Vol. 1: 1934-1936
By Milton Caniff
Arc 8: In Command
Feb 2 - Aug 23, 1936
This is the fourth and final Sundays only arcs.
Feb 9, 1936 - Cap’n Blaze anticipates an aerial attack from the Dragon Lady’s forces. Pat gets into an argument with Blaze over how to resist the Dragon Lady’s forces. The Dragon Lady attacks just as Cap’n Blaze is ready to lock up Terry, Pat, and Connie for insubordination.12/22/19
Feb 16, 1936 - Cap’n Blaze and his men fight back against the Dragon Lady’s army. The Dragon Lady’s army wins easily. The strip ends with Blaze captured and the Dragon Lady (wearing a smashing red, white, and blue outfit) pointing a sword at his throat. She uses his catch phrase (Yoho and a bucket o’ yak butter!) as she promises him a slow death.
Terry, Pat, and Connie are in this week’s strip but they stay away from the fighting.
12/23/19
Feb 23, 2019 - Terry, Pat, and Connie take charge of Cap’n Blaze’s fortress. They lock the gate. They have plenty of guns, ammunition, and supplies. Pat lets the Dragon Lady know what the score is once they have secured the fortress.
12/24/19
Mar 1, 1936 - The Dragon Lady and her men attempt to scale the wall of the fortress. They are repelled by Pat and Connie who pour a large bucket of yak butter on them.
12/25/19
Mar 8, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie hold on to the fortress and fire back at the Dragon Lady’s men.
12/26/19
Mar 15, 1936 - The Dragon Lady tries talking Terry, Pat, and Connie into opening the gates. She says that they will let them go free. She just wants the food and treasure in the fortress. Some of her men sneak into the fortress while the Dragon Lady is talking to Pat.
12/27/19
Mar 22, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie make a run for it but they are captured by the Dragon Lady and her men. Pat is stabbed in the shoulder with a bayonet. Her men are ready to execute the prisoners but the Dragon Lady wants them alive.
The fight scenes are spectacular in this week’s strip.
12/28/19
Mar 29, 1936 - The Dragon Lady tends to Pats wounds. Two of her men don’t care for it. They want to kill Pat for gunning down some of her men. They get into an argument with her and suggest that maybe they should kill her and Pat. She ends the argument by pulling out her pistol and killing them.
Terry stays near Pat with the Dragon Lady’s permission. Connie and Cap’n Blaze are forced to walk near the rear of the Dragon Lady’s caravan. Blaze mourns as he watches his fortress set on fire. Blaze has an escape plan and starts to tell Connie about it in the final panel.
For once the Sunday strip is broken into a couple scenes. The first two-thirds of the panels are focused on the Dragon Lady. The last third are focused on Connie and Cap’n Blaze. It feels more like three daily strips than one Sunday strip.
12/29/19
Apr 5, 1936 - Cap’n Blaze fills Connie in on his escape plan and then they execute it. The strip ends with the two of them jumping off a cliff into a river.
This feels like three daily strips rather than a Sunday comic. Each row of panels has a beginning, middle, and end just like the daily strips do.
12/30/19
Apr 12, 1936 - the Dragon Lady asks Pat to join her and lead her army. He says no but she insists that he reconsider his decision.
12/31/19
Apr 19, 1936 - Pat says no to the Dragon Lady’s offer. She is ready for that. She has three slips of paper. Each one has a different word written on it: Freedom, Death, or Join. The papers are folded so Pat can’t see the word on the one he draws. He grudgingly goes along with her game. The word on the slip he draws is Join.
I think she stacked the deck and wrote Join on all three slips of paper.
01/01/20
Apr 26, 1936 - Pat grabs the other slips of paper from the Dragon Lady just as she is about to toss them in the fire. All three slips had Join written on them. He slaps her. She falls to the ground and listens as Pat tells her how he is taking over and she will now take orders from him. A smile breaks out on the Dragon Lady’s face after Terry and Pat leave the room.
I was right but it seems like she isn’t displeased with how things turned out.
01/02/20
May 3, 1936 - Terry is concerned that leading the Dragon Lady’s Army will bring them in conflict with American troops in China. Pat disagrees. The Dragon Lady reveals her real plan to her assistant: attack an American base and pin the blame on Pat and Terry.
01/03/20
May 10, 1936 - another bandit’s troops are spotted approaching the Dragon Lady’s fortress, led by Connie.
01/04/20
May 17, 1936 - Connie’s army attacks the Dragon Lady’s fortifications. Connie is dressed up and wielding an ancient rifle. The Dragon Lady wants to mow down the attackers but Pat has another idea. He has the Dragon Lady’s forces hold their fire and gives Terry a costume to wear.
I’m not sure what’s coming next but it will probably be more silly than exciting. Pat continues to use a derogatory term when referring to Connie.
01/05/20
May 24, 1936 - Terry and Pat scare off Connie’s army by dressing up in some devilish costumes. Connie doesn’t notice them until his army has deserted him. He then proceeds to talk about how he was going to deal with the Dragon Lady, not realizing that she is standing right behind him.
This one both advances the plot and is played for laughs.
01/06/20
May 31, 1936 - Pat asks Connie to train some of the troops but he doesn’t have much luck with that. The troops aren’t very cooperative.
This is one that feels as though it is supposed to be funny, due to Connie’s inability to do something, but it just leaves me scratching my head.
01/07/20
Jun 7, 1936 - Connie is urged by Pat to try harder. He tries drilling a small squad of troops. He fails again but for a different reason.
More humor at Connie’s expense. Not funny.
01/08/20
Jun 14, 1936 - Pat starts to teach Connie about mortars but he gets called away before he can finish the lesson. Connie proceeds to load and fire the mortar. The round creates a big hole in the wall of the Dragon Lady’s quarters which infuriates her.
I feel about the comedy in this strip the way that the Dragon Lady feels about Connie.
01/09/20
Jun 21, 1936 - The Dragon Lady has had enough with Connie. She plans to have him shot at dawn the next day. Terry and Pat have to act fast to try and prevent a tragedy.
01/10/20
Jun 28, 1936 - the Dragon Lady orders her men to shoot Connie but their guns don’t work. Her men think it is magic. Pat prevents her from shooting him with her pistol and then chases her off. He explains in the last panel that they filed down the firing pins in the rifles.
01/11/20
Jul 5, 1936 - the Dragon Lady plots with her right hand man. He suggests numerous ways they could eliminate the Terry, Pat, and Connie. Their conversation is interrupted by an attack by government troops.
01/12/20
Jul 12, 1936 - the Dragon Lady orders Pat to lead her troops in fighting off the forces of the Chinese government but he refuses. She high tails it out of there leaving them and many of her troops behind.
01/13/20
Jul 19, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie are captured by the army of the Chinese government which assumes that they are bandits.
01/14/20
Jul 26, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie wonder what will happen to them. The commanding officer informs them that their fate will be determined by a military court. They will be executed if they are found guilty.
The story is moving slow. It feels padded out. Just a few more days worth of strips before the Sunday Only strips end.
01/15/20
Aug 2, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie are put on trial. The court rejects their claims that they were prisoners of the Dragon Lady. A stranger shows up just as the court is about to find them guilty and sentence them to death.
The stranger looks a lot like Cap’n Blaze except that his beard is black instead of orange.
01/16/20
Aug 9, 1936 - the stranger tells his story to the court and explains how he knows Terry, Pat, and Connie. The court accepts his story and sets them free.
I was correct. The stranger is Cap’n Blaze. He shaved his head and dyed his beard. It was very convenient that he showed up when he did.
01/17/20
Aug 16, 1936 - Cap’n Blaze explains a little bit about his appearance and his past to Terry, Pat, and Connie while they are eating. He also wants to hire them to help in his trading business.
01/18/20
Aug 23, 1936 - Pat declines Blaze’s employment offer on behalf of the others once they find out what his real plans are, more banditry. Blaze doesn’t press them on it. He takes off in his car leaving them behind.
The final panel is a text piece promising that the Dragon Lady and Cap’n Blaze will return in the future.
That is it for the Sunday only stories. The next Sunday strip is part of an ongoing story that flows between the daily and the Sunday strips.
This arc is the best of the Sunday strips or at least my favorite but so far none of the Sunday strips has risen to the level of the best of the daily strips.
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