Hit Comics #21 (1942)

Count Manfred Von Grebe, a ruthless Prussian engineer, with a monocle, has leased King Korman's Castle, on a barren canyon rim in Death Valley California, from its very eccentric, gnarled, wizened, prospector owner. While Korman stays around and plays an immense pipe organ and contributes virtually nothing else to the plot, Von Grebe has harnessed several natural steam wells in the vicinity, to generate five million kilowatt-hours per month of electric power, which he then, by a secret process, uses radio waves to transmit back to arms factories in the Fatherland. Not far away lives elderly rancher Luke Taylor who one day orders a prescription delivery from Vaughan's Cut Rate Pharmacy; Stormy Foster and Ah Choo drive out into the desert to make the delivery. Along the way they find a wounded elderly prospector, near King Korman's castle; he's been just randomly shot by the villains inhabiting that place, and he dies shortly after being found. Ah Choo drives on to complete the delivery while Stormy resolves to get to the bottom of this murder. He super-vitamins up and changes clothes, and loads his strange handgun with paralysis gas tubes, then invades the castle, encountering a series of armed thugs, several spring-loaded iron gratings, a heavy machine gun, crazy old King Korman, two giant pumas, and Von Grebe himself, dealing with each in one way or another. Meanwhile at old Luke Taylor's house, Ah Choo has learned what a dangerous place the castle is, and he drives back there, to join the fight with his slingshot. One thug tries to whack Foster with two lightning electrodes, but these get flung into Von Grebe's generator, shorting out the apparatus and sending live steam and electric sparks all over the place. Ah Choo escapes from all this and finds Stormy waiting in the car, with tied-up Von Grebe in the back seat.