CAPTAIN MORS THE AIR PIRATE (1908-1911) STORIES FORTY-ONE TO FORTY-FIVE

For Balladeer’s Blog’s overview of the entire Kapitan Mors der Luftpirat series click HERE.

A BATTLE BETWEEN AIRSHIPS – Word reaches our Air Pirate Kapitan Mors about French efforts to duplicate his Luftschiff in anticipation of the global conflict that many fear is inevitable. Still considering himself outside international law, Mors determines to nip in the bud any challenge to his aircraft.

It turns out he is too late since the French have just completed their own flying vessel. Our masked hero and his crew fly to Belle Isle near France, where the experimental craft is based. Soon Kapitan Mors’ ship and its French imitator are fighting it out in the skies over Europe.

THE NEW PLANET’S DEATH CRATER – Kapitan Mors and his crew, including his Executive Officer Lindo of India, his engineers Stern and Schrecken and science officers the Long Sisters resume exploring the Solar System in Mors’ spaceship the Meteor. Ship’s Astronomer Van Halen has detected a previously unknown planet and our adventurers want to explore it. 

While engaged in this incredible expedition Kapitan Mors and company find the planet has breathable air and bearable temperatures. They also encounter gigantic dinosaur-like creatures and enormous snakes which make the planet very unwelcoming.

THE AIR PIRATE UNDER THE SEA – Back on Earth after their latest space adventure, Kapitan Mors and company switch back to the Luftschiff at their hidden island base. Mors has developed incredible new optical devices which allow him to observe the world from 3,000 yards in the air as if the airship was at a mere 30 feet.

Refining these new instruments, the Air Pirate is even able to observe the ocean floor from the sky above. He catches a rogue band of Americans laying futuristic mines underwater off the coast of China. Mors and his crew investigate the hostile operation. 

THE LURE OF ANNIHILATION – This story is set right after Kapitan Mors’ mercy mission during the Indian famine of several issues back. Renegade submariners get stranded on the Air Pirate’s island headquarters near New Zealand.

Mors and his crew rescue them, but like the previous castaways rescued on the island these newcomers prove treacherous. The kapitan foolishly allows them to ride along in the Meteor on its latest trip to the moon, where the castaways unleash their Nihilist plans at the moment of maximum danger.

BETWEEN MERCILESS ENEMIES – While doing repairs to the Luftschiff and the Meteor on his island lair, Kapitan Mors is again the victim of treachery from a member of his crew of Air Pirates. A man from Normandy steals the blueprints for the Meteor and flees the island to sell those plans to the highest bidder. 

Mors and several crew members pursue the thief in our hero’s experimental sea vessel which can achieve practical invisibility via the use of mirrors. The masked figure thus discovers a party of those who hunt him lurking on an island near his own. Can Kapitan Mors get out of this alive? 

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