Cover Cavalcade

 

A fun C.C. Beck cover from 1950.

Cover Cavalcade

A C.C. Beck cover from 1946. Everything Beck drew drips with a sense of pure fun.

Cover Cavalcade

Wonderful use of perspective by Al Milgrom in this cover from 1977.

The Trio of Terror

It's really not a bad idea. If you own a circus that is struggling financially, then finding a new act to attract crowds is a reasonable goal. If you live in a world where superpowers exist, then getting someone with superpowers to sign with your circus is a good move.

But when a trio of partners who own a circus ask the Marvel family to join up, it's quickly (and a little rudely--the Wisdom of Solomon doesn't include empathy?) explained to them that the Marvels don't do any super-stuff for money.

What sympathy we might have had for the circus guys quickly evaporates, though, when one of them steals a book about sorcery and witchcraft. It's a real magic book--something the Marvels acquired on one of their adventures. Apparently, the Wisdom of Solomon also doesn't include the idea of locking up potentially dangerous items. 

I'm not making fun of the story, by the way. "The Trio of Terror" appeared in Marvel Family #21 (March 1948) and is a typical Otto Binder/C.C. Beck triumph of bizarre plotting, humor and adventure. I actually love the casualness with which the people of this universe react to fantastic occurrences. Maybe it doesn't make sense to lock away your magic books. People are probably stumbling across that sort of thing at used book stores every day anyways. 

The Marvels soon notice the book is missing, but not before the circus owners use it to summon up

three creatures from mythology. I love that one of them is the Argus--a creature with a hundred eyes. He's one you don't see turning up in fantasy adventures very often.

Though the creatures are initially caged, the circus owners don't realize how powerful they are, nor that they will return to the Nether Realms in an hour unless they get three others to take their place.

They break out of the cage and stalk the circus owners. The Marvels arrive to stop them, but initially have trouble figuring out how to deal with the creatures' various abilities.

But the Wisdom of Solomon does apparently kick in from time to time. The Marvels soon figure out how to deal with the creatures. But not long after that, they return to their civilian identities at a bad moment--the Marvels are actually kind of dumb in that regard.

Billy, Freddie and Mary are captured and gagged. The creatures read the spell to send them to the Nether Realms. Are the Marvels doomed?

Find out for yourself. It's available to read online HERE. 

As is typical with Binder/Beck Marvel stories, this one is a delight. As usual, Comic Book Logic is stretched as far as it will go without breaking. The story generates a real sense of danger from the creatures, but retains its goofiness and sense of humor at the same time. It's also a model of concise storytelling--neatly fitting a lot of story into just 9 pages. In fact, I think many readers would be surprised to find that it is so short after reading it. 

Well, next week we'll travel from the circus to the jungle of 'Nam and join a couple of Marines with odd nicknames as they battle the Viet Cong.

Cover Cavalcade

Great Golden Age cover.

A Comic Book Character Visits a Comic Book Universe

Lex's plan is actually a pretty logical one. He knows Superman is vulnerable to magic. So he invents a magic accumulator that will store up enough magical energy to destroy the Man of Steel.

But then he gets careless. Disdainfully tossing aside a copy of Shazam (because that fake superhero stuff is so silly--not at all like the completely logical DC Universe!), he zaps it with the accumulator and accidentally transports himself to Earth-S. He's now in Captain Marvel's universe.

He's a tad confused at first, especially after he encounters a helpful talking tiger. But then he sees Captain Marvel in action and realizes where he is.

This is the set-up for "Captain Marvel meets... Lex Luthor!?!" from Shazam #15 (November-December 1974). Remember that DC had by this time acquired the rights to the Big Red Cheese and other Fawcett characters, but until the 1986 reboot, these characters were kept in their own universe.

This, I think, was a wise decision. It allowed Earth-S to maintain its own individual feel. It remained a Universe where the veneer of "realism" gave way to Comic Book Logic taken to its farthest extreme without ever quite breaking it. It's a world in which Captain Marvel and his supporting cast worked best. When these characters were made a part of the regular DC Universe, that individuality and the fun that went with it were lost. When this happened, the chances of a Shazam story that would be as entertaining as the original Monster Society of Evil was lost, as were any further chances of Captain Marvel fighting giant robot bunny rabbits. The world is a poorer place because of this.



Anyway, Lex meets and teams up with Mr. Mind. The deal is that they will use the magic accumulator to destroy Captain Marvel, then Mr. Mind will assist in destroying Superman. Of course, the two villains plan on back-stabbing each other at the first opportunity, but that's to be expected.

They lure Captain Marvel to an aquarium, where Lex zaps him with the accumulator. This drains the hero of his magic and turns him back into Billy Batson. Poor Billy is underwater, unable to say Shazam--and there's a hammerhead shark in the tank with him!

Fortunately, hammerhead sharks react the same way to waving something red in front of them as do bulls. (Because of course they do.) This gives Billy a chance to use the shark to break the glass and escape. He turns back into Captain Marvel and Lex decides its time to double-cross his partner.

Lex uses the accumulator to zap himself back to Earth-1, where a bad day is capped off by his immediate capture when he discovers Superman is waiting for him.

This story was written by Denny O'Neil, who was best known for writing Batman tales but knew how to play well with more powerful characters when he had to. The pencils are by Bob Oksner, whose style is indeed reminiscent of C.C. Beck. "Captain Marvel Meets.. Lex Luthor!?!" drips with the same sort of fun that Beck and writer Otto Binder brought to the Golden Age stories.

The Monster Society of Evil--The Epic Conclusion!

Last time, I wrote that chapters 15-20 of the Monster Society of Evil serial lost a little story-telling momentum. That was actually not an uncommon problem with the movie serials of the day (on which the structure of the comic book serial was based). But, like the best movie serials, this story picks up again as it nears its conclusion. The last five chapters are among the best.

At the end of Captain Marvel Adventures #41, Mr. Mind was about to be crushed to death in a printing press. But as issue #42 begins, we discover that Captain Marvel had inadvertently saved him by destroying the press. So now the little worm is plotting evil again. This time, he plans to create a super-smart monster. This doesn't quite work out, but he ends up with something just as good:

 He employs the Hydra monster to steal plans for a new secret weapon. This almost works, because it doesn't occur to either Captain Marvel or any of several policemen to try and stop the monster by any  other method than knocking/shooting one of its heads off--which, of course, only causes it to grow more heads. Soon, its got four heads. But Marvel soon tricks it into destroying itself by getting it to fight over food.

That leaves Mr. Mind a prisoner of the hero, but when the worm bumps his head, he gets amnesia, forgets he's evil and becomes a good guy.


Nowadays, an amnesia plot is pretty cliched. Heck, it was cliched in 1944. But it works here simply because it's hilarious. Billy Batson and Mr. Mind immediately become best buddies and roommates. Mr. Mind's multiple acts of murder are apparently forgiven. Billy saves him from an assassination attempt by Mind's former henchmen and the worm is able to help stop a plot to ram a huge asteroid into the Earth. But this latter incident results in Mr. Mind suffering another bump on the head, which cures his amnesia and turns him evil again. And, yes, that's another cliche. But it's funny, so I don't care.

This takes us to Captain Marvel Adventures #44. The story is zipping along at warp speed and its has never been more exciting or funnier. This momentum continues when Mr. Mind decides he needs a refresher course at his own School of Evil to get his groove back. As a graduation exercise, he and a monstrous henchman kidnap Billy Batson. One would think this would be on the list of "Things never to do" during your Freshman class at the School of Evil, because Billy escapes, says Shazam! and wrecks the school.


Mr. Mind takes refuge underwater, where he uses telepathic control of sea life to attack the U.S. Navy. This gives us the image of Mr. Mind wearing a tiny diving helmet and riding a sea horse, which might just be the single greatest thing ever.

When Marvel foils that scheme, the various henchmen finally get disgusted and quit. Alone and desperate, Mr. Mind sneaks into Billy's apartment and gasses him unconscious. Then, in yet another great gag, the tiny alien worm realizes that without his henchman, he has no idea how to actually kill Billy. He always had a few thugs or crocodile-men around to do anything that requires opposable thumbs!

While he's slowly dragging an electrical wire towards his intended victim, Billy wakes up, transforms into Captain Marvel and eventually captures his arch-enemy. (Though he has to get the help of an exterminator to smoke Mr. Mind out of the woodwork.) There's a trial, in which Captain Marvel serves as prosecutor and does such a good job, even Mind's own lawyer turns against him.






So the epic comes to an end as Mr. Mind is executed in the electric chair, then suffers the ultimate indignity of being stuffed and put on display in a museum.

He's not really dead, of course. It will eventually turn out that he put himself in suspended animation during his "execution," then hypnotized the taxidermist creating a duplicate for the museum display. But that's another story for another time.

The Monster Society of Evil is stuffed with so much Comic Book Logic-inspired joy that trying to pick a favorite moment would make one's brain implode. Mr. Mind is a brilliant design for a villain the the story as a whole balances humor and excitement in nearly perfect proportions. It is the ultimate epic from the Golden Age that gives us bizarre monsters, evil plots galore and Captain Marvel riding an unfrozen mammoth while fighting Nazis. You simply can't ask for more than that.

Don't forget that you can read the story online HERE.

The Monster Society of Evil: Parts 16-20

When we last saw Captain Marvel, he was sitting atop a newly created volcano in Scotland to prevent it from erupting. And can I just pause here to remark that I loved writing that sentence?

Some of the locals manage to set up a volcano plug and the World's Mightiest Mortal is once again free to give chase to Mr. Mind. This time, the chase takes them underground, where Marvel discovers a civilization of Sub-Americans--who are apparently midget Pilgrims who moved underground a few centuries earlier.

I will pause again to remark that I love being able to write "midget Pilgrims" and have it make sense in context.


These guys keep Allied oil wells filled with oil and also had a back-up plan to put into effect if the Axis managed to conquer Europe. They had wired a giant cavern with tons of dynamite. If necessary, they could set this off and split the world in half, thus keeping the Western Hemisphere safe from the Nazis. Now that the Axis are losing, they no longer plan on blowing anything up, but they hadn't bothered to defuse the bomb. Apparently, midget Pilgrims aren't strong on safety procedures.

Naturally, Mr. Mind decides to light the fuse, forcing Marvel into a race against time to save the world.

This allows Mr. Mind to make a clean getaway. And it's at this point that, as much as I love this story, I think Otto Binder and C.C. Beck begin to lose a little momentum. Most of the next two issues involve the famous movie director Mr. Hitchblock making a movie about Mr. Mind--with the intent of helping reminding people just how dangerous the little worm is. The ensuing story, in which Mr. Mind hijacks the studio and attempts to make his own movie, is funny enough. But the momentum of the tale in terms of telling an adventure story is lost. There's no feeling of immediacy to the danger and the emphasis on humor detracts from the superhero stuff. That's a judgement call, of course. The story was already filled with humor. But I think that here the balance shifted just a little too far in that direction.

Also, Mr. Mind suddenly shifts from being a cunning villain to a big cry-baby, breaking into tears whenever something goes wrong. It's already hard enough to be threatening when you are a one-inch-long worm. You don't want a tendency to whine making this even harder.


The movie shenanigans are followed by Mr. Mind employing a "Back Death Ray," only to discover that it only works on metal, not on people. He follows this up with a plan to fool the general population into supporting him by publishing a propaganda book titled "Mind Kampf." (Which actually is pretty funny.) Part of this plan is using a minion named Evil Eye to hypnotize Billy Batson and force him to help run the printing press.

But that plan goes awry as well. Interestingly, Captain Marvel Adventures #41 (chapter 20) concludes with Mr. Mind about to get crushed in a printing press. It's rare to have the villain, not the hero, involved in the cliffhanger.

There is one bizarre moment I want to specifically mention. At one point in the story, Captain Marvel is about to finally catch Mr. Mind. But the clever worm escapes by putting his glasses on a normal caterpillar. This is enough to fool a man who's been given the Wisdom of Solomon.

Actually, I'm okay with that--it fits right in with the absurdist feel of the entire story arc. But when Marvel thinks he's holding the real Mr. Mind in his fist--he does this:

Yes, in an act of brutal vigilante justice that is worthy of the Punisher (30 years before the Punisher would be created), Captain Marvel simply squishes the bad guy. (Or at least thinks he does.) Gee whiz, even the SQUISH sound effect looks pretty graphic! I actually don't care for this--the inherent brutality is both out-of-character for Captain Marvel and sounds a false note in a story that otherwise drips with innocent fun.

Then again, Mr. Mind has been working closely with the Nazis--real-life and purely evil villains who slaughtered millions of innocent people. Maybe it wasn't possible to keep the story completely innocent. All the same, that SQUISH is just unpleasant.

Well, we'll just have to wait and see if things pick up for the last five chapters of "The Monster Society of Evil."

You can read the entire epic HERE.

The Monster Society of Evil--Parts 11-15

When we last left Captain Marvel, he was a captive of the crocodile people on the planet Punkus, while Mr. Mind and several Axis scientists were preparing to open fire on Russia and America with a giant cannon capable of destroying continents with a single shell.

Fortunately, the villains are just as bad at keeping Billy Batson properly gagged as he is at not saying "Shazam!" at inopportune moments. Billy gets loose, transforms into Captain Marvel and--using a

crocodile-head disguise-soon learns where the ammo warehouse for the cannon is located. He blows this up.


But two shells have already been sent to the cannon. Captain Marvel is too late to stop one of these shells from being fired at Russia, but he manages to destroy the cannon before it can launch the last one at the U.S.

Capturing Mr. Mind and stuffing the little worm in his belt, Captain Marvel flies after the shell. But the evil Mr. Mind has his most evil plan ever ready to go--HE BEGINS TICKLING CAPTAIN MARVEL, distracting the World's Mightiest Mortal sufficiently so that he can't completely stop the shell from landing.

Gee whiz, I love this stuff. I love every silly plot twist this story is taking. I love the matter-of-fact casualness that writer Otto Binder and artist C.C. Beck treat every absurd thing that happens. I love the extremes to which Comic Book Logic is stretched without ever breaking. I love it so much that I'm only mildly disappointed on how this particular sub-adventure in the serial is resolved. The shell lands in Russia, but just happens to be a dud. But at least Captain Marvel managed to see that it landed in an open field rather than a city, so he still helped out a little.

That takes us through Captain Marvel Adventures #33 and 34. Mr. Mind has managed to squirm away (making getaways isn't that hard when you're only an inch long) and by issue #35, he's got a new evil plan already started. This time, he's using a ship disguised as a big floating island to sneak an German invasion force into Scotland.


Captain Marvel investigates, but for the 8000th time in a row, he turns back into Billy Batson at an unwise moment and gets captured. But in issue #36, he escapes. Mr. Mind unfreezes a prehistoric mammoth that was trapped in the ice atop the island, intending for the beast to destroy his arch-enemy. But Captain Marvel whips the mammoth into submission, then uses it to help wipe out the invading Nazis.

 Once again, I simply love all this. Captain Marvel is riding a prehistoric mammoth while helping to fight off a Nazi invasion of Scotland--and it all makes sense in context.

Captain Marvel Adventures #36 has our hero searching the United Kingdom for Mr. Mind. He finds him in an old castle, where the worm and a hideous rat-man henchman are planning to drill down into the Earth's core and form a volcano that will destroy England. Despite getting captured again while in Billy's form, Marvel chases the bad guys away, but to stop the volcano, he caps off the lava by sitting on it. Will he have to stay there forever to save England? We'll find out in a month or so when I cover parts 16-20. In the meantime, remember you can access the entire 25-chapter epic HERE.

Monster Society of Evil--Parts 6 - 10

Mr. Mind might very well hold the record for the Most Evil Plans Instigated in a Short Period of Time. I'll have to check the Guinness Book of World Records, but it must be true. The little worm is an endless fount

of evil plans.

It's been a month since I reviewed Parts 1 through 5, so let's recap. Writer Otto Binder and artist C.C. Beck are creating their masterpiece--a 25-part epic structured as a movie serial, running in Captain Marvel Adventures during the 1940s, starting in issue #22 and ending with #46. The main villain is Mr. Mind, a tiny worm who also happens to be an evil genius. He forms the Monster Society of Evil, consisting of many members of Captain Marvel's rogue's gallery, any number of artificially-created monsters and robots, an occasional alien, the Nazis and the Japanese. Captain Marvel spent the first five parts foiling various evil schemes on Earth before finding and trashing Mr. Mind's base on another planet.





But the occasional set-back does not discourage the villain. Issue #27 (Part 6 of the story) as Mr. Mind returns to Earth and--despite Captain Marvel finally discovering his true form--sets off one plan after another to take over the world. He gains telepathic control over termites and set them to destroying
skyscrapers. When Captain Marvel stops this, Mr. Mind flees to Germany, befriending Hitler and Goering.

Here, he comes up with what might be my favorite Evil Plan of all time--a plan so unashamed of its pure silliness that it inspires deep admiration for Binder
and Beck in that they dared to put it down on paper.

Mr. Mind gets Hitler to point all the guns on the Maginot Line east and fire them off simultaneously. The recoil causes the Earth to stop spinning, giving Nazi Germany eternal daylight while plunging America into perpetual darkness.

This might be the Ur example of why the Golden Age Captain Marvel stories were so wonderfully entertaining. Binder and Beck created a world in which the silliness was an integral part of how that world operated--but balanced so perfectly with good storytelling that it never completely tips over into pure comedy. It's still an exciting superhero story that can be accepted and enjoyed on its own unique level.

The only thing that might spoil it for a modern reader is the extreme racial stereotyping involving Billy Batson's black friend Steamboat and the various Japanese characters--in fact, one reason suggested for why DC Comics cancelled a recent planned reprint of this story as a graphic novel is the racism. I think its possible to accept this as something that was a part of popular culture of the time and still appreciate the actual story.  Someone else might feel differently, though, and find the story has been spoiled for them--and this would be an equally legitimate opinion. This is not a matter of being politically correct or incorrect. It's simply a matter of allowing individuals to make up their own minds about balancing the faults and virtues of stories from the Golden Age.

Well, Captain Marvel eventually gets the world spinning again. Mr. Mind ends up in China, helping the Japanese. He does this by magnetically lifting the entire Great Wall of China and essentially using it as a battering ram against the Chinese army.That, by the way, is my SECOND favorite Evil Plan of all time.

Again, his plans are foiled. The story moves to Australia, where Mr. Mind teams up with a Japanese scientist, a German spy and a crocodile-headed alien from the planet Punkus to help the Japanese take over the continent. Once again, Captain Marvel steps in to stop them, but along the way Mr. Mind manages to trick him into turning back into Billy Batson, capturing him.

Actually, that's at least the fourth time Billy gets captured over the course of parts 6 through 10. The dumb kid has a bad habit of saying "Shazam!" at awkward moments. But this time its really serious. With Billy properly gagged, he's tossed in a rocket and brought to the planet Punkus. Here, Mr. Mind has ordered the crocodile-headed aliens to build a gigantic cannon--one that will destroy America with a single shell!

Can Billy escape, turn into Captain Marvel and save the day? Stay on the edge of your seat--we'll return to the story in a month or so and you can find out.

Or you can just read it for yourself online. It's still available to read at comicbookplus.com.

The Monster Society of Evil--Parts 1-5

The first and still arguably the best superhero serial was 1941's The Adventures of Captain Marvel, with a fun story, great special effects, and some tense cliffhangers. And it might have been the success of the serial that convinced writer Otto Binder and artist C.C. Beck give the format a try within the pages of Captain Marvel Adventures. What they come up with is one of the classic stories of the Golden Age.

"The Monster Society of Evil" is epic in scale, full of Binder's quirky humor and sense of adventure, all supported by Beck's perfect artwork. It brings all of Captain Marvel's arch enemies into one single plot to help the Axis win World War II--all of whom are being commanded by a new extra-terrestrial villain known as Mr. Mind.

Who is Mr. Mind? Well, most readers interested in my blog almost certainly know already, but imagine how much of a surprise and a delight he must have been to young readers in 1943. I don't think there had ever been a villain quite like him. There probably hasn't been a villain quite like him since.

It all began in Captain Marvel Adventures #22 (March 1943) and would run for two years and 25 chapters before coming to an end. It opens with a princess from India delivering one of two magical black pearls to the Allies. Put the pearls together and you can "pick up scenes and voices from anywhere," making it a valuable espionage tool.

The princess is promptly kidnapped by Captain Nazi and taken to India to recover the other pearl. Captain Marvel pursues. This starts a fast moving series of adventures. Soon, Captain Nazi is captured, but another villain Ibac gets away with the pearls.

Ibac is a great idea for a bad guy. He's normally an elderly and wimpy criminal named Stinky Printwhistle. But after a deal with the devil, he can say the name Ibac and become a super-strong man with the power of flight.

Ibac, by the way, comes from Ivan the Terrrible (terror); Cesare Borgia (cunning); Atilla the Hun (Fierceness); and Caligula (cruelity).

This moves the action to North Africa, where Ibac plans to sabotage the Allied military there. Captain Marvel puts the kibosh on this, but the pearls are aquired by Nippo, a Japanese spy. This brings the action of Hawaii, where Nippo tries to destroy Pearl Harbor by activating a dormant volcano. The spy is soon caught and Captain Marvel recovers the pearls.

But Mr. Mind and the other villains are still out there somewhere. Dr. Sivana pops up next, using a huge machine to alter the Earth's axis and bring on a new Ice Age. Using the pearls to track the mad scientist down, Captain Marvel destroys the machine. In a wonderful plot twist, Marvel belatedly realizes only then that he has to repair the machine and run it backwards to put the Earth back where it belongs.


By now, Captain Marvel knows that the mysterious Mr. Mind is running the show from behind the scenes. He tracks the villain to a dead planet located near the Moon. Marvel flies there and confronts Mr. Mind--who is an alien creature with a goat head.

 Except he's not--that's just a minion into whom Mr. Mind projected his consciousness. The real Mr. Mind is a robot.

Oops. No he's not. That's another minion. He must be this hideous octopus creature. No, perhaps he's this super-strong humanoid (with whom Marvel has an epic fight that destroys Mr. Mind's base).

No, he's not ANY of them! The real Mr. Mind escapes in a space ship to continue his villainous schemes. So Marvel still has no idea who Mr. Mind really is. And, despite having the wisdom of Solomon, he doesn't give a second thought to that tiny worm that dropped down on his shoulder at one point.

This covers the first five chapters (issues #22 through 26), all fun stories which--like all great serials--it fast paced and exciting from start to finish. My favorite of the five is probably from #26, in which C.C. Beck's vivid imagination is unleashed to create a series of magnificently designed minions for Mr. Mind.

But this IS just the first five chapters. As is traditional with all good cliff hangers, I'm going to break off here and wait a few weeks before returning to the story with a look at parts 6 to 10.

In the meantime, the Monster Society of Evil is available to read digital at Comic Book Plus. Start with Captain Marvel Adventures #22 and read on from there.