CAPTAIN MORS THE AIR PIRATE (1908-1911) STORIES SIXTEEN TO TWENTY

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.

CAPTAIN MORS IMPRISONED – Far above the ocean, Kapitan Mors commands his Luftschiff (Air Ship) on its latest voyage along with its part European and part Indian crew. A carrier pigeon brings our masked hero a distress call from Miss Else Martens. She is in the clutches of a tinpot dictator who wants to force her into a marriage.

Our main character and his men set out to free Else and loot the dictator’s riches. They will, as usual, share those riches with the suffering poor around the world. What they keep will go toward completing Mors’ spaceship. And speaking of that, this adventure introduces the Dutch astrophysicist Van Halen, who becomes vital to the captain’s outer space adventures.

A DUEL BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH – Kapitan Mors’ archenemy Ned Gully returns! Outside Chicago, his latest employers – the Gold and Silver Trust Company – have outfitted him with several hangars and the money to construct a small fleet of his own air ships. As usual, they want Ned to kill Mors and end his plundering of their wealth.

The ingenious Gully also devises a high-tech super-explosive to blow the Luftschiff out of the sky with just one hit. At last the day of departure arrives. Ned and his small fleet fly off for a monumental clash with our hero and his crew. 

CAPTAIN MORS AND THE TRAITORS – From his observatory on his secret island base near New Zealand, Kapitan Mors detects signs of life on Mars. He decides to make the Red Planet his first destination when he at last completes his spaceship.

At present, our Luftpirat requires vast quantities of platinum to further construction of that vessel. He flies his Air Ship to the Urals in Tsarist Russia. Complicating things is the fact that some of the international tycoons who seek his destruction are already there, mining the precious metal. Even worse, a few crew members plan to mutiny and take over the Luftschiff.

THE UNCANNY SKYSCRAPER – Stern, one of Kapitan Mors’ machinist mates, was sent to Chicago to obtain intelligence about Ned Gully’s latest activities. Unfortunately, he has fallen into the archvillain’s hands. Mors, his engineer Schrecken and his Punjabi Executive Officer Lindo lead the rest of the crew in a rescue mission to the Windy City. 

Crew members unknown to Ned observe him in one of his favorite joints for booze and women. Eventually our heroes raid Gully’s latest lair – a Chicago skyscraper in which every floor boasts death traps. Our heroes can’t leave one of their own in Ned’s hands, so in they must go.

THE TYRANT’S TREASURE TOWER – In a fictional country located where Central America becomes South America, warships from all of the world’s great powers are in port. Those nations are all trying to make deals with the country’s President Comares for a piece of the enormous, Global Order-altering level of wealth inside an ancient tower his archeologists have uncovered.

Kapitan Mors and his Luftschiff crew are lurking above the clouds, plotting their strategy to make off with some of the tower’s treasure themselves. As the story develops, our heroes learn that a French agent named Henri has already cut a deal with Comares to finance a war in which France can get revenge for its loss to Germans in the Franco-Prussian War.

Our title character and his men wind up intervening to prevent the global economy from collapsing AND prevent a new French vs German conflict from breaking out and plunging the entire world into a war. 

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