24 | June | 2025 | Bob Schwartz

Lying x Power = Danger

The danger of a lie is directly proportional to the power of the liar.

For example: If someone stands in front of you pointing a gun and says, “The gun isn’t loaded” or “I won’t shoot you”, these might both be lies. A loaded gun is powerful. If those assertions are lies, it is possible you will in fact be shot, injured or killed.

If someone is a chronic or pathological liar and is in a powerful position, it would be prudent not to believe anything he says. Not just skeptical, but believing nothing. Some of those lies may be less consequential, but many of those lies are dangerous.

As for those who choose to believe the lies, sometimes all the lies, history is filled with that. And filled with the dangers that ensued.

T-Man: Death Trap in Iran (1952)

T-Man (Treasury agent) Pete Trask traveled the world to fight bad guys (anti-Americans and Communists) from 1951 to 1956. The comic books chronicle “authentic cases based on the files of the U.S. Treasury Department”.

Below are the pages of an exciting story, Death Trap in Iran, from the January1952 issue of T-Man. T-Man is in Iran to protect the oil fields from Iranian bad guys:

“With Britain and Russia scrambling for control of Iran’s oil fields…anything could happen, and I thought I was ready! But even with my crazy experiences, I’d never figured on finding myself…Trouble’s Double!”

This is part of my ongoing mission to understand and explain world events in terms of comic books from the 1930s to the 1960s.