The splash page of the October 1945 Midnight adventure signals, right off the bat, that this story will be an example of the mind-switching trope in storytelling (e.g.,
Freaky Friday)
We begin with Wackey and Gabby walking home from the grocery store on a nice, sunny day. Suddenly, they're accosted by yet another old scientist friend of Wackey's. (
How many of these guys are there?) In this case, the mortarboard-wearing Professor Padsel claims to have invented the proverbial "revolutionary machine."
Despite the plethora of weirdo inventions Wackey
himself has produced over the years, for some reason he and Gab decide that Padsel's claim sounds more than a little bonkers. Sensing their disbelief, Padsel invites them to come to his laboratory that evening to witness the truth of his claims. They politely inform the good professor that they...ummm...have...to...go...stand over there. After extricating themselves from the awkward sidewalk encounter, they head home and Gabby immediately makes the mistake of telling Sniffer everything that happened. (Since
when are Gabby and Sniffer "pals" who sit around talkin' about how their days went?!")
Sniffer decides that Padsel's claims mark the professor off as a clear and present danger. He announces that
he'll be attending Padsel's test. Doc and Gabby decide they'd better tag along to keep Sniffer from creating a problem if nothing else. Outside the doors of Padsel's (surprisingly spacious) home, Wackey makes one last plea to do the sane thing.
As soon as they enter the house, Sniffer wastes no time informing the Padsel that his claims smack of "charlatanism." Predictably, this does not endear our pretentious detective with his host. (Apparently, Sniffer's copy of
How to Win Friends and Influence People had not yet arrived.) The next thing you know, everybody is yucking it up and mocking Padsel's process. To his credit, the Prof challenges them all to put their money where their mouths are.
Illogically confident that there's
no way Padsel's invention could actually work, the quartet submit. Of course...it
does work. Yet the gilding of scientific achievement suddenly loses its luster when our heroes ask Padsel to reverse the procedure.
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Gotta say...I've got a lot of sympathy for Padsel.
They had this coming. |
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After some their initial demands and implied threats prove ineffectual, Sniffer/Wackey seizes the long gun and decides that a threat at gunpoint will be the most effective resolution to the current predicament. Unfortunately, our perturbed foursome failed to notice that the doors in Padsel's labs were unusually thick and heavy. The Professor merely flees through a doorway and slams the steel behind himself. After confirming via dangerous experimentation that the door is, in fact, too strong to be pierced by the long gun, Midnight's entourage finally accepts that they'll have to call in the Man himself for aid.
Meanwhile, deep within the recesses of Padsel Manor, our mortarboarded maestro is entertaining dreams of scientific and financial stardom. Yet his
true desire, it turns out, is to win the love of one Belinda. With this particular turn of thought, however, Padsel's mood transitions from celebratory to melancholy. Despairing of their difference in age and of his own dearth of physique and glamor, Padsel has no idea what to do...until he spies a certain set of callers at the door.
Upon entering Padsel Manor (I guess they must've broken in?!) Wackey/Sniffer is showing Midnight the transference machine, when the Professor comes racing in and throws his hands on one of the machine's rods. Midnight is suddenly--and inexplicably--
unable to let go of his end of the rod. He and Padsel immediately go narcoleptic and when they awaken...
Of course our now-rebodied (as opposed to disembodied) hero attempts to pursue his corpus thief, but alas! Midnight's body is simply too superlative. The Prof escapes and the newly geriatric Midnight announces that the first thing they'll have to find the professor. (Did that
really need to be said out loud?)
Back on the streets of Big City, the Bedouin souls of our heroes are arrested by a breaking radio broadcast -- Midnight has been arrested at the home of a Mr. Colin Marsey for the strangling death of a young man who was visiting Colin's daughter, Belinda!! (This, of course, heightens the drama of Midnight's Freaky Friday, as it calls into question whether he will ever get his own "Resurrection Sunday"!)
Arriving at the Marsey home near-breathless, our heroes protest when responding Officer Clancey declares, "It's a simple case! Midnight did it!" Midnight/Padsel insists he didn't do any such thing and that Clancey ought to know better. When the befuddled officer asks who this weird old man is--and why he thinks he's being accused--Padsel/Midnight claims that
he is Midnight. The red-faced Clancey decides our hero is being a "wiseguy," and goes to breathing out threats.
After a few panels devoted to the predictable chaotic cloud of counter-accusations and protests, Clancey finally tells Midnight that if this was some kind of lame strategy on his part to try and escape blame, it's a wasted effort. The pseudo Midnight nonchalantly says he's a little more confident in his chances...and then (hurls one cop into another two before beating a hasty retreat?!)
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The depths of Big City PD ineptitude have apparently yet to be plumbed;
and the notion of a bottom grows more implausible day by day. |
Meanwhile, Padsel/Midnight checks the young man's corpse and finds that he bears the marks of having be attacked by someone wearing a heavy ring. Since Midnight (or rather, his
body) never wore such a ring, he concludes that
everyone has been looking in the wrong direction for the killer.
About this time, Daddy Marsey shows up introducing himself to Padsel/Midnight. When our hero notices bits of skin under Mr. Marsey's nails--(is that a thing people just "notice" while shaking hands?!)--he orders the remainder of the justice entourage to, "grab him!" Under interrogation, Marsey confesses that he killed George (at least the young dead guy finally gets a name) because, "he was no good and wouldn't stay away from Belinda...I was afraid she'd marry him!"
About this time, pseudo-Midnight shows up at Belinda's side proclaiming the cops morons and informing the debutante that he's here to take her away. Given the there's already one dead paramour on her living room carpet, and her dad just got arrested for his murder, it's understandable that she's rather put-off by pseudo-Midnight's priorities at such a moment.
Distracted by his failed romantic overtures, pseudo-Midnight doesn't see the lamp Gabby/Hotfoot hurls at his noggin to knock him cold. While their quarry is now easily handled, our heroes still have to get him back to Padsel Manor somehow. Cue the insanely non-professional standards of the Big City P.D.
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| Is that legal, Clancey? |
Back in the lab, all it takes is the business end of Sniffer's shot-gun planted in his back to persuade pseudo-Midnight that living in his old body would be preferable to dying in Midnight's. He switches everyone back to their appropriate bodies and we end with the obligatory (not all that funny) closing panel.
The original Steel (Henry "Hank" Heywood, Sr.) was a Princeton biology major who decided to join the U.S. Marines following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. This sparked a long-running feud with Hank's then-girlfriend, a woman named Gloria Giles. She dumped him over what she perceived as Hank's warmongering. This particular relationship was complicated by the fact that Hank's then-boss, Dr. Gilbert Giles, was Gloria's father. Prior to joining the Marines, Hank had been assisting Dr. Giles in his efforts to develop "a special bioretardant formula." (ComicVine)
