Biography of Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan, 1939

The following is a **biography of Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan for the year of 1939**.

## Biography

### Slam and Shorty go to college

On a whim, Slam and Shorty decided to attend college at Merrivale University. Their lack of a high-school education hindered their prospects for attending, but the registrar strangely admitted them upon learning they were detectives. The two began attending classes, during which a series of bizarre events occurred that put Shorty in danger. They soon received a note warning them to leave or die. The culprit was in fact the registrar himself, who had been misappropriating funds, and thought the detectives had been sent by the college board to investigate him. Slam and Shorty of course knew nothing of this, but tracked the man down for his attacks nonetheless and brought him to justice. The board prohibited Slam and Shorty from attending any further, presumably because their admittance had been under false pretenses.

### The portraits of death

Slam and Shorty were approached by an artist named Pierre D'Orsay, who offered to pay them to pose for a portrait. They arrived at his studio, where a series of associates painted the detectives as they posed. Examining the results, Slam and Shorty were shocked to find that each of the paintings showed them suffering a different horrible death. When asked which one they liked best, Shorty halfheartedly chose one in which they were being run down by a car. D'Orsay paid them a thousand dollars, and the two left, quietly followed by the painters. As they approached the street, a car sped toward them, and they narrowly dodged out of the way. Now certain that something was up, Slam went to attack D'Orsay, but he pulled a gun on them. D'Orsay explained that they were an "artistic cult" obsessed with drawing death scenes, which had recently resorted to using live models in real situations. He subjected Slam and Shorty to a series of perilous situations that brought them just on the brink of death so that the artists could capture their terror and desperation. D'Orsay eventually let them free, only to try to shoot Slam from behind. Slam avoided the attack and thoroughly beat down the cult to prepare them to be taken away by the police.

### The infamous Black Jack Benson

While out driving recreationally, Slam and Shorty were nearly run off of the road by an aggressive driver. Slam got out and confronted him, knocking him out as per usual. He was soon approached by a government investigator named Dick Kelly, who commended him for taking down infamous murderer Black Jack Benson. Benson was arrested and sentenced to death, but managed to escape the following month as he was being taken to the electric chair. Kelly headed for Switzerland, where Benson was said to have fled. Weeks passed without word from Kelly, and Slam and Shorty took it upon themselves to look for him. In Switzerland they met a ski instructor named Helger Wetjen and one of his supposed students, Gale Dennis. Following a series of suspicious behavior, Slam and Shorty followed the two into a cave one night to find them speaking with Benson. The two were caught, and the three tried to kill them by tying them to a toboggan and pushing it into a crevasse, as they had done to Kelly. Slam and Shorty managed to escape and got the upper hand on the killers, arresting each of them and extraditing them to the U.S. Benson was at last executed for his crimes.

### Slam and Shorty at the World's Fair

After receiving a $1,000 reward for busting up some more criminals, Slam and Shorty to decided to blow off some steam by visiting the New York World's Fair. As they casually roamed the fairgrounds, taking in the wondrous sights, Slam noticed that the lining of Shorty's jacket had been cut and there was a piece of paper sticking out of it. Examining the paper, Slam found that it contained an address and a note encouraging the reader to look in the fireplace. Bradley couldn't resist following this caper to its end, and in the stated place found a box hidden under the bricks containing $75,000 in cash. A group of gangsters came in, having followed the detectives there, but Slam quickly took care of them and demanded to know what was going on. The men in question were rivals of Tony Spinelli's gang, who had planted the note in Shorty's jacket while he was in his hotel room, intending to get Spinelli to secure the note and find the cash. This gang heard of the plan, and followed Slam and Shorty to the money. Spinelli himself arrived with a gun, shot the rival gang's leader, and made off with the money. Slam and Shorty pursued him, fighting him in his car and soon bringing him to justice for another hefty reward.

### The fortune of Caleb Whitethorne

One day, Slam and Shorty were approached by a lawyer who informed Slam that he had been named in the will of one Caleb Whitethorne, whom Slam had never heard of before. He and Shorty attended the reading of the will that night, where Whitethorne's family waited eagerly for their share of his fortune. In his will, Whitethorne chastised each of his relatives for being selfish, and gave the entirety of his one million dollars to Bradley, who had saved him from some ruffians while out one day in what he considered a magnificent display of courage and might. Slam's money came on the condition that he must survive one night in Whitethorne's mansion—if he were to die, the money would be split evenly among the family. Naturally, attempts began to be made on Slam's life as he and Shorty tried to sleep. Slam called the coroner's office and confirmed that Whitethorne had been poisoned—he deduced that Whitethorne wanted Slam to draw out the murderer by making him a target. The plan was successful, as Caleb's ne'er-do-well son Ronald stumbled in his attempts to kill Slam, and the detectives brought him to justice.

### The Hawaiian revolution plot

Slam and Shorty received a letter strangely threatening them to stay away from Hawaii. Having no plans to go anyway, Slam took the letter as a challenge, and the two took the next ship to the island paradise. They soon met the woman behind the letter, Betty Clark, who wanted Slam's assistance and knew that the best way to get his attention was through reverse psychology. Her uncle had disappeared, and now she was being assailed by apparent attempts on her life. Slam and Shorty soon discovered that her uncle, Charles Clark, was a government agent, and he had been kidnapped by spies from an Asian nation looking to start a revolution in Hawaii and cause it to secede from the United States, allowing their country to swoop in and control it themselves. Slam and Shorty helped the Clarks escape from the small island they were on moments before its volcano violently exploded, destroying the entire island and the spies with it.

### The asylum, the zoo, and the hotel

Slam and Shorty witnessed a woman named Gloria Travers in the street getting picked up by orderlies from a nearby mental institution, although she insisted that she wasn't mentally ill. Slam suspected something was up, and had Shorty committed to the asylum to investigate from within while Slam did the same from without. Slam soon discovered that the institution was thoroughly corrupt: he overheard a couple of the workers discussing the fact that Travers's father's fortune would go to the institution in the event of his and her deaths, and that they were prepared to kill her and pass it off as an accident to claim the money. Slam notified the police and had the bogus institution shut down. Soon after, Slam and Shorty investigated a series of animal-related deaths at the zoo, and found that the caretaker there had been using the animals to commit murder. He had grown furious at visitors mistreating the animals, and killed those who went too far. After Slam accidentally knocked out hotel owner Cyrus Painter, Painter hired the detectives to investigate supernatural goings-on at his establishment as a way of paying him back for the mistake. After various spooky developments, Painter revealed that it was all a large prank, which Slam and Shorty took in good fun.

### Shorty swallows a diamond

Slam and Shorty met a young woman and her guardian, who were on the run from thieves. The man, Dr. Farnsby, was planning on giving his ward, Diana Penton, a diamond worth half a million dollars for her 21st birthday. The four sat around at lunch discussing this at Farnsby's office; somehow, the diamond apparently ended up on Shorty's plate, and he unwittingly ate it with the rest of his food. Farnsby conducted an X-ray to confirm this, and demanded that the two return the diamond by the next day or pay for it in full. Mysteriously, news of Shorty's predicament began to spread in the papers, and the criminals who had come for Farnsby and Penton were now after them. In truth, Farnsby had faked the X-ray and leaked the news story himself—he was in league with the criminals and had promised them $50,000 to deal with Penton. Shorty had never swallowed the diamond at all, and Farnsby had kept the diamond himself while diverting attention to the detectives and trying to keep the diamond and all of the money for himself. In any case, Slam and Shorty put a stop to the lot of them and brought them to justice.

### Caught up in war

Slam and Shorty were attacked by a robber named James Kildare, whom Slam easily knocked out and turned in for a $5,000 reward, as he was already wanted for murder. The police encouraged the detectives to keep an eye out for Kildare's partner, Boris Borsht. Slam decided to spend the money on a vacation, and the two took a steamer from New York to the European nation of Luthoria. While on board at sea, the Luthorian ship received notice that they had entered war with Twerpany. Moments later, a Twerpan submarine torpedoed the ship. Slam and Shorty jumped off moments before the ship exploded, and were taken aboard by the surfacing Twerpan sub. Slam however quickly took control, snatching the sub commander's gun away. Soon, Twerpan soldiers detonated the sub from within, again forcing Slam and Shorty to jump overboard. They were recovered by a Luthorian plane, who assumed they were Twerpan soldiers who'd survived the explosion. They were imprisoned, but were soon snatched by a Twerpan spy and taken to a Twerpan base. There they discovered Boris Borsht posing as a Twerpan officer, apparently having gotten caught up in the war just like they had. The two fought their way out and took Borsht to the American embassy, securing passage back home for another sizeable reward.

## Notes

1. ↑ Linguistically inconsistent names among the spies ("Chang" and "Hiaroto") make it impossible to determine what specific nation the spies are from.

## See also

* Biography of Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan, 1938
* Biography of Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan, 1940

## References

1. ↑ *Detective Comics* #25k: "Slam Bradley." (March 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
2. ↑ *Detective Comics* #26a: "Slam Bradley." (April 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
3. ↑ *Detective Comics* #27m: "Slam Bradley." (May 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
4. ↑ *New York World's Fair Comics* #1h: "Slam Bradley at the World's Fair." (April 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
5. ↑ *Detective Comics* #28j: "Slam Bradley." (June 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
6. ↑ *Detective Comics* #29i: "Slam Bradley." (July 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
7. ↑ *Detective Comics* #30j: "Slam Bradley." (August 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
8. ↑ *Detective Comics* #31i: "Slam Bradley." (September 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
9. ↑ *Detective Comics* #32i: "Slam Bradley." (October 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Shuster, Joe (art).
10. ↑ *Detective Comics* #33i: "Slam Bradley." (November 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Bailey, Mart (art).
11. ↑ *Detective Comics* #34j: "Slam Bradley." (December 1939) Siegel, Jerry (w), Bailey, Mart (art).