General Boosterism.
Plot devices in this volume include:
- A machine that stops the Earth's spin, negating gravity and hurling everyone off the planet. (Excluding, of course, the masterminds, who chained themselves to the ground.)
- The unleashing of 50,000 cougars onto the streets of New York.
- Earth and Venus being flung towards each other by an alien despot.
- Invisible vacuum tubes that kidnap leaders from the worlds of government and industry.
- Converting the leaders of the Fifth Column into rats and drowning all of them, save one.
- Combining a group of diamond thieves into one person, then throwing said person into the Cave of White Cobras.
- Shrinking a villain down to the point where they're just a head, flying into deep space, and then throwing that head at the Headless Headhunter, who promptly absorbs it.
- Transporting gold thieves to a high-gravity world made of gold and jewels, where they will spend a dark eternity.
My only caveat is that the afterword by Paul Karasik may remove some of the stupid glee created by these Golden Age stories of Fantomah, Stardust, Buzz Crandall, and Big Red McLane. I'm used to being a bit disillusioned when finding out the details of people whose work I admire, but Hanks was a particularly nasty case. (That said, there may be some bias: his son was not at all enamored of the old man.)
I've linked to it before, but here's the website for the book, where you can check out a Fantomah story that wasn't included as well as get a glimpse at some of the truly insane artwork inside.
