still, this story does have the potential to improve in later parts, so let's see how that goes...
Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 1/5
One more Federal Men entry.
So, once again we've reached the end of an entry. Let's hope this story improves, but for now, thanks for reading and have a nice day!
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