Marvel Tales #131
In "The Man Who Bought a Dingbat," a clever pickpocket uses a wax hand to evade detection—until his scheme backfires in a tense confrontation with a tough guy who vows to punish him. Paul Hodge’s art brings the eerie, mechanical twist to life in this 1955 Marvel Tales standout, with Carl Burgos handling the striking cover.
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A pickpocket creates a wax hand so that he can set it in his coat while his real hand does his dirty deeds. When he picks the wrong tough guy target, the guy feels his wallet being lifted and tells the thief he doesn't have time to find a cop but he is going to punish him by mashing his hand. The thief shifts his real hand inside his coat so that the wax hand takes the beating. When he's standing next to a cop on train, the resentful wax hand pulls the cop's gun and points it at the cop's partner who shoots the thief dead.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).