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Tornado: Sexton Blake's Last Gasp
With the end of the 7-part serial TERROR OF TROLL ISLAND, the Victor Drago series took off in a new direction in TORNADO issue 8. Replacing the comic strip, readers were treated to part 1 of an illustrated prose story entitled VICTOR DRAGO AND THE FLASK OF DOOM. This was almost a return to the Sexton Blake stories of old.
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TORNADO · Issue 8 · 12/5/1979 · IPC Magazines · 10p
VICTOR DRAGO AND THE FLASK OF DOOM (Part 1)
by Bill Henry and Mike Dorey
Other content: Black Hawk; Storm; The Angry Planet; The Search; Warrior; The Mind of Wolfie Smith
Notes: A terrified man — Chalky White — deposits a parcel at a railway station's lost luggage counter. Receiving a ticket in return, he posts it to Victor Drago of Baker street. Boarding a train just as it slides out of the station, he relaxes in an empty compartment. Suddenly, the door slides open and three men enter. They have been watching him and now want to know who he posted the envelop to — even if it means beating him half to death. The next morning, Drago receives the ticket and sends Spencer to the station to collect the mysterious parcel. Laying it on his desk, the detective carefully opens it and finds a vacuum flask inside. He unscrews the lid. Inside, packed in ice, there is a dead rat. Drago tells Spencer to make himself scarce then carries the dead rodent into his laboratory where he starts to perform an autopsy. What he finds shocks him to the core &mdash but, before he can act on it a gunman enters the lab and informs Drago that he is about to be shot dead.
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TORNADO · Issue 9 · 19/5/1979 · IPC Magazines · 10p
VICTOR DRAGO AND THE FLASK OF DOOM (Part 2)
by Bill Henry and Mike Dorey
Other content: Black Hawk; Storm; The Angry Planet; Moon Ghost; Warrior; The Mind of Wolfie Smith; Captain Klep
Notes: The thug facing Drago informs him that he had beaten the detective's address out of Chalky White. Seizing his opportunity, Drago disarms the man but two more of the gang are behind him and they knock him unconscious. They hide a time bomb under a sink and leave, believing the police will blame the explosion on an experiment gone wrong. A few moments later Spencer returns and finds his guv'nor recovering consciousness. Drago hears ticking. The two men run out of the room in the nick of time; the bomb explodes behind them. The villains, witnessing the blast, make off in their car. the detective and his assistant race to their own vehicle to follow.
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TORNADO · Issue 10 · 26/5/1979 · IPC Magazines · 10p
VICTOR DRAGO AND THE FLASK OF DOOM (Part 3)
by Bill Henry and Mike Dorey
Other content: Wagner's Walk; Storm; The Angry Planet; Black Hawk; Warrior; The Mind of Wolfie Smith
Notes: Drago and Spencer follow the car out into the countryside, to a lonely barn-like building beside an estuary where a cargo ship lies at anchor. The detective watches as bulging sacks are unloaded from the vessel. Through binoculars, he lip reads as a bearded man meets the villains and asks whether they successfully killed Drago. They answer in the affirmative and all the men return to the ship. Drago and Spencer investigate the barn. He finds the sacks are full of rice &mdash infected with bubonic plague, as the rat had been! Spencer goes to call Detective-Inspector Carter. While Drago waits, a convoy of lorries arives. The detectivve confronts the gang and, in the ensuing struggle, he throws an oil lamp onto the sacks. They promptly turn into a raging inferno. Carter arrives in time to take the gang into custody.
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In issue 11, a new illustrated prose story begins; this one with a horror/Egyptian theme:
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TORNADO · Issue 11 · 2/6/1979 · IPC Magazines · 10p
VICTOR DRAGO AND THE HORROR OF THE MUMMY'S CURSE (Part 1)
by Bill Henry and Mike Dorey
Other content: The Lawless Touch; Wagner's Walk; The Angry Planet; Black Hawk; Storm; The Mind of Wolfie Smith
Notes: A terror-stricken old man rushes out of a doorway into the path of Victor Drago's car. Narrowly avoiding an accident, the detective leaps out to go to the aid of the man, who has fallen and knocked himself out. The doorway belongs to the old city museum and from it comes Forbes, the curator. He tells Drago that the exhibits are currently being packed ready for a move, as the building is due to be demolished. The stricken man — Simpson — had been working in a store room. Forbes heard him scream then saw him flee from the building. Simpson recovers and claims to have seen Ramtoth, a mummy, roaming the museum. Spencer calls for a doctor then joins his guv'nor in the building. They go to the room where Simpson had been working and there see the mummy in its sarcophagus. Suddenly the lights fail and Drago hears the lid of the coffin slowly creaking open. He snaps on his torch. The mummy lives!
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 TORNADO · Issue 12 · 9/6/1979 · IPC Magazines · 10p
VICTOR DRAGO AND THE HORROR OF THE MUMMY'S CURSE (Part 2)
by Bill Henry and Mike Dorey
Other content: The Lawless Touch; Storm; Wagner's Walk; Black Hawk; The Billy Preston Report; The Angry Planet; The Mind of Wolfie Smith; Captain Klep
Notes: The mummy flees past Drago and Spencer and out through the door into the museum. The detective and his assistant race after it as it makes for the roof. They chase it over the rooftops of adjoining buildings, leaping from one to the other. Drago retrieves a length of bandage which has been torn off the horrific figure. Suddenly a roof gives way beneath him and Drago falls halfway through. Spencer struggles to help him but before he can pull him out they both hear an engine roar into life. The mummy is at the wheel of a wrecking crane and begins battering the building in which Drago is trapped.
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TORNADO · Issue 13 · 16/6/1979 · IPC Magazines · 10p
VICTOR DRAGO AND THE HORROR OF THE MUMMY'S CURSE (Part 3)
by Bill Henry and Mike Dorey
Other content: The Lawless Touch; The Angry Planet; Wagner's Walk; Black Hawk; Storm; The Mind of Wolfie Smith; Captain Klep
Notes: Drago and Spencer fall through into the attic below. They race out of the collapsing building in time to see Ramtoth dart into another of the condemned buildings. Seconds later, they catch sight of it leaping from roof to roof — how can it be in two places at once? Back in the museum, they examine the sarcophagus: Ramtoth is still inside! Drago establishes that the piece of bandage he retrieved did not come from this mummy. He instructs Spencer to fetch Brutus the bloodhound. He also sends for Inspector-Detective Carter. Brutus, upon arrival, is given the bandage to scent. He follows a trail down to a cellar and a hidden passage where the mummy is confronted. Drago wrestles it to the ground and finds that it has a zipper in the back. Holding his costumed prisoner at gunpoint, Drago proceeds further down the tunnel, eventually encountering two men digging at the wall. A second mummy appears, weapon in hand, but Drago knocks the gun away just as Carter arrives leading a group of policemen. The detective explains to him that the gang have been tunnelling through to a nearby Bank and used the mummy scheme to keep people away.
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