Democratic Studios: “Jet Black Jet Pack” (1951) Chapters 1 – 8
Chapter 1 – The Evil Scientist
When Skippy “Spence” Spencer, his dog Roger and his girlfriend Grace discover an unusual looking item in Skippy’s late uncle’s cabin they put it in a sack and take it to Skippy’s college archaeology professor to identify it. Dr Coldstream hasn’t seen anything like it before and calls his colleague, Dr Bionicus, to take a look. Recognising the item’s extraterrestrial design, Bionicus immediately knocks out Dr Coldstream, ties up the plucky teenagers and shoots the dog. Grabbing the sack, he sets fire to the room and makes his getaway.
Chapter 2 – The Mystery of the Mysterious Priest
Skippy, using his Boy Scout training, is able to free himself from his bonds. Grabbing the real mysterious item from beneath the table, Skippy is able to use it to rescue his teacher before the building burns down by flying to safety. Meanwhile, Dr Bionicus excitedly reports his discovery to a mysteriously red robed priest, only to discover that the Jetpack in the sack is in fact a cunning replica. The red priest orders Bionicus to find the real item. In an hilarious sequence, Skippy practices flying at Dr Coldstream’s ranch, while Dr Coldstream’s daughter Pammy watches. Losing control of the jetpack, Skippy finds himself facing a stampede of cattle.
Chapter 3 – Death Comes Calling
Skippy is saved from crushing by Roger, his dog, who has recovered from being shot and herds the cattle away from his young master. The pair are happily reunited. Dr Coldstream has plotted the point of manufacture of the jetpack from the metals used in its construction and mysteriously it seems to have been made almost two miles up in the air. The conversation is interrupted by Roger barking and a mysterious rumbling. Suddenly, the ranch explodes.
Chapter 4 – Twelve Microns to Murder
Skippy and Dr Coldstream manage to reach shelter in the scientist’s atomic bunker just in time. Bionicus directs his blond henchmen to search for the jetpack from a control room. Skippy leaves the bunker to find the ranch itself shrunk to the size of a toolbox, only their quick thinking saved he and Dr Coldstream. Skippy looks into the shrunken ranch to see a tiny Pammy being frightened by a frog. Just as he is about to save her, he finds himself surrounded by Bionicus’ henchmen. In his control room, Bionicus is ordered to kill Skippy by the red priest. The machine guns of the henchmen spit sudden fire.
Chapter 5 – Upward to Adventure
Doctor Coldstream has activated a giant magnet that he keeps in the bunker to draw the bullets away from Skippy, who uses the tiny house to bludgeon the henchmen into unconsciousness. Skippy and Dr Coldstream interrogate the henchmen to ascertain who has sent them, and after finding out the location of Bionicus and his lair, Dr Coldstream reveals to Skippy that one of the magnetised bullets had hit him. Leaving the bleeding scientist behind. Skippy uses the jetpack to fly straight upward. In the clouds he glimpses a huge city of brilliant spires and towers, floating impossibly in the air. Before he can fly to it, it seems as though the clouds come alive, and Skippy is knocked unconscious.
Chapter 6 – In the Hands of Incredible Evil
Skippy awakes in a dungeon, missing his jetpack. Peering out of the barred door he glimpses the robed figure of the red priest putting the hood back on, and examining the jet pack. Reaching into his pocket, Skippy pulls out Roger, the dog still shrunk from the mysterious effects on the ranch, and releases him through the bars. Roger retrieves the keys to the cell, but as Skippy releases himself the red priest is alerted to his presence. Squishing Roger underfoot, he is joined by Dr Bionicus, who arrives on the back of a winged Polar Bear. Skippy realises that the bears must have been hiding in the clouds. Bionicus directs the bear to eat Skippy.
Chapter 7 – From the Jaws of Hatred
The hungry bear is distracted by the remains of Roger suddenly returning to full size, and Skippy grabs the evil scientist in the confusion. Under duress, Bionicus reveals that the red priest is none other than Staler, a hateful amalgam of Hitler and Stalin, cloned from scrapings taken by an elite cadre of blonde super scientists, once led by Bionicus himself. The priest rips his hood aside to reveal the truth of this as Bionicus talks. Staler has taken command of Doctor Bionicus’ scientific outpost and is using it to breed the new species of winged polar bears, which he intends to unleash upon Boulder, Colorado. Horrified, Skippy watches as Staler opens a giant door to reveal the bears standing waiting on an airstrip.
Chapter 8 – The Brother of the Devil
Breaking free of Skippy’s grasp, Bionicus pulls a giant lever and reveals his measure to regain control of his floating city, as he unveils Hitlin, a second clone of the two dictators which immediately attacks its counterpart Staler. Torn in their loyalties, the polar bears turn on each other, in the process wrecking the gyro-stabilisers of the sky-city, which starts to plummet down toward Boulder. Skippy has only barely enough time to retrieve his jetpack, with which he takes off, pursued by the surviving polar bears. The bears are gaining on Skippy when sudden beams of light shoot them from the sky. Skippy is so surprised by the Flying Saucer that appears before him that he looses control of the jetpack and begins to plummet toward the Earth.
Chapters 9 – 15
Missing, presumed destroyed.
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