Comments
Wonder Woman plays a secretarial role only.
All Star Comics – 36
General Info
Issue No:
36
On Sale Date:
June 1947
Cover Date:
August - September 1947
Era:
Golden Age
Story Title:
5 Drowned Men
Creative Team
Cover Artist:
Irwin Hasen
Writer:
Gardner Fox, Sheldon Mayer, Julius Schwartz, Robert Kanigher
Penciller:
Irwin Hasen
Inker:
Irwin Hasen
Letterer:
N/A
Colourist:
N/A
Editor:
Sheldon Mayer
Characters
Main:
Wonder Woman, Hawkman (Carter Hall), Doctor Mid-Nite (Charles McNider), Green Lantern (Alan Scott), The Flash (Jay Garrick)
Heroes:
Superman (Clark Kent), Batman (Bruce Wayne)
Villains:
Calvin Stymes
Olympians:
N/A
Amazons:
N/A
Other:
N/A
Synopsis
Calvin Stymes invites five lifelong friends and fraternity brothers out to a western ranch, and, as they sit around the campfire, he recounts the legend of the dried-out streambed they were camping in. Called Koehaha, or “Stream of Ruthlessness”, it runs once every 100 years. Strangely, those who “drown” in it doesn’t really die, but neither does he come back to life, for the water washes away a man’s better nature and replaces it with a ruthless nature. Each man explains what he might do with a criminal nature, then they go to bed. Stymes moves onto the river bank while the others drown.
Three days later the JSA meets in emergency session due to a rash of strange and explosive new crimes, but they discover that two of their members, the Atom and Johnny Thunder, can’t participate. Johnny asks JSA honorary member, Superman, to take his place and the Batman has just come from the bedside of injured Al Pratt.
Wonder Woman reads an anonymous letter to the members stating the crimes have been done by five respected professionals listed. While Green Lantern sets out to find Stymes, the others will try to locate the others.
Later the JSA enters the locked room in which Wonder Woman has now locked the five friends of Stymes, only to discover they had escaped through a window. Knowing that Stymes is loose and is out to kill them, Wonder Woman vows that the JSA must find them. Green Lantern’s Power Ring traces the men to Koehaha, to which they must return to drink from, and where Stymes plans to kill them. He sets off dynamite, but the JSA saves them, but the explosion costs Stymes his life. Then Superman uses his strength to push a giant mountain of rock into the stream so that it will never run again.
