Peacemaker #3 (1967)

The scientist Gerda Hain has been chosen by the Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Lucetti, to make her a part of his underwater city, designed to ride out the nuclear war that he thinks is inevitable. Other people chosen by Lucetti meanwhile have been abducted by him - Hilary Smythe-Janes was taken while climbing a Himalayan mountain, Tony Holusky was taken after helping his football team win, the typist Eileen McGowan was abducted from new York City. Lucetti in 1945 had helped develop the cobalt bomb and believed the world will soon annihilate itself. While once swimming underwater, he realized that the sea life wouldn't be much affected by a nuclear war. Lucetti worked on his underwater complex for 15 years and experimented on unwilling subjects, in order to find a way for humans to breathe underwater. He eventually achieved success in 1960 by transforming them into fish-like creatures. Back in the present, Gerda Hain is spending private time on the beach with Christopher Smith. As she goes out for a swim, she is kidnapped by Lucetti's fishmen. Smith eventually goes looking for her and encounters a group of hostile sharks, who he realizes were agitated by someone else already. A fishman soon lunges at him, but Smith knocks them out and goes back to the beach to don his Peacemaker disguise. Heading underwater, he encounters another fishman and knocks them out with a sedative. Following the trail of the fishmen, he finds them taking Gerda to a domed underwater city. Their leader orders the others to capture Smith alive, so he could be turned into them. Smith subdues many of them with his helmet but realizes he is outnumbered. As he pretends to be knocked out by a spear to his helmet, he is taken to Lucetti. Gerda realizes who he is and he promises to explain the truth to her one day. Lucetti meanwhile tells him that he is looking for people like Gerda to settle his underwater city, but he will be turned into one of the fishmen. A fishman then tells Smith to drink the concoction that would turn him into one of them, but he refuses and decides to escape with Gerda. Finally finding an escape chamber, Smith and Gerda escape outside but are attacked by deadly sea creatures controlled by Lucetti. As one of the fishmen fire a spear at him, he grabs it and uses it to wound a dolphin, which sends the sharks into a feeding frenzy. After escaping their pursuers, Smith decides to explore Lucetti's facility alone. Knowing that the Italian himself wants to destroy the surface world, he finds a submarine armed with nuclear missiles that can provoke a nuclear war. As two of the fishmen attack him, the Peacemaker lets himself be captured so he can talk to Lucetti. Back inside the underwater city, he finds that Gerda has been captured again, complicating his plans. As Gerda gets taken away, Smith tells Lucetti that he let himself be captured and tells him to surrender. The Italian ignores his ultimatum and traps him in a plastic bubble, which deflects anything he fires. Accepting his defeat, he then questions Lucetti about his plans, learning that he is going to plunge the Americans and Soviet into a nuclear war. As the Italian orders his fishmen to prepare for launching the missiles, Smith uses his helmet's laser to melt the floor, dropping down to Gerda's cell. Finding the cables controlling Lucetti's missile launchers in the same location, he proceeds to rip them out. This results in the subs suffering short-circuits during the launch and being destroyed. As they chase after Lucetti, Smith and Gerda discover his corpse lying motionless on the ocean floor. The two return to spending time together, before going back to their lives.