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| An outstanding first issue! Important for Captain Marvel for more than just being his debut issue of his solo comic book series. It's also features his first stories that weren't written by his writer/creator Bill Parker. A good thing too, since Parker would soon be drafted in the army and unable to write anymore. The four stories in this issue are completely unlike each other, a testament to the rich, varied imagination brought into tell Captain Marvel stories. The first tale is a type that would become quite common in modern superhero comics, but based on my own knowledge of Golden Age comics was quite rare at the time. This story might even be the first superhero comic book story of its kind: an epic fight between a superstrong hero and a superstrong villain. The second tale is the least of the bunch, a fun little Western. The third story is a sci-fi adventure as Cap flies to Saturn to fight dragon-men invaders (with a nice continuity nod as Cap uses the rocketship he took from Sivana in Special Edition Comics # 1). The fourth tale is a grisly horror story as Cap battles vampires. The head vampire is named Bram Thirla. "Bram" is obviously from Dracula creator Bram Stoker, but I have no idea where "Thirla" came from. |
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| The ad for the srial seems to be missing.There is a black page instead.
Thanks for a nice scan of my favourite comic book hero! |
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| Additional Information |
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| Publication | [March] 1941 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 |
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| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson] |
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| Notes | Black blank page on ifc & ibc. |
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| Comic Story | Captain Marvel vs. Z (15 pages) |
| Synopsis | Thwarted time and time again by his avowed enemy, Captain Marvel, Sivana decides to create a rival that is more than human to combat his hated foe... a foe he calls "Z", because he is the ultimate in toughness. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson]; Sterling Morris; Thaddeus Bodog Sivana (villain); Z (villain, introduction, a robot, death); Spike (villain) |
| Notes | Inking credit from Jack Kirby, via Greg Theakston.
Writing credit from Martin O'Hearn at http://martinohearn.blogspot.com/ . Formerly credited to Joe Simon. Wellman attempted to spell his name using the first letter in the first speech balloon of the panels from the first three pages of the story. Spells "MANLY MADE TELLMAH" |
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| Comic Story | Out West (16 pages) |
| Synopsis | Billy is on vacation at Rimrock and gets involved, as Captain Marvel, in a bronco riding contest. But Billy spots the owner of the Crossbone Ranch and feels he knows him, and begins an investigation that leads him directly to the owner as the leader of a large rustling operation while he poses as a victim himself of the band of rustlers. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson]; Miss Daisy; Gino (villain, bronco rider); Bid Boy Larbozo [aka Mr. Laraaby] (villain, boss of the ranch) |
| Notes | Inks credit from Jack Kirby, via Greg Theakston.
Simon and Kirby allegedly testified that they used scripts from Fawcett, at their portion of the Captain Marvel - Superman trial. |
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| Synopsis | Captain Marvel offers three different activities for readers to work on and enjoy: a connect the dot activity, activity that challenges readers to see how many words (of three letters or more) they can make out of the word "English", and a "Play Square" Planet activity in which readers are to connect a dot to the nearest dot, numbering lines that do not close a square (there are 19 in all). |
| Featuring | Captain Marvel Pencil-Puzzle-Page |
| Content | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson] |
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| Synopsis | Billy offers four different activities for readers to complete, including a Planet Play Square exercise of connecting nearest dots and numbering lines, a maze, and two more. |
| Featuring | Billy Batson's Page of Games |
| Content | Characters: Billy Batson |
| Notes | This activity is incorrectly located in the Archive edition. There it follows the story of Captain Marvel on Saturn when it should follow Captain Marvel's Pencil-Puzzle-Page. |
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| Comic Story | The Monsters of Saturn (15 pages) |
| Synopsis | Billy receives a message from Saturn over his radio device from captives that are being enslaved by monsters on the planet, asking for assistance. Captain Marvel travels by rocket ship to Saturn to take on the vicious slave drivers, allowing himself to be captured by his foes in order to get the full story about the enemy before he deals with them and prevent an invasion of the Earth. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson]; Hargo (scientist); the Dragon Men (villains, giant lizards, all die); unnamed ruler of the Dragon Men (villain, death); Ghoppo (villain, spy among the slaves, death) |
| Notes | Inks credit from Jack Kirby, via Greg Theakston.
Simon and Kirby allegedly testified that they used scripts from Fawcett, at their portion of the Captain Marvel - Superman trial. Credits in Shazam! The Greatest Stories Ever Told credits the script to Joe Simon.
This story does not feature a titled masthead.
Thor Precursor. Shazam referred to as “Thunder God” and fights Aliens from Saturn. This motif used when Kirby co-created Thor in Journey Into Mystery (Marvel, 1952 series) #83 with Thunder God fighting Aliens from Saturn as per Comic Book Historians article researched by Alex Grand. |
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| Comic Story | Battles the Vampire (16 pages) |
| Synopsis | Billy is given an assignment to interview a Doctor Deever, who has created a process to restore the dead to life. The doctor takes Billy to a cemetery and succeeds in raising a vampire back to life, losing his own in the process. Captain Marvel must figure out a way to defeat his unholy foe before more people become its victims, and, as Billy, checks out a book to aid him in his cause: "The Vampire Legend" by H. P. Lovecraft. |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson]; Sterling Morris; Doctor Deever (death); Bram Thirla (villain, introduction, a vampire, death); group of unnamed vampires (villain, introduction for all, all die) |
| Notes | Inker credit from Jack Kirby, via Greg Theakston.
Simon and Kirby allegedly testified that they used scripts from Fawcett, at their portion of the Captain Marvel - Superman trial. |
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| Notes | Black blank page on ifc & ibc. |
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| Illustration | Capt. Marvel (1 page) |
| Content | Genre: Superhero | Characters: Captain Marvel [Billy Batson] |
| Notes | On back cover of comic. |
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| The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |
