Monday, January 30, 2012

Captain Marvel Jr #84 (The Day the World Almost Ended) April 1950

When Captain Marvel Jr is stymied in first trying to come up solutions for the various natural disasters there is a sense of hopelessness and finality. Perhaps the mighty Blue Boy can't save the day this time—maybe the world is coming to an end.

We see in the story an ugly side of World's Mightiest Boy. When the alien spacecraft is destroyed CMJ, self righteously comments, "Tsk! Tsk! I plumb forgot to warn the Sirians to get out of the way as I pushed the moon through space! Seems it was the end for them, instead, of Earth!"

There is a bit of a contradiction in this story—CapJr was not able to stop the Earth natural disasters but he was able to deal with the moon hurling toward the Earth which was a much greater potential catastrophe than the others. Once again the World's Most Powerful Boy seems to see the limits of his powers. In this important story Otto Binder, in a small way, is trying to stretch the limits of the character. Art by Bud Thompson.











Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Captain Marvel Jr. #83 March 1950 (The Man Who Lived History)

This is a tale where the conflict revolves around CMJ rescuing, a fool-hearty, but good-natured man who wants to experience more to life than is allowed by his humdrum job. This story shows us that time passes at the same rate on Fawcett's Earth as it does on our Earth (1949 is the time mentioned in this story). We also learn that Freddy Freeman is a library patron. Art by Joe Certa. Script by Bill  Woolfolk(GCD).









Monday, January 23, 2012

Captain Marvel Jr. #83 March 1950 (CMJ Battles the Fog Men)

This is a story about creatures moving out of their normal environment and causing problems. This somewhat humorous fantasy tale is one where nobody gets hurt.  It shows CMJ doing a Flash stunt by whirling like a top to disperse fog. He also uses super breath to blow the fog men back to they swamp. Art by Bud Thompson.









My apologies for missing last week. My computer died. I will get the commentary for this story later. Hopefully I have the last story in this issue up tomorrow. Again sorry for the delay.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Captain Marvel Jr #83 (Professor Hoomperdinck’s Hat) March 1950

This is one of those stories where a well intended invention causes more trouble than it was made to prevent. The absent-minded professor motif would get much greater coverage in the later Professor Edgewise stories. These tales certain anticipate the Absent Minded Professor movies of the early 1960s.
Art by Joe Certa.







Monday, January 2, 2012

Captain Marvel Jr #83 (The Great Brain) March 1950

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and Happy New Year. Once again we will be presenting CMJ stories on a weekly basis that haven't been available on the web (as far as we know).  If you know of others that might be interested in this site pass the word along. Hope you enjoy these stories.

This story could be taken from the large, room-sized computers of the 1940s and 1950s. The ENIAC (dubbed by the press the "Giant Brain") produced in 1946 could have been a prototype for  this story's computer. The ENIAC was "The world's first general purpose electronic, digital computer" and "was used for calculations for the creation of the hydrogen bomb (http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/12/11/retro-delight-gallery-of-early-computers-1940s-1960s/). This story contains a rare typo. Early in the story it is the First National Bank that was robbed. On page 9, panel 1. CMJ says "This money is part of the loot from the Fifth National Bank!"  Art by Bud Thompson.