Slam-Bang Comics #4 (June, 1940)

Slam-Bang Comics was a short-lived anthology series published by Fawcett Comics in 1940. It ran for only seven issues, and, as the title suggests, it featured two-fisted action stories with characters like: Diamond Jack (and his magic gem), War Bird, Tom Swift and the Time Retarder (the first time traveler in comics), Lee Granger, Jungle King (often with Eric, the Talking Lion), and Hurricane Hansen, Sea Adventurer.

I haven’t been able to find a whole lot of information about Hurricane Hansen online, other than that he was an American who joined the British Navy, eventually attaining the rank of Captain and given the command of a sea raider. There were Hansen stories in all seven issues of Slam-Bang, but he only got the cover of a single issue, #4. Here we see Hansen saving a diver (or is it a beekeeper?) from the clutches of an octopus that seems more like an alien from Invasion of the Saucer-Men than any actual earthly cephalopod.