Chapter Two: Molten Terror
...in which we discover that the resolution to last week's astounding "how did he get out of THAT?!?" cliffhanger is: Commando Cody dove and did a stomach-skid (in brand new footage, natch) across the floor of the room so that he wound up sheltered behind a completely different piece of machinery to the one that Retik disintegrated with him patented lunarium disintegrator pistol (which, unlike Marvin the Martian's, doesn't actually disintegrate itself). Dodging through the hatch, out intrepid hero finds himself safe on the lunar surface (which, with it's cloudy starless skies and look of the Californian desert, probably is pretty safe compared to how it looked when Messrs Armstrong, Aldrin et al experienced it).
Soaring through the sky (via the patented dummy-on-a-line technique debuted in Adventures of Captain Marvel that still looks pretty great), Cody gets back to the ship and explains to the rest of the team what's happened. Figuring that the lunar stronghold is probably pretty impervious to the "light machine gun and some hand grenades" that they've brought along - and which sound totally safe and sensible to have in a pressurised environment on the moon, just in case of accidents - the gang figure that their best bet is to try to get hold of the moon mens' own atomic cannon ("If I could get hold of that, it would be easy to blast open their pressurised buildings and really put them out of action!" opines Cody). But how to put the lunar strangers out of action for long enough to get hold of the ray, we may ask?
"That may not be too tough. We brought some nitrous oxide with us, didn't we?"
Planning a laughing gas party aboard the shuttle, eh Commando? Sadly, before they have the chance to get that party started and maybe wind up with the male members - cough! - of the crew triple-teaming Joan (an airlock in an airlock? How neat), they decide that the funny stuff is better utilised by connecting the gas tank to the city's air intake. Absurdly, this seems to work, and Cody manages to get hold of the cannon and reach the outdoors long enough to be pursued across the Mare Tranquilitatis (well, it is now, half the inhabitants are knocked out) by a neat-looking laser tank. Sheltering from the encroaching death ray blasts in a nearby cavern in a cliff, Cody and his sidekick Ted find themselves fleeing into a dead end pursued by molten rock as the tank focuses its beam upon the cliff and begins to melt it...
Chapter Three: Bridge of Death
...and so our daring pair dart to safety down a convenient tunnel that we just didn't see at the end of the last one due to the camera angle. Sadly, the atomic ray gun that was the object of this entire quest has been lost in the flow (which can happen to me, sometimes, listening to good music). Heading back to the rocket, they begin readying for take-off and return to Earth, unaware that cold alien eyes are watching - for a lunarian guard is observing them, and reports the location of the craft back to his superiors via a very neat belt-mounted wind-up radio (proof, if proof be needed, that Trevor Baylis was very likely an alien or had access to alien technology: get Georgio Tsoukalos on this now!).
Thankfully, Cody is in the middle of a quick aerial reconnaissance and sweeps to conquer, tangling with the goon and knocking him over the edge of a precipice before stuffing the scout's laser pistol into his belt as a substitute for the mislaid cannon. Flying back to the ship, the crew become airborne (can one do so on an airless satellite?) just in time to avoid fire from the lunar tank (a repaint of the Juggernaut vehicle from Republic's earlier serial Undersea Kingdom). Retik radios his Earth agent, the cadaverous Krog (Peter Brocco) and commands that Cody and his crew be destroyed, to which end henchmen are dispatched with a bomb to destroy the rocket upon landing. Botching the job due to the landing site being guarded by police officers, the mooks are pursued by Cody in a car chase which culminates in them detonating their deadly device upon a rad bridge as the Commando closes in - sending his vehicle plummeting over the abyss...
Chapter Four: Flight to Destruction
...and with one bound, he was free! Yes, it's the classic 'he jumped from the car just before it went over the edge' reveal. It feels almost like seeing an old friend, for i'm certain King of the Rocket Men employed the self same manoeuvre. Cody returns to the lab to consult with agent Henderson, wherein they assess the situation and discount the idea of mounting a full scale assault upon the moon as any space forces Earth deploys would doubtlessly be instantaneously annihilated by Retik's defences. Deciding that the best bet is to trace the Selenite agents here at home.
Meanwhile, Krog and his main hireling Graber (The Lone Ranger himself, Clayton Moore) are also locked in debate as to how best to proceed. Krog wants a new truck with which they can deploy their refurbished atomic cannon, yet balks at Graber's suggestion that he sell "some more of those jewels that you brought down from the moon". Likewise, Graber is reticent to take up Krog's plan that he take up his occupation of bank robbery, what with him being out on parole and all (I guess the authorities take armed robbery a lot more seriously than conspiring with spacemen). Reluctantly, he agrees to be the getaway driver but the bungled heist ends with the cops gunning down the robber as he tries to ride on the running board of the auto, and he ends up broken like his dreams on the boulevard, face down in the street with a gun in his hand and his Mama cries.
Plan B from outer space is to kidnap and ransom Commando Cody - whose life is estimated to be worth the princely sum of $100, 000 dollars. Proving once again that Cody Laboratories - developers of top secret space age shit - really need to beef up their security, they gain solid gold easy access only to find that Cody isn't present. After a bar room brawl style punch-up with Ted, they decide to make the best of the situation by taking Joan as a lure. Whisking her away in a chartered plane from East Side airport, Graber finds his aircraft being pursued by the revenge-fueled rocketman. After a brief exchange of aerial gunfire, he wrenches the steering wheel out and parachutes away, leaving Joan and the Commando (who has swooped into the plane only to be given the rather Captain Obvious explanation of "he wrecked the controls!" from Joan upon finding no navigation mechanism) in a dramatic death dive that ends with the plane crashing straight into the dead leaves and the dirty ground...
Chapter Five: Murder Car
...but we know they're not around, as Cody gets Joan strapped into the spare 'chute and out of the plane before Junior Birdman-ing the hell out of there himself. Managing to both land safely after the plane has totalled into the rocks, Cody takes back to the skies to search for the errant Graber, who has managed to flag down a passing car and ask for a ride into town. However, this vehicular Samaritan soon learns the Jim Halsey way that one should never pick up hitch hikers as Graber produces his piece (no, his gun - though I have heard some hitch hiking horror stories in the past, it's usually the driver who wants his gearstick handled as a display of gratitude) and opens fire open the pursuing Cody, managing to wing and ground the flying ace. The last we see of the driver, an innocent lost amidst all this madness, is Graber holding him and gunpoint and growling at him to "Keep drivin'". So he probably did rape and kill him. Or kill him then rape him. Yeah, he looks the type.
A new ploy to secure funds is landed upon when fellow henchman Daly (Bob Stevenson) reminds Graber about "that payroll job Duke was trying to get you in on", and so a ransacking of the coffers of the Western Wholesale Supply Company is staged and predictably bungled - the thieves' car ploughing off road and into a tree, killing one stooge (presumably Duke) and rendering Graber the newest patient of the prison infirmary. However, Daly has been tipped off by a inside informant about plans to transfer Graber under guard to a private sanitarium (and, as Dr Loomis certainly knows, transporting your murderous psychos between institutions is a risky business) and thus intercepts the ambulance, gunning down the guard and liberating his comrade in crime. Hearing over the police band radio that the cops and Commando Cody are in swift pursuit, Graber flees leaving Daly to be decoy driver in the thief-driven ambulance (with silver sunshine smiles). When he sees the car containing Cody and Ted up ahead, he sets the course dead set on destruction, bailing out onto the roadside to leave the vehicle as a battering ram that crashes into the oncoming auto sending both crashing over the brink...
To be continued...
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