(Thrilling Comics 004, 1940)
A wave of kidnappings is sweeping the US! Important men are disappearing left and right! Never fear, however, for the Ghost is on the case, and thanks to his magical acumen he is able to trace the latest kidnappee to the mysterious mansion lair of the culprit: the pompadoured scientist known as Professor Fenton!
Professor Fenton’s plan turns out to be unusually, even impractically complicated. To whit:
1. kidnap all of America’s Important Men
2. stash the Important Men in various historical periods using a time machine
3. take over the US (though unstated, the lack of Important Men is probably part of the prep for this step)
4. bring back the Important Men, who will be forced to serve Fenton in this new regime
The Ghost is of course opposed to this plan, and proceeds to rescue the first batch of Important Men from the past. But there is a problem! The Ghost does not know where or when the other men are stashed, plus he suspects that Fenton would rather destroy his own time machine than see them rescued. This sets up the ongoing Ghost/Fenton dynamic for the next few issues, as the Ghost arranges various ruses and schemes in order to be sent in time to rescue Fenton’s victims while keeping Fenton himself in the dark.
Some of Fenton’s temporal kidnap setups include:
A prehistoric past rich with both dinosaurs and early man. The Ghost recruits a tribe of Piltdown Men to battle Professor Fenton’s Neanderthal followers. (Thrilling Comics 004, 1940)
A castle in Arthurian England, that the Ghost storms with the help of the Knights of the Round Table, armed with magically-created machine guns. (Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)
Just an inn in the middle of Commonwealth-era London. The innkeeper is clearly a local, so of course I am very curious about how the Fenton’s recruitment process goes – does he just appear in people’s houses until he finds one willing to hold prisoners for cash, no questions asked? (Thrilling Comics 006, 1940)
This issue is also the first time that Fenton tries to get his chosen nom de guerre, “Dictator F” going, but it never quite manages to get traction. He does keep trying!
Fenton’s temporal hiding places have one important criteria: they act as a fixed point in time and space that he can target with his time beam. This is why this next one being in the ship, a notoriously mobile space, is strange. Sure, Professor Fenton has paid off the owners of the vessel not to go anywhere, but if he had bothered to take a look at the ship’s name he might have noted that it was in fact the Santa Maria, of Christopher Columbus fame, and concluded that he might be better off storing his victims elsewhere.
The Ghost and these two Important Men end up making the journey to the New World with Columbus before heading home. Considering the fact that Fenton-style time travel is depicted as if the same amount of time is taking place in the present as the past, this really throws the Ghost timeline out of whack with the real world. (Thrilling Comics 007, 1940)
Fenton finally starts working toward his conquest of the present by stealing an electrical ray weapon that he stashes in Ancient Rome, c.64 CE, which inadvertently leads to the Great Fire of Rome. (Thrilling Comics 008, 1940)
Fenton’s final foray into his kidnapping plan (for 1940, at least) involves hotshot bacteriologist Tom Rollins, who is stashed in Colonial America, 1776, while his stockpile of diseases is unleashed on the public in an attempt to blackmail Rollins’ home city of Duquesne. The Ghost not only rescues Rollins but helps Washington cross the Delaware and also meets his long-time love interest Betty Morris, a Revolutionary spy who decides to ditch the humdrum 1770s for the exciting 1940s. (Thrilling Comics 009, 1940)
From Thrilling Comics 010 on, the Ghost basically just lets Professor Fenton, a multiple-time mass murderer and mass-kidnapper, remain at large so that he can sneak into Fenton’s lab and use his time machine whenever he wants. I’m sure that if someone pointed that out then the Ghost would say something about there still being some Important Men to be saved, but I’m not sure if they’re worth the body count.
