Midnight Meets Hiram the Hermit -- Smash Comics #50 (FEB 1944)

Smash Comics #50 (FEB 1944)

Sadly, this story is a lackluster filler.  Dave Clark is preparing to interview one Hiram the Hermit on his radio show "Eccentric Characters."  The  MacGuffin for this tale is the Hiram diamond--supposedly the largest ever discovered. ()

Maybe this made perfect sense in the 1940s world where radio
was the primary mass medium, but I can't fathom why people
who were primarily interested in seeing a diamond,
would be persuaded on that basis to tune in to a radio program.

Additionally, Hiram will be bringing his famous pet coyote, Oscar--allegedly the smartest animal in the world.  Naturally, this boast ignites no small jealousy in Gabby and Hotfoot.  Hotfoot?  Oh yes.  He returns in this tale...along with his insufferable owner, Sniffer Snoop.  As typical, they serve no useful purpose.

During the broadcast, Hiram responds to Dave's questions with stereotypical monosyllabic utterances (e.g., "yup...nope...")  This tele-snorefest is cut short by Oscar's howling which, as it turns out, is the apparently the proverbial cry to wake the dead. In-person attendees disgustedly walk-out, while listeners all across the city irrationally break their radios. (No explanation is given for why they would do this, rather than simply tuning into a new station.  Apparently folks in the 1940s were way more nonchalant about destroying their personal property than I had assumed.)

Things only get interesting when Dave finally asks Hiram to bring out the diamond, only to be told he can't because the stone has been stolen!  At that, Dave convinces Hiram it's time to call in a detective.

Maybe after all those years alone, Hiram lost the ability to
notice that Midnight looks and sounds an awful lot like
"that radio feller."  Why, by George, he's even wearin' exactly
the same clothes, with the lone addition of a domino mask.

Hiram informs Midnight that he only discovered the rock had been stolen when he looked in his pack for "chawin' terbaccer."  Hiram tells our incredulous hero he's not worried a bit about it because ole' Oscar will, "smell out the thief." We then get several panels of Midnight and entourage running around after the howling Oscar.

Simultaneous to this, the reader is shown how news of diamond's theft is playing out through the rest of the city.  Specifically, members of the rival Grover and Nolan mobs each independently conclude the other must've been the one who stole the diamond; And both conclude that they'll ambush the other and steal the diamond for themselves.

We then switch back to the chase of Oscar, Coyote for Justice who's led Midnight and his pals to the sickbed of some random guy in some random building.  Midnight, being the cool and rational heroic detective could ask some investigative questions to determine what (if any) relationship this stranger he's just met might have to the alleged theft.  Instead, he opts for a somewhat different approach:

This trained coyote (which I know is "trained" because the weird crusty old
hermit who claims his giant diamond was stolen told me so) charged into
your room--SO I KNOW YOU'RE GUILTY!!

Imagine the egg on our hero's face, then, when it turns out this bespectacled invalid didn't steal anything...except possibly the stick of "baloney" that he was (for some bizarre unexplained reason) hiding underneath his pillow.

The sudden emergence of this processed meat stick occasions a fight between Oscar and Hotfoot, which in turn leads to Sniffer and Hiram to pull out their firearms and launch into their own round of threats.  In an effort to restore peace, Midnight seizes the baloney stick and offers a late and disturbingly lame apology.

Hope you've retained a really good attorney there, Midnight

While Midnight's busy trying to smooth over his pending breaking-and-entering charge, Oscar charges out a nearby window howling once again.  Our hero pursues him to find the aforementioned Noland and Grover mobs engaged in a street shootout.

Inexplicably, the reader's attention is immediately diverted away from this shootout (nary to resume the thread.  I guess we're supposed to assume somebody won that eventually?)  when Midnight sees Hiram blasting away at someone.

Y'know Midnight, seeing as how you've just concluded a B&E
where you accused a guys of theft on the basis of nothing more than
a howling coyote...this might be kind of a
"speck-in-eye-versus-plank-in-eye" situation.

This panel leads into a frantic final page wrap-up full of deus ex machinas and dangling unresolved plot lines.  It turns out Hiram is shooting at "Dirty John Boonton," apparently a rival hermit who had long wanted to steal the Hiram Diamond.Furthermore, once Midnight gets a good look at the stone, he realizes it's nothing but a giant chunk of (quartz?) crystal!