Number 2475: Captain Marvel is all shook up

Today’s posting came from a 1946 Captain Marvel Adventures comic book available to readers who bought two boxes of the breakfast cereal, Wheaties. The comic included this story, “The Man Who Made Earthquakes.” (On a personal note, the area in which I live had an earthquake a few months ago. As earthquakes go it was a pretty good shaker, enough to give us many aftershocks. There was some damage to the Pappy abode. So I have had earthquakes on my mind.)

The Captain Marvel stories isn’t great, but it’s not bad, either. The character, geologist Horace Shakum, is in an abandoned well and finds the “keystone of the world. The very stone that holds all the others in place!” Horace claims to fellow geologists that one tap on the keystone can bring earthquakes, and hitting it with a hammer could destroy continents. Of course he is not believed, so he has to prove it.

The Grand Comics Database credits the script to Bill Woolfolk, and artwork to Pete Costanza.

Number 2356: The last sorcerer

This story from Ibis #3 (1945) is drawn by comic book journeyman Gaspano “Gus” Ricca, and written by veteran scripter Bill Woolfolk.

A boy comes home from school, tells his mom he’s hungry, yet she sends him to clean the attic while he waits for dinner. He does it willingly. (That would not have happened in my house when I was that youngster's age.) The boy finds a book from his grandfather’s collection on how to conjure up Karlan, the sorcerer. (It seems a thick book considering the spell for conjuring Karlan is printed on one page.) The title of the story is “The Last Sorcerer,” and as you who have followed this blog for a long time already know, there are more sorcerers in comic books than anywhere else in the universe.“Last” sorcerer, indeed!

Said sorcerer has not been conjured in 3000 years, and is holding a grudge against Ibis for being part of a council of Egypt that “decreed his death” — yet Karlan summons a demon from Purgatory, which is apparently where Karlan has been for 3000 years. As you probably know, Purgatory is a Catholic belief, which just shows...what? That writer Woolfolk was raised Catholic? I have no idea, except he was not ancient Egyptian.

Number 2340: The eyes have it

My jaw dropped to my desktop when I saw the cover of Captain Marvel Jr #115 (1952). Good thing I have a beard to cushion the impact. As we have seen before, Fawcett used horror for some of the Marvel Family titles, seeing as how horror comics were the big sellers in that period. The illustration by Bud Thompson is a good example of what Dr Fredric Wertham, M.D. in his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent, called the injury to the eye motif. In this era of graphic horror movies this cover does not seem as shocking today as it probably was to readers in 1952. What I can say about it now, decades later, is it is one that Dr Wertham missed.

Graphic eyeball violence notwithstanding, I like the story. “The Thousand Eyed Idol of Doom,” is credited to artist Bud Thompson, and script by William Woolfolk, according to the Grand Comics Database. Oh yeah, and flying eyeballs are the flying saucers!

The most famous of the “injury to the eye” examples, found in SOTI, and the story it came from. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2253: The Marvel Family and the School for Witches

Halloween today. Time for me to sneak up behind kids and steal their Halloween candy.* Or maybe not. I am too slow moving, and they can see me coming.

If I only had a magic spell to make myself invisible. I could learn it from the School for Witches, but the witch is Ichabod Vort, who comes from a long line of witches, yet is unsuccessful with spells from his book of black magic. They just don’t work for him. Ichabod has a school to train witches, and could be an example of the old adage, “those who can, do; those who can't, teach.” However, I don’t believe that adage. I think Ichabod is just a crappy witch. Maybe he needs a teacher because he can’t read very well.

The story is written by William Woolfolk and drawn by Pete Costanza, according to the Grand Comics Database. It comes from The Marvel Family #52 (1950).

*This is a joke, sensitive ones.

Number 2227: Freddy Freeman never sleepwalks!

Captain Marvel Jr says of a narrow escape, “Another second and Freddy Freeman would have been killed! Freddy never walked in his sleep before!” Maybe I haven’t noticed it before (entirely possible), but Captain Marvel Jr is speaking of Freddy in the third person, even though Freddy is the one who hollers “Captain Marvel!” and becomes a teenage superhero. The difference in Freddy/Captain Marvel Jr and Billy/Captain Marvel is that Billy becomes a full-grown man with big muscles, and Captain Marvel Jr looks just like Freddy, but in a blue super suit with cape.*

Maybe he just likes to talk about himself in the third person.

The story, from Master Comics #98 (1948) is well illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger, and written by Bill Woolfolk.

*And by the way, what does Captain Marvel Jr do with Freddy’s crutch when he transforms?