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.