Mickey Mouse on a Secret Mission

"Mickey Mouse on a Secret Mission" is a storyline from the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip that ran from July 19 through October 23, 1943.
==Plot==
One day, Mickey reads something in the want ads of the newspaper: a young man needed for service to his country and that should he accept, he must go to a concert in a park. Mickey decides to go. Once there, however, he is overtaken and spirited away by two Nazi agents, who put him on a hijacked bus and take him to an underground lair, the entrance to which is activated by milking a mechanical cow. Once in their lair, however, Mickey tries to resist, but is overtaken again. However, when a door before them opens, it is revealed to him that they were not Nazi agents at all, but Allied agents working for the American government. It turns out that Mickey has been chosen by someone named "Candidate Seven" for a desperate mission for his country.
Mickey accepts the mission, but asks why they would pick him, an average little guy. Candidate Seven explains that the Nazis are supermen, so the Americans want to show that "the average American guy can lick three times his weight in supermen." Thereafter, Mickey is put through a rigorous examination process. First, he is rigged up to a "reaction machine", which is shown to have a picture of Hitler on the screen. Mickey's reaction is hatred for the Fuhrer, so much so that he punches the machine, replacing the picture on the screen with another, this one of a sexy female mouse, which he shows more approval of. The doctor labels all of Mickey's reactions as "average". Next, the doctor feeds Mickey some "special foods" to build him up, but Mickey is uncertain about the foods, which are basically small but "super-charged vitamins" such as thermosines. Then, the doctor puts Mickey into a training device that spins around very fast in order to help Mickey fall asleep. Mickey's process continues: he is clobbered by a boxing gorilla; he is put on a spinning wheel to help with his orientation; he studies the German language while clinging to monkey bars; he has to face several lions (and one tiger) as an interesting way of relaxing under hazardous conditions; and he is put through a wind tunnel to help him move faster than any inanimate object. The last test involves Mickey being shot out of a cannon and into a solid wall, but he is assured that he will survive (as seen by some calculations that the doctor made). The cannon fires and Mickey hits the wall. He is dazed and his feet hurt, but he survives.
Thus, Candidate Seven, whose real name is revealed to be Douglas Heed-Martin, gives Mickey his secret mission. Heed-Martin is a manufacturer of planes, and the underground lair is an underground factory, where they make secret weapons, including a nozzle gun that fires a substance made of tar and chewing gun that can stop a tank in its tracks, and several kinds of gases, including a laughing gas and another made with Terpsichorean dioxide, which makes everyone dance themselves into exhaustion. Then Heed-Martin reveals to Mickey his secret mission. Behind a locked door lies a new kind of plane called "The Bat", which has unlimited range through a source of atomic power. It is capable of going speeds that no one knows about, which was why Mickey went through such a rigorous examination process, so he, too, became a person of superior power. Heed-Martin tells Mickey that although he created The Bat, no one could tame it, so that job falls to Mickey. Heed-Martin puts Mickey in the cockpit and elevates the plane onto the runway, assuring him it will not be too difficult, as it can take off, land, and navigate itself. All Mickey has to do is give voice commands and it will do the rest. All the while, Mickey is understandably nervous about this, but Heed-Martin has a picture of a hummingbird placed in the plane to show how fast Mickey is going; if it keels over, he is going too fast. With that, Mickey takes off in The Bat.
Mickey has some trouble flying The Bat as it goes across the sky. He tries to do a figure-8, but it goes flying crazily. Then he remembers Heed-Martin telling him about the bombsight, which can drop an apple block buster through the hat of a Brooklyn ball fan and take a bow afterward. He tests it on a tomato he brought with him for lunch. Flying over a ball game in Brooklyn, Mickey drops the tomato through the hat of a heckling ball fan, and sure enough, the bombsight takes a bow.
Some time later, Mickey is flying so high that it's quiet in the sky. He has no idea where he is or where he is going. He decides to take a look on his screen, thinking it is only Wichita, Kansas, but to his surprise, he is flying over Paris, France, whose Eiffel Tower has a Nazi flag rising from the top. Mickey suspects that he had gotten turned around in the upper stratosphere. He then tries to get out of there as fast as he can. The Bat zooms by some passing planes, whose pilots are taken by surprise. Mickey hopes they did not see him, but alas, he is mistaken, as some time later, one of the pilots is reporting to his superior officer, a major (who has a portrait of Hitler hanging on the wall behind him), about what he saw. The major refuses to believe it, saying that no American plane can fly faster than "our new Villy Messerschmitt model". He then contacts Agent 17, who is in America, about The Bat, instructing him to discover information about it. Back in America, the agent, Von Weasel, after listening in, turns to Pete, who is collaborating with the Nazis, and tells him that they found the landing field for The Bat. Pete informs Von Weasel that the plane is about to come in from its test flight.
Meanwhile, Mickey lands The Bat, relieved to be on American soil again. He is greeted by a cheering crowd which includes Heed-Martin as well as Pete and Von Weasel. Back in the underground lair, Heed-Martin tells Mickey to fly The Bat again tomorrow at 0600 hours, while some soldiers comment on The Bat's new secret ordnance. Pete and Von Weasel overhear, planning to be there when the plane takes off at 0600.
The next morning, Pete and Von Weasel bring some camera equipment with them to catch The Bat's secret flight on film. Here, Heed-Martin is having Mickey do a test flight to see how it handles with guns and bombs. As the plane takes off, and Von Weasel and Pete film everything, Mickey blacks out in his seat, while his "guardian angel" takes control of the plane. However, the flash of the cameras startles Mickey awake, confused as to whether the flash was coming from either guns or cameras. Having filmed The Bat in action, Von Weasel and Pete take off in their car, but they were apparently driving too fast, as a cop pulls them over, demanding their draft cards. Pete and Von Weasel hand some draft cards (which were stolen, as Pete admits to himself) to the cop, with Pete lying that he is the sole supporter of his mother, while Von Weasel pretends that he loves America and that the Nazis "stole [his] liddle pastry shop in Vienna".
Mickey flies The Bat 600 MPH in reverse and is quite pleased that the Nazis did not see that. Unfortunately, Mickey is mistaken as Von Weasel and Pete develop the pictures – only to discover that they have taken pictures of nothing but a streak of dust left behind by the plane. It is too fast to photograph, so they decide they will have to steal it. Meanwhile, as Mickey lands the plane, Douglas Heed-Martin warns him that intelligence reports the presence in America of Nazi spy Von Weasel, who happens to be a personal friend of Hitler's. Mickey is appropriately worried. Von Weasel and Pete, meanwhile, are finalizing their plans to invade the secret airfield.
That night, the two sneak into the airfield, knocking out the watchmen at the gate in the process. Then Pete, disguised as a watchman, sneaks up to Mickey and The Bat, pretending to get Mickey's autograph for his "little girl". Mickey starts to oblige, but quickly realizes that it's not a watchman, but Pete, who promptly holds Mickey at gunpoint with the gun Pete had stolen from the watchman. Pete then turns Mickey over to Von Weasel, who is holding the other pilots at gunpoint, while Pete gets into The Bat. As Mickey accuses Pete of betraying his own country to aid an enemy country, Von Weasel gives the Nazi salute to Pete, who gives Von Weasel the Nazi salute in return and starts to take off in The Bat, but not before reminding Von Weasel of the $5,000 he is owed. Von Weasel ties up Mickey and the other pilots and bids them farewell, confident that with The Bat in Nazi hands, Germany will soon be able to "drive the American nation underground."
Flying The Bat past other planes, Pete taunts the pilots that they can't catch him. However, he soon learns he's flying too fast and starts to pass out. Having escaped his bonds, Mickey, alongside Douglas Heed-Martin, gets to the radio communicator to contact Pete, yelling at him to land the plane or he will crash. On The Bat, Pete has indeed passed out. His subconscious urges him to stop the plane, while Mickey's voice appears over the radio with the same command. Weakly, Pete moves his head over the emergency stop, which brings The Bat to a sudden stop in midair, much to Pete's subconscious' relief.
Heed-Martin learns that The Bat has stalled in midair about three miles from Crawfordsville. He and Mickey board another plane to retrieve The Bat and settle the score with Pete and "his Nazi friends" all at the same time. The plane catches up with The Bat, but when Mickey grabs a parachute to bail out, the pilot calls out to him, too late, that he mistakenly took a parachute for dropping sandwiches. As Mickey opens the parachute, he learns to his shock that, indeed, it's too small, "a junior miss size". Undaunted, Mickey takes off his shorts and uses them as a parachute.
Meanwhile, Pete comes to as Mickey lands on one of the wings of The Bat and sees Pete smiling sadistically at him as he puts his pants back on. Pete gets out of the cockpit and advances on Mickey with a monkey wrench in his hand for a weapon. Mickey warns Pete that he had done some jiu jitsu and ranger tactics, but Pete is unafraid. Mickey tries to prove it by showing Pete the certificate of completing the course, as signed by his doctor, but Pete ignores the warning, as he can't read. But as Pete raises his monkey wrench in the air, Mickey suddenly grabs Pete's vest and pulls him down hard, slamming him against the wing of The Bat. Mickey then follows up with a headbutt into Pete's stomach, warning that he "majored in an advanced physical culture course". Pete falls over, and Mickey, following up on his culture course, bends one of Pete's legs up and twists it around. However, Pete is more annoyed than hurt, as he then grabs Mickey is his arm. Mickey protests that he paralyzed his nerve centers with his jiu jitsu. Pete answers that he's too dumb to know it, as he throws Mickey against the plastic shell of the cockpit, which is soft enough for Mickey to ricochet back at Pete and kick him in the chin.
Clinging to the edge of the plane, Pete grabs Mickey's legs to drag him off with him. But Mickey spots a bucket of oil and throws it in Pete's face. Pete slips on the oil and grabs Mickey for support. Mickey in turn tries to push Pete off, then turns back. But Pete warns Mickey to never turn his back on him as he then kicks him in the back of the head so hard that it knocks him out. Pete decides that if he can have The Bat, then Mickey won't either, as he then lights the oil on fire with a match. He then jumps off the plane with another parachute.
The barely-conscious Mickey comes to when he smells smoke from the fire. Fearing for the experimental plane's existence, he puts the fire out by flying The Bat through a swimming pool at a country club. Then he takes to the air again to find Pete still parachuting to the ground. He spots Pete and is tempted to shoot him down with the machine guns, but changes his mind and flies off, thinking that if he did, he'd "wak[e] up tomorrow as a Japanese". Pete is relieved to be spared. Later, Mickey and Heed-Martin are congratulated by the FBI for keeping The Bat from falling into enemy hands. Mickey, however, says The Bat won't be safe until the spies are caught. Heed-Martin decides to mass-produce The Bat, which will take three weeks after retooling. Mickey worries how they can protect The Bat in the meantime.
==Trivia==
*Douglas Heed-Martin's name and profession as manufacturer of planes is a reference to the Douglas Aircraft Company and the Glenn L. Martin Company, both of which were American aerospace manufacturers which produced aircraft during World War II.
*Pete's role as a Nazi spy in this comic is a sharp contrast from his role in the concurrent wartime cartoons, where he appears as the antagonistic Army superior of Donald Duck, but one who is still on the side of the Allies.
Category:Mickey Mouse comic stories