CAPTAIN MORS THE AIR PIRATE (1908-1911) STORIES SIX TO TEN

For Balladeer’s Blog’s overview of the entire Kapitan Mors der Luftpirat series click HERE. For my look at the first five stories in the weekly text series click HERE.

THE TREASURE OF THE FLAMING MOUNTAIN – The early Pulp adventures of Kapitan Mors continue. The part-Captain Nemo & part-Robur the Conqueror and his mixed crew of Europeans and people from India are flying over Nicaragua. They prevent the suicide of a despairing young woman whose father has been imprisoned by an up-and-coming dictator to try forcing him to reveal the location of his hidden treasure.

The masked Kapitan Mors leads his crew in a raid to free the young lady’s father and prevent the rising dictator from laying his hands on the treasure hidden in the Volcano de Fuego near Antigua. The Luftschiff heroes succeed and turn over the treasure to the proper authorities in Nicaragua after taking a sizable amount to spread among the world’s suffering poor. 

THE SECRET OF THE JAPANESE – Like many of the Kapitan Mors adventures, this one is set a few years earlier than its publishing date, which in this case would have been 1908. A Japanese scientist named Kowaro devises a super-explosive for his nation to use against Russia in their war. 

Kowaro has also devised small airships of his own with which to unleash that super-explosive and all of this catches the attention of Kapitan Mors. He, Stern, Schrecken and his Indian Executive Officer Lindo set out to do away with the earthquake-levels of destruction explosive and kill Kowaro. Mors also steals a hefty chunk of Kowaro’s development funds to finance his ongoing construction of a spaceship.

THE MANCHURIAN MUTINEERS – In Manchuria’s capitol city Mukden (Now called Shenyang), the bloody war between the Russians and the Japanese continues. Mukden is on the verge of falling and the city is full of riots, mutinies and looting.

Kapitan Mors and his men work to evacuate a pair of non-belligerents – an Italian inventor and his daughter – from the violent, blood-soaked city to save their lives and to prevent the daughter’s forced marriage to a vile blackmailer.

THE ISLAND OF CAPTAIN MORS – The subplot of Kapitan Mors raising money and equipment to outfit a spaceship – or Worldship as he calls it in the series – continues. Not far from our hero’s secret island headquarters, where he and his crew live and work between voyages, is a populated island targeted by Brazilian plantation owners.

The two Brazilian tycoons and their men plan to seize the indigenous inhabitants of that island to use as slave labor back in Brazil. Part of their ruthless plans include killing any elderly or children too weak to survive the sea journey. Kapitan Mors thwarts the whole evil scheme.

THE UNCANNY ENGINEER – This is the very first story pitting Kapitan Mors against the man who becomes his archenemy – Australian genius Ned Gully. The uncanny engineer of the title wows Chicago by hovering over the city in his own airship and making three spectacular leaps, landing safely thanks to his parachutes.   

The flashy Aussie wanted to impress his new employers, the allied millionaires from around the world who have lost plenty of money to the raiding of the Air Pirate Kapitan Mors. Ned Gully tries to earn the reward money for eliminating our hero in this first of many clashes between the pair.

*** I’ll examine the next several tales in the near future. FOR THE NYCTALOPE, A NEGLECTED HERO SIMILAR TO CAPTAIN MORS, CLICK HERE.