DC Database

"Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Fights the Great Brain!"": Prof. George Denker is a lonely, solitary man who has no friends, save for an intelligent sapient brain in a bell jar that communicates with him via speaker. The Dean decides to fire him for talking to a brain and that

Holy Moley! This is an original program of the day that Abraham Lincoln made his Gettysburg Address! It looks new, too! Jeremy Thremm must have dropped it out of his pocket. But how did he get it? Does this explain where he went during that mysterious disappearance? I'd better keep an eye on Jeremy Thremm!
Captain Marvel Jr., discovering a man who travels through time in a boring way and for boring reasons.

Captain Marvel, Jr. #83 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1950.

Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Fights the Great Brain!"

Prof. George Denker is a lonely, solitary man who has no friends, save for an intelligent sapient brain in a bell jar that communicates with him via speaker. The Dean decides to fire him for talking to a brain and that the Great Brain doesn’t belong to him either Thus, Prof. Denker steals the Great Brain and runs off in his car. Freddy Freeman, crossing the College Campus, is called to help and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to help out as Captain Marvel, Jr. Prof. Denker starts to throw small thermite bombs at Junior, which do something to distract him. Junior flies to the nearby Willis Bros Sand Gravel Pit and borrows a derrick to put out the fires. Junior finds there no real way to sell the Great Brain, meaning that he must be hiding it somewhere. He tries to use the computing Great Brain to figure out how to rob the Fifth National Bank. The Great Brain refuses to assist him in robbing a bank and doesn’t react well to threats of being attacked. When he tries to kill the Great Brain with a hammer, the Great Brain grows arms and punches him at the exact correct moment and says that he can rearrange his metallic parts into any necessary appendages or extremities. Denker, cowed into submission, says he will serve the Great Brain, but puzzles on how to guide the actions of the Great Brain. Days later, the 1st National Bank is robbed of $500,000 and the Police Commissioner presumes it was an inside job, since the thieves apparently knew the code for the vault. Junior suspects that the Great Brain was used to calculate the vault’s combination and presumes that Denker is controlling it somehow and decides to wait for Denker to show his hand by pulling another plot.

Prof. Denker soon feeds the Great Brain a problem about a Martier’s armored truck carrying jewelry to a distant city. Moments later, the Great Brain gives him an answer, not realizing that Junior is driving the armored column. Denker soon manages to disable them by dropping some knockout gas from a small plane above them. Junior flies up and punches him out, then clears out the gas with a nearby farm’s windmill, then drags him to jail to be interrogated. Denker admits that he altered the wiring for the Great Brain to make it conceptualize crimes, which is why it’s now evil. However, when Junior goes to his hideout, he finds the Great Brain is gone and there are small footprints on the ground leading away. A week later, Junior finds the MS Steel Foundry to find that they’ve been given an order by letter for scrap metal and that the Great Brain has used it to create a Robot Army. Junior starts to clean house, defeating the Robot Army and fixes the Great Brain to think logically again and instructs Junior on how to create a second Great Brain to help him not feel lonely and is soon returned to the College.

Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Fights the Great Brain!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Prof. George Denker
    • The Great Brain
      • A Robot Army (Destroyed)

Other Characters:

  • The Other Great Brain
  • The Dean of the College

Locations:

Items:

  • Small Thermite Bombs

Vehicles:

  • A Martier's Armored Truck Column


Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and Professor Hoomperdink's Hat"

Some ways down Oak Street lives Prof. Hoomperdink, an inventor who works on commission and is very absent-minded and clumsy. When he walks outside, he slams the door due to not hearing his belabored wife and hits himself in the head with his own shop sign and then is hit by a newspaper delivery at Freddy’s nearby Newsstand. He says almost everything except for a pipe organ… only for a pipe organ to fall off of an airplane and nearly kill him, forcing Freddy to call CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. to return it to the plane. To try to stave off more cranial damage by inventing a new Anti-Gravity Hat that looks like a metal top hat with doodads coming off it. Soon enough, a painter nearly drops a can of paint on his head, but it is repelled and hits the painter in the face with red paint. However, when he walks under a bridge, it makes a streetcar above him fly off the tracks, forcing Junior to fly down to push it back into place. He tries to talk to Prof. Hoomperdink about it as he goes into a restaurant, but he figures it all out himself when he puts the Anti-Gravity Hat under his seat… and it sends him flying into the ceiling! Junior disconnects the Anti-Gravity Hat while the Professor forgets to eat any of his food and leaves. Suddenly, a plane crashing above them nearly crashes into Prof. Hoomperdink, who thinks the Anti-Gravity Hat will deflect it, forcing Junior to drag it out of the way and fix the engines. Junior later tells the Professor’s Wife about it and she promises she’ll destroy the Anti-Gravity Hat and her husband probably won’t really notice. Junior says that messing with gravity is probably not a god idea anyways and later, Prof. Hoomperdink shows Freddy a new hat his wife got him for being a law-abiding citizen. Freddy thinks that this is a joke only for him: now the Professor can’t break the laws of gravity!

Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and Professor Hoomperdink's Hat"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Prof. Hoomperdink

Other Characters:

  • Mrs. Hoomperdink

Locations:

Items:

  • Prof. Hoomperdinck's Anti-Gravity Hat (Destroyed)
  • A Lost Pipe Organ

Vehicles:

  • A Cargo Plane
  • A Crashing Plane

Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Battles the Fog Men!"

Two Fog Men who live in the swamp complain that the Fog Men have never left the swamp, despite there being no one to talk to and no night life. An elderly Fog Man says the world outside the swamp is dangerous and nobody has ever heard of them before. The two Fog Men insist they’ll go to the big city, though Grandfog says that they may never return. Freddy Freeman, walking through a fog bank, sees the Fog Men and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. to try to address them, finding they’re generally intangible, but loses them easily in the fog. He hears a woman scream and spins at top speed to displace the fog and find that she was just scared by touching a Fog Man while asking for directions. Meanwhile, the Fog Men steal nice outfits from Sam the Tailor’s shop and the two tailors soon pass out from confusion. A drunk discards his bottle, a blind beggar says he’s going to the eye doctor and a man crashes his car after they notice the well-dressed men of fog. The Three Fog Men are hit by a streetcar, but soon finds that they are able to become two-dimensional to deflect physical harm and are upset that people have been “attacking” them. Junior says that they are scaring people and should leave, but they refuse and become haughty with him, especially since the Strength of Hercules won’t touch them. However, they are horrified to see the Sun is approaching and they dive into a doorway to escape the oncoming deadly rays of the Sun, which destroys Fog Men! Thus, they promise to go back home to the swamp and do so in a big swath of fog that Junior blows back to the swamp. They decide maybe they’re happy living in the swamp after all...

Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Battles the Fog Men!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • The Fog Men

Other Characters:

  • Grandfog

Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for Captain Kid: "The Little Killer"

Captain Kid is approached by his friend, Dick, who asks what he’s going to wear to the masquerade ball that night, but Captain Kid says that he’s not telling anyone… but it’ll win first prize! Dick decides to follow him to his house and seem sto find that Captain Kid is dressed as a prisoner and then hears from a police car that the “Little Killer” has escaped from prison, is dressed like a prisoner and there’s a $500 reward for his capture. Thus, he waits out until Captain Kid leaves his house dressed like a convict and calls him out as “the Little Killer,” making everyone chase him down. Captain Kid runs away to the Bowling Alley and tries to hide out by wearing a green coat and disguising the real iron weight on his ankle among the bowling balls. The ball ends up thrown and drags Captain Kid down a lane where he’s soon captured by the townspeople, who realize their error. A cop offers to personally drive Captain Kid to the masquerade ball and entering the party as a convict surrounded by cops, he easily wins the costume contest. Dick realizes that he can’t pull one over on Captain Kid.

Appearing in Captain Kid: "The Little Killer"

Featured Characters:

  • Captain Kid

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Dick
    • The Townsmen of Podunk

Other Characters:


Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Man Who Lived History!"

Jeremy Thremm is a local librarian who keeps meticulous records and starts to read history books to escape from the plagues of the modern day. However, while thinking about the Battle of Gettysburg one day… Freddy Freeman sees him suddenly disappear! He calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to try to find him and finds he’s missing entirely and reports it to Officer Jim Bellows… only to find that Jeremy’s back when he returns. Junior is shocked to find that Jeremy now has a program from the Gettysburg Ceremony (guest-featuring Edward Everett) and Junior decides to keep a close eye on him. Later, Jeremy tests his newfound powers and reads a book about the French Revolution, disappearing once Junior tries to walk into his window and Junior this time figures out… that he’s transported himself back in time! To that end, Junior flies off to hang off the Rock of Eternity to return to July 14, 1789, where they are storming the Bastille and assume that mild-mannered Jeremy Thremm is probably an aristocrat “in disguise” and is soon arrested and sent to see Mme. Guillotine. Junior finds him and rescues him from the blade by punching out a man in a Phrygian cap and openly saying the French Revolution was justified! Junior finds Jeremy has disappeared and returned to the present.

Later, Jeremy ends up going back to 1492 to the crew of the Santa Maria where Cristoforo Columbo is sailing to the New World. Two mutineers decide that Capt. Columbo is crazy and attack Jeremy when he asks them to maybe not kill him. They soon run afoul of a nearby reef before they can and Captain Marvel, Jr. flies in to push the reef out of the way and punches out the two evil sailors just before Cristoforo Columbo discovers land. Back at the library, Junior tells Jeremy maybe going back in time is a bad idea, but Jeremy says he’ll keep doing it anyways. The next day, Freddy notes he was reading a book on the origin of the Solar System and wonders if he’ll ever truly come back, though he’s sure he’ll have wonderful tales to tell about it.

Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Man Who Lived History!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

  • Jeremy Thremm, Quiet Librarian

Antagonists:

  • French Revolutionaries
  • Two Mutineers

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

  • History Books

Vehicles:

Trivia

  • Despite the cover, Captain Marvel, Jr. saves a modern-dressed man from the Guillotine.
  • Despite living in Revolutionary France, most of the citizens seem to speak English.
    • Similarly, despite being either Spanish or Italian, the crew of Santa María also seem to speak English.


See Also


Links and References