Midnight Meets Selwyn the Savage -- Smash Comics #49 (JAN 1944)

"Midnight Meets Selwyn the Savage"
Smash Comics #49 (JAN 1944)

Story begins with Midnight pursuing one "Killer Mike" on a train.  When the criminal leaps from the moving conveyance (coming up surprisingly unharmed) he thinks he's given our hero the slip for good.  Mike immediately treks in the opposite direction, to the small burgh of Winksville.

All these years, I thought the expression was "hip to so-and-so"
And I thought it didn't start until the 60s or so.  The things you learn from comics!

In Winksville, Mike happens upon a all-night diner where Gertrude (the waitress) and Selwyn (the diminutive short-order cook) are listening to a radio program entitled Sandow the Savage.  Gertrude rebuffs the advances of the love-besotted Selwyn, explaining that she considers him a "worm," and that she's only interested in a man, "whose strength will make me swoon."

About this time, Mike enters demanding burgers and roughing up Selwyn when the latter attempts to explain that the diner has run out of burgers.  Predictably, Gertrude is immediately taken with the dangerous gangster.  Killer Mike then decides maybe ole' Gertie is up to his standards and he romantically proposes they go back to the Big Town and get "spliced."

Again with weird 40s slang! I guess it came from electrical work, but the word "spliced" makes me
think more of getting cut-up, than getting twisted together.

Selwyn spends time crying over a barstool before he takes new courage and decides to march himself to the Big Town and take back his girl.  (Curiously, Selwyn doesn't seem to pick up that Gertrude wasn't "his girl" in the first place, nor does he ever seem to question whether she's all that irreplaceable.  Oh well...I guess this is what passed for a "storybook love" in the 1940s).

As it turns out, Selwyn's dad was a friend of Doc Wackey's (because...apparently everyone was) so he seeks the old codger out.  To underline the mousey nature of Selwyn, Gabby answers his knock at the door and is uncharacteristically boorish in his reception.

Shocked by the sight of a talking monkey (understandably so, I would think) Selwyn makes the mistake of so-expressing himself and Gabby responds like such a punk you'd think he was a modern-day SJW leading a crusade against "microaggressions."

When he finally gets to meet Doc, Selwyn relates his sob story before asking the elderly inventor if he can take him, "to places where tough gangsters hand around...so I can learn to be like them?"

Sure! Why not?  Who better to know all the dives for the seedy underworld than a septuagenarian scientist? 😏

However unlikely that sounds, it is indeed the direction writer Paul Gustavson takes us.  Quickly Doc and Gabby leave a note for Midnight before hauling little Selwyn off to the improbably-named "Bucket of Blood."

Naturally, when he finds the note, Midnight immediately decides to follow.  While en route, the Bucket of Blood's unsavory "contents" are concerned that a couple of approaching patrolmen mean to frisk them, so they force Selwyn to hide all their guns, knives, brass knuckles, short-range nuclear warheads, etc. on his person...confident that the po po would never suspect him of any foul intent.

After the Fuzz has come and gone, who should waltz into the ole' Bucket of Blood but Killer Mike and his new fiancee.  Selwyn says "Hello" to Gertrude, on which pretense Mike decides he needs to kill the little man.

Unfortunately for this would-be bruiser of Big City, Selwyn is inspired by the words of Doc Wackey (and the near-endless supply of handguns he's still toting) to fight back.  Midnight shows up and joins the rhubarb.

Gertrude, meanwhile, comes across as disturbingly emotionally unbalanced.  In the space of about two seconds, she abandons her erstwhile disdain for Selwyn and is all over him after watching how ready he is to kill a man.

Could Gertrude be the
grandmother of Harley Quinn?

 Upon receiving a bosomful of affirmation, Selwyn hops back into the fight to assist Midnight (and apparently leave a mound of corpses.)  Our hero has to settle down the littlest sidekick.

Ole Dave must be shockingly charismatic, because despite being charged by a bar full of dangerous killers wanting their gats back, all it takes is Midnight's simple request to forgo the gun play, and Selwyn immediately agrees to give up his one advantage.

Also, Selwyn suddenly becomes shockingly adept at
close-quarters combat (if not necessarily at gun safety).

After Midnight and Selwyn (mostly Midnight) mop up the ne'er-do-wells, our hero instructs his nerdy neophyte pugilist to plant evidence...because, that's how you promote law and order?