Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1) with a cover date of May, 1949.
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Rich Robot"
Captain Marvel, Jr. meets Jingles, a robot built to be a butler to a rich eccentric, Morgan Gale, who eschewed human company. When Gale died, he left everything to Jingles. However, Jingles is not satisfied by this state of affairs as, despite his wealth, he's feared by everyone he meets due to his inhuman nature. The World's Mightiest Boy attempts to socialize him a few times, which fails, and the robot's own attempts to commit suicide all fail due to his mechanical nature. After Captain Marvel Jr. saves the robot from being destroyed by his human creator's deadbeat cousin, he discovers Jingles had a hobby of crafting toys, which he gives away to children, finally winning the robot acceptance. Jingles soon moves into Mrs. Wagner's Boarding House with him, though his robotic body still falls apart from time to time.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Rich Robot"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Jingles the Robot (First appearance)
Antagonists:
- Baxter Gale
Other Characters:
- Morgan Gale (Dies in flashback)
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Freddy's Newsstand
- Mrs. Wagner's Boarding House
- Jingles' Mansion
- Jingles' Toy Shop
- The Sweete Shoppe
- A Country Club
- New York City
Items:
- Gold Equipment
Vehicles:
- A Truck
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Treasure of Fisherman's Island"
Horace Gilford is an elderly fisherman hanging out on Fisherman’s Island, upset that he can’t catch a single fish to eat that night and that he’s also run out of bait. Digging through the sand hoping to find some, he finds a huge chest of treasure, but can’t manage to dislodge it from the sand, nor can his small boat likely carry a chest of its size. He quickly reburies it and makes himself a tiny map to follow. He thinks about hiring some men from Treasure Hunters, Inc to help him, thinking they’ll accept a prospective share of the treasure, but he’s ordered out for looking like a tramp. Horace offers him the tiny map and 10% of the treasure, but the two men there Sleazy and Vixen decide to kill him and go get the treasure themselves. Horace overhears them discussing killing him before Sleazy spears him in the back from behind.
Freddy Freeman is visiting the doctor across the hall and hears shouting from Treasure Hunters, Inc and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. Sleazy claims that Horace is crazy and picked a fight with them when they wouldn’t give him a lunch, but Junior walks off with Horace and learns the truth. Sleazy claims that there is no treasure and Horace decides that he’s going to come back and get his map back one way or another. Vixen tells Sleazy that Horace has come back and they figure they probably can’t kill him now with Junior being involved… so they instead use a fake door after removing his large floor-length window and putting it in his closet. They tell Horace that the map is “in the other room” and he walks off the side of a building. Junior catches him and takes him to see his psychiatric friend Dr. Miller, who confirms that Horace probably isn’t crazy, but he should keep watching him anyways. Junior flies back to find the Treasure Hunters are gone and they have a door in their closet, quickly piecing together their window-door trap and heads to Fisherman’s Island to find the goons shoving the treasure chest on to their Treasure Hunter ship and punches them out for trying to kill Horace and steal his treasure too. Later, Horace donates half the money from the treasure to the Orphan’s Home (since Junior wouldn’t take it himself) and even then, he’s still going to be living on Easy Street from now on!
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Treasure of Fisherman's Island"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Horace Gilford, Poor Fisherman
Antagonists:
- Treasure Hunters, Inc.
- Sleazy
- Vixen
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Freddy's Newsstand
- Fisherman's Island
- Treasure Hunters, Inc.
- A Doctor's Office
- The Orphan's Home
- New York City
Items:
- A Huge Treasure Chest
Vehicles:
- The Treasure Hunters Boat
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Meets Hakir the Fakir"
Hakir is a Fakir (a Sufi Muslim ascetic who lives a sparse lifestyle) and is bored by sleeping on a bed of nails and walking across hot coals in his nonspecific home in the Near East. Despite this, he is upset at not having any money and complains to his father, a Snake Charmer on this, and the Snake Charmer offers that he literally owns a bunch of magic secrets from the famed magician Hou Diddee and could be the greatest Magician in all of the East, but Hakir instead decides he’s going to America and he’s going to fly his magic carpet there to meet Captain Marvel, Jr.: a boy who flies without a carpet, since he wants to learn his magic secrets too. Hakir resolves that going to America, he will likely get a job quickly and become rich as “everybody in America is rich!”
Meanwhile, Freddy Freeman is peddling papers at his Newsstand and sees two planes about to crash into one another, calling CAPTAIN MARVEL to stop them as Captain Marvel, Jr. The pilots say they had to swerve to dodge a man on a flying carpet. Hakir hides out on a cloud and clicks his heels that he’s met Captain Marvel, Jr. (kind of) and now decides to go get a job and talk to him. Junior barely misses seeing him and Hakir soon gets a job testing mattresses by sleeping in a large window display at the Ajax Furniture, Co. and finds they’re not even worried that he doesn’t wear a shirt or shoes at his job, thinking it’ll make for some “exotic” sensation. However, even after getting a pre-fab dream cottage to live in, he shows that he can sleep on anything (including a spiked fence,) which sends the message that Ajax makes uncomfortable mattresses. They quickly throw him out. Meanwhile, Publisher of the Evening Star and Daily Gazette, PT Crumpet, is complaining very loudly to himself that his briefcase is really heavy right now. Hakir offers to carry it for him for a nominal fee and walks with ease over a freshly-tarred road to get to where Crumpet needs his package. Crumpet angrily presumes that he’s taking it for himself and sics Officer Jim Bellows on him who runs in gun first, which Junior soon hears from the cloudline. Hakir starts to think other goons are trying to steal the money and tries to protect it by climbing up a magic rope hanging from nothing. Jim shooting it, however, breaks the magic and makes Hakir fall, but Junior catches him. He soon vouches that Hakir is a hard-working immigrant and that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Crumpet decides to hire him as a newspaper deliveryman, since he can do so really fast with his flying carpet! Freddy soon congratulates him on getting to speak to Captain Marvel, Jr., getting a job and no longer being poor!
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Meets Hakir the Fakir"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Hakir the Fakir
Antagonists:
- Editor Paxton T. Crumpet
Other Characters:
- Officer Jim Bellows
- Hakir's Father, The Snake Charmer
- Two Confused Pilots
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Freddy's Newsstand
- Citizen's Bank
- Ajax Furntire Co.
- New York City
Items:
- An Ajax Furniture Co. Mattress Display
- A Bed of Nails
- A Magicked Rope (Destroyed)
- A Heavy Briefcase full of payroll money
Vehicles:
- Two Airplanes
- Hakir's Magic Flying Carpet
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Day Gravity Stopped!"
Officer Jim Bellows is hanging out with Freddy Freeman at his Newsstand to get the evening paper and Freddy notices he’s walking away on air! Soon, his Newsstand is also floating and he is as well, calling CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. to try to stop gravity from failing. Even he finds it mildly difficult to walk on the ground normally and reports soon come in that similar gravitational disturbances are happening in London, Chicago and even in Calcutta! Captain Marvel, Jr. soon meets with some UN officials who are trying to figure this out and find that if the force of attraction doesn’t hold them on the Earth anymore people could literally fly off at the speed of revolution! This is being caused by Sivana, Jr. using a really big blue horseshoe Ultra-Magnet to disturb the entire magnetic field of the planet! Junior manages to find help people eating lunch not crash into a ceiling and helps a diving woman to learn how to adjust to walking in the low-gravity environment they’re now stuck in. Junior finds the gravity of the situation rather intimidating, since even he can’t figure out how to stop it, but notices that it’s only affecting things people-sized and smaller before he finds a dam overrunning into a flood, which he fixes by knocking a logjam in place in front of the dam to block it in.
Later, he returns to the City and finds Sivana, Jr. is broadcasting that he be named Prince of the Universe or he’ll eject everyone into space and the UN start wondering if they should enough that the Daily Gazette runs headlines about it. Sivana, Jr. soon addresses them and says that all countries will abdicate leadership to him, he will own all money, all Armies and Navies must be destroyed (except his own) and even that Junior must be banished to the Moon. Junior punches him in the head and finds he’s wearing Magnetic Weights in his shoes to keep him on the ground. Junior threatens to punch him out of them, but Young Thaddeus says that he’s set the Ultra-Magnet to move to full power in one hour automatically. A parade soon starts to cheer (weakly) for Prince Sivana, Jr. now that gravity is back on and Junior figures out how to avoid being banished to the Moon by returning to being Freddy and hiding in Young Thaddeus’ trunk. His driver tries to clock Freddy with a wrench when they stop at his house and instead hits Sivana, Jr. as Freddy whips his crutch at the two goons, defeating them. Sivana, Jr. is shocked to find that Freddy himself is coming after him with murder in his eyes and turns the Ultra-Magnet to full power before he calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. and flies through the Ultra-Magnet, breaking it, which creates a huge explosion that destroys his laboratory. Junior lands and points out that breaking a magnetic field that large that quickly would have a horrible electric disturbance and a defeated Young Thaddeus asks to just go to jail now. Later, Freddy reads that Sivana, Jr. has re-abdicated for the shortest reign in history and is happy that everyone can keep their feet on the ground… literally!
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Day Gravity Stopped!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Officer Jim Bellows
- Important UN Officials
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Freddy's Newsstand
- Chicago, IL
- London, England
- Paris, France
- Kolkata, West Bengal
- New York City
Items:
- Sivana, Jr.'s Ultra-Magnet (Destroyed)
Vehicles:
- Sivana, Jr.'s Car
See Also