In “Murder Lodge”, Scott, Barda and Shilo stop by an out-of-the-way lodge while their car is being repaired, and it turns out to be filled with death-traps, trick-beds that flip you into trap doors and the like. Fortunately, while Scott and Barda are caught unawares, Shilo manages to escape the traps and use some of the training he’s gotten from Scott and Barda to rescue them.

Then it gets weird as we find out the intended targets of the trap were “The Tricky Trio”, mobsters who look a lot like our heroes, so Scott&Co. have to take out both the innkeeper (who makes a business of offering sanctuary to criminals on the run and then double-crossing them) and their doppelgangers before calling in the police.

A nice diversion, the series was mostly treading water for a few issues right before the end, and I thought having Scott and Barda getting taken so easily was a kind of transparent excuse to give Shilo the spotlight, but otherwise it has some good bits, in particular the weird twist with the doppelgangers.

Mike Royer inks the cover and 20-page story.

Published 1974