The Moon! Ha-Ha! You fool, you let it in! 
Captain Marvel, Jr. #41 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1) with a cover date of August, 1946.
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Meets the Acrobat"
Under a gay carnival under a full Moon, an acrobat named Green is accused of stealing pay from others, but he bludgeons the man accusing him to death with a stool and decides that he’ll have to go on with the show despite him being dead and pretend to drop him. However, when he tries this, Freddy Freeman is in the audience and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to try to save the dead man. The circus’ manager tells him that it was probably Green, who he’s constantly fighting with about once a month and for days he’d become bitter and hard to talk to ever since he hit his head the wrong way some months back. Green, meanwhile, escapes to try to get his money and leave as Junior and the Manager decide against informing the entire Circus and panicking people. Later that night, the Acrobat leaps from a telephone pole to a moving truck and strangles the driver when he dares to call him crazy. Junior almost overhears it from the sky and manages to track down the dead driver and the stolen truck with the Acrobat driving it. However, he finds that the Acrobat isn’t driving the car and instead leaps off it while Junior’s in the cab. He manages to punch out and arrest the Acrobat, who is soon studied at Police HQ by Dr. Miller. He says that, due to serious head trauma, when the Full Moon is out, he goes crazy and kills people with an inhuman strength, a condition called “Moonitis.” They race back to his cell to find the Acrobat has torn out the bars to the window and climbed out… with the Moon still in the sky...
The Acrobat legs it over a high wall and decides to get some money to skip town with and heads to the house of his girlfriend, Margery Ellen. He says that the Moon “makes him nervous” when he tries to pull down the shade, but she lifts the blinds again, revealing the Moon that drives him to strangle her to death for “letting the Moon in.” He soon drop-kicks a blind beggar to steal his clothes, hoping that the dark glasses will manage to “keep the Moon out.” Her parents soon arrive home from the movies and scream, alerting Junior to his trail. Junior promises he’ll find the killer. The Acrobat manages to find the hideout of a goon named Spike whom he’s familiar with and pulls a gun on him, but Spike promises his boss will be there in 15 minutes if he doesn’t show up at the local poolroom. With the Moon out of his eyes, the Acrobat is willing to listen to sense and Spike offers that he go 50:50 on a burglary of an elderly miser, Mr. Lee, having found the combination to his safe. However, his house is guarded by attack dogs, so they need someone like the Acrobat who can make it from the tree to a second story veranda. Junior suddenly realizes that the dead blind man means the Acrobat was disguised as one and they get the call that one of Lee’s guards has been killed and his fortune stolen. When Spike says he’s taking an extra $100,000 for “rent” and will tell the cops otherwise, he shoves the Acrobat into the window, unleashing the Moon. He soon goes mad again and throws Spike out of his third story window, but Spike hits an awning and survives, calling them to 263 Penn St to find his apartment where he’s hiding out. Minutes later, Junior rallies the cops to surround the place and the Acrobat insists he won’t be taken alive, diving into the bay. After ten minutes, he doesn’t surface and they decide that he must be dead, but Junior isn’t sure otherwise yet…
The police start trying to dredge the river for the Acrobat’s body, the Acrobat climbs off a clothesline and into a woman’s house, throwing her down the stairs. Junior hears her scream and runs for her house, finding her on the ground and confronts the Acrobat, but the moon-maddened criminal leaps out the window, down a clothesline and slips into some lady’s clothes to hide out. Junior even ends up helping her cross the street. He offers to lead her home in the dangerous night, but when a bicycle comes at him, the Acrobat leaps in a full backflip, exposing his ruse before he dives into a coal chute outside the Midland City Power Plant. The Acrobat flings a wrench into the works, literally, which turns Captain Marvel, Jr. back into Freddy. The Acrobat seizes him and gags him by force, then punches him in the head to knock him out. Seconds later, he carries him to the top of an electrical tower where they’ll either turn the power back on soon or he’ll wake up and fall off, killing himself in the fall. The Acrobat decides to go back to the fair to get his stolen money and how much he now enjoys the feeling of killing. Freddy manages to wriggle off of the power lines, then leans the right way so his gag is torn off by barbed wire fencing outside the power plant, letting him call CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Junior again. Junior figures that the Acrobat probably went back to the fair where all of this started. Therein, Manager Adams finds the Acrobat despite a clown trying to warn him away, but exposing him to moonlight drives him to start strangling Adams again. He soon arrests him, but the next day, Green is back to being a normal, non-violent acrobat who Dr. Miller says suffers from a mental condition, but that he can’t do any harm now, though there will always be… another full moon…
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Meets the Acrobat"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Manager Adams
Antagonists:
- The Acrobat (Green)
- Spike
Other Characters:
- Dr. Miller
- Another Acrobat (Dies)
- Margery Ellen (Dies)
- Margery Ellen's Parents
- Mr. Lee (Mentioned only)
- Mr. Lee's Guard (Dies)
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Midland City Power Plant
- New York City
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and the News Prophet!"
Freddy Freeman finds a Daily Messenger from the future, predicting that Capt. Marvel, Jr. will stop a train wreck! When he asks about it, the Ghost of a man named Jerry Johnson says he was shot in the heart a week ago and he’s been given just 24 more hours to solve his own murder and needs the help of a human, which is now him. Freddy reads the story and finds that it the accident is the fault of the Shortline Railroad’s owner, Cyrus Bruit, who is refusing to repair his rundown rail-line. Freddy investigates the Shortline and finds it’s definitely destroyed now and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to stop an oncoming train from skipping the track as Captain Marvel, Jr. He points out the busted rail to the engineer, who thanks him. He flies back to find the Ghost of Jerry Johnson, he hands him a future Daily Messenger about him solving an elevator crash (also due to Cyrus Bruit) at the Bruit Building. He manages to fly there and catch the cage in time for it to not kill everyone and they pile out with their thanks. Junior finds Jerry is there and tells him that he’s not a ghost, but he does think he’s a good reporter. Jerry says he was pretty hard-set against Cyrus Bruit and warns that he’s in Room 25 of the building. Junior finds him and that he also owns a cheese company and denounces him for having defective companies that could get people killed. He takes a toe-kick to the chin before he calls security in to throw out the World’s Mightiest Boy. Jerry appears in the room and implies that he has bought out the cops as well. Jerry manages to trip the cop and Junior legs it with him. He offers Junior show Cyrus one of his own future newspapers saying he confesses to murder… having shot Jerry Johnson! Cyrus says it’s a lie and when Junior says he’s going to take him to a judge, Cyrus pulls a gun on him. He finds it yields predictable results and is quickly punched over. Cyrus breaks down and does confess that he killed Jerry Johnson and threw his body in the river. As he’s arrested, Junior asks the Ghost of Jerry Johnson who he really is if Jerry Johnson is dead… but he merely disappears.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and the News Prophet!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- The Ghost of Jerry Johnson (Dies)
Antagonists:
- President Cyrus Bruit
Other Characters:
- A Train's Engineer
- A Cop
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Bruit Building
- New York City
Items:
Vehicles:
- A Train
Notes
- This issue's first issue comes in three issues:
- Chapter I - Death Under the Full Moon
- Chapter II - The Peril of the Moon!
- Chapter III - Capt. Marvel, Jr. Hunts a Ghost!
See Also