It may be a bit telling to say that I enjoyed the villains in this chapter play a lot more than
the heroes. Ivan Shark is smart but short-fused, Fury tries to sound far tougher than
she is, and Shark's henchmen are rather inept, quarrel amonst themselves, and even lie
to their boss to help to try to cover up their own failures. At one point, three of Shark's
men get into an almost Three Stooges type moment taking turns punching each other.
And, since it's rather obvious to the audience that many of the actors playing the heroes
also get a dual-role chance at being one Ivan Shark's "disguises," the division between
hero and villain in this one sometimes gets a little blurred.
In contrast, Dave O'Brien is a bit over the top as Captain Midnight, and he's always in
a hurry it seems, even when he relates his plans to others. He's rather authoratative,
and, well, almost smug. In the early goings, I was hoping that someone would wipe the
cock-sureness off his face. But, little chance of this as this is a Columbian serial, and
Columbia liked to have one their heroes able to hold his own against three or four men
at once. Still, I grew to like O'Brien in the role. He has an interesting voice.
His two most trusted allies are Ichabod 'Icky' Mudd (Wilkerson), a tall, lanky, balding
southern(?) mechanic and inventor, and Chuck Ramsey (Edwards), Captain Midnight's
ward, a smaller, gung-ho man in his twenties. The duo alternate between being useful and
being bungling doofuses who can't effectively hold on to their guns nor tie up criminals.
