Captain Marvel, Jr. #98 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1) with a cover date of June, 1951.
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Battles The Crime Chariot"
Freddy Freeman leans out his window hearing raucous noise from the shed and Prof. Edgewise soon emerges and says he invented something amazing. Freddy comes down and finds it’s a futuristic-looking car that can’t even be harmed by a sledgehammer, a flame-thrower, or a one-ton block of concrete (he had all of these on-hand.) He has Freddy get inside and demonstrates that its tired can drive over 6” nails without breaking and names the craft his “Auto-Chariot.” Unfortunately, he soon finds that the brakes don’t work and it’s charging downhill into a streetcar, so Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. and shoves it to a stop. Junior quickly tells Prof. Edgewise that since it’s way heavier than a normal car, the brakes can’t as easily stop it and the Auto-Chariot is therefore impractical for use and could easily cause more mayhem than it solves. Junior stopping the Auto-Chariot and the failure of Prof. Edgewise make the front page of the Daily Gazette. Soon, two goons named Damon and Pythias arrive and say they’re buying it from him and when the Professor says it’s not for sale and he’s going to destroy it, they just blackjack him with a truncheon and Damon starts getting to work on fixing the brakes to work right now. Meanwhile, Freddy is playing checkers with Leroy Marks when he sees the Auto-Chariot being stolen and driving away. Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. to give chase. The two goons drive the Auto-Chariot through a support pillar to try to derail a train on an elevated railway, forcing Junior to hold the tracks up to keep them in place until a repair crew arrives.
Soon, the two goons crash the Auto-Chariot into a bank and into their vault too, cracking into it like an eggshell. Prof. Edgewise is despondent that the “Crime Chariot” and how he also put the instructions on how to make the special fuel it requires in the car itself. Freddy has him write up the chemical formula for it and Captain Marvel, Jr. soon leaves to go check on who’s buying like the ones listed in town. To go about trying to stop the Crime Chariot, the Professor makes a second Auto-Chariot while Junior finds out an address where the chemicals for the fuel were sent. He soon finds that they’re not there, but are about to strike the rich part of town, Television City. The Crime Chariot soon leaves Television City with a fortune in stolen jewels and furs, only for the Professor to t-bone the Crime Chariot and charges into them at top speed, which ends up destroying both of the Chariots, though no one is hurt… until Junior flies in to punch out the two goons. Later, Freddy reads in the Evening Star that the Auto-Chariot has been sold to the Defense Department to make powerful tanks.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. Battles The Crime Chariot"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Damon
- Pythias
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Mrs. Wagner's Boarding House
- Television City
- New York City
Items:
- A Sledgehammer
- A Flamethrower
- A 1 Ton Block of Concrete
- 6" Nails
Vehicles:
- The Crime Chariot (Destroyed)
- The Auto-Chariot, Mk. II (Destroyed)
- The Auto-Chariot, Mk. II (Destroyed)
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr.'s Strange Appetite"
Freddy Freeman is returning from work and finds there’s a UN Banquet at a nearby hotel and wishes he sure could join them. Suddenly, a shadowy man calling himself Anavis hands it to him and asks him to deliver it there. Freddy heads on in and worries that “Anavis” might have been some kind of spy, so he opens the box, but finds it’s full of apples. He decides to try one… but starts to become insatiably hungry and starts eating more and more apples. A concierge tells him to basically get lost because the banquet is about to start, but an unreasonable Freddy shoves him on the shoulder, jumps on the table and starts eating all of the food! To try to stop himself, he calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr., but this does nothing and instead he now starts eating plates and even the table! Officer Jim Bellows encourages he also should leave or he’ll arrest him and Junior leaves before he starts getting to thinking jail cell bars would taste good. He instead starts eating a tire and tries to restrain himself while he decides to go check out Mortown, the only place who makes apples like the ones he ate very quickly. He finds the apples are normal, but hears a specific chuckling and finds Sivana, Jr. is injecting the apples with chemicals and Junior realizes that Anavis is just Sivana backwards and that he was planning on having him feed the apples to the UN delegation, which would drive them mad with hunger, likely enough to elect him “Prince of the Universe.” Instead, Junior starts eating all of the apples in another raucous fury, allowing Young Thaddeus to escape yet again. Junior eats all the apples but one (the one Sivana, Jr. injected) and soon flies off to find him picking more apples and tosses a garden snake at him, which scares Young Thaddeus into falling off a ladder when it bites him. Junior tells him that the only cure for the bite of an “adder” is eating an apple, handing him the Hunger Pang Apple as Sivana, Jr. starts ravenously eating grass and a tree trunk while telling Junior that the antidote is in his back pocket. Junior and Sivana, Jr. both drink it and Junior destroys the Hunger Serum and drags him off to jail. Some time later, the prison guards notice that Sivana, Jr. sure has lost his appetite now!
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr.'s Strange Appetite"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- A Concierge
- UN Delegates
- Officer Jim Bellows
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- A UN Banquet
- Mortown
- New York City
Items:
- Apples
- Hunger Serum
- Apples with Hunger Serum (Destroyed)
- Hunger Serum Antidote
- Hunger Serum
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Ark from Space"
A storm of meteors collide into the distant Planet Smorxx, forcing all of its rooster-tailed citizens, led by Anho to leave the planet in a mass exodus in a large Space Ark, watching it blow up behind them. Some weeks later, Freddy Freeman finds Leroy Marks has bought a new lawnmower and is enjoying using it, only to be attacked by a large yellow bird with a ski-pole tail and skis for feet, knocking from his seat. Freddy quickly calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr., lifting the lawnmower from destroying a nearby garden, fixes up the fence he ran into and flies off after the Ski Bird, which loudly cries “BJORK!” He hears someone shooting and finds that a farmer has found a creature that looks like a rabbit with a bird’s face and long horns ate 5 lbs of salt and ran off and that these weird animals are everywhere! The farmer openly says he’s going to shoot them with his friends if they come back. Junior soon finds the strange animals returning to the Space Ark and meets the people of Smorxx, who don’t wear shirts and do wear wrinkled gray pants. They soon explain their interplanetary plight, but the farmers soon show up and decide to just shoot everyone, since they hate “freaks” and quickly find that Junior is strong enough to break a gun over his head and shoves a log into the three of them to make them stop already. Junior tells an abbreviated version of the story of a certain Ark that used to be on Earth and asks if they’re really good Christians to judge them for coming there. Suddenly, they find one of their pets, a Gizizk (which resembles a very gangling saurian animals with whiskers and a crest) and finds that Earth’s atmosphere is poisonous to gizizk! Junior helps get the Space Ark all the repairing equipment they need and they soon take off for another planet as Junior flies forward and just pushes all the pieces of Planet Smorxx back together, which soon fuse into a solid planet. The Space Ark soon lands again and the people of Smorxx thank him for teaching them the kindness of the people of Earth.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Ark from Space"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Anho of Smorxx
- Leroy Marks
Antagonists:
- Violent Farmers
Other Characters:
- A Skiing Bird
- Two Gizizk
- Other Alien Animals
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Freddy's Newsstand
- New York City
- Planet Smorxx
Items:
Vehicles:
- The Space Ark
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Touch of Life!"
Freddy Freeman is at the City Museum to see a famed sculpture and says it almost looks alive, which upsets the sculptor nearby, Eric Bodyn, who wants it to be literally alive. Bodyn thinks this makes him a horrible failure, despite his work being at the Museum of Art. Hearing a horrible crashing noise within, Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. and flies in to find Bodyn destroying his own artwork and asks why he’s doing this. Bodyn says he also wants the Life Stone, a magic stone that makes inanimate objects live and that he knows it exists. Sometime later, Freddy finds in the paper that Bodyn has gone missing in the Everglades and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to go find him as Junior again. Arriving in Florida, he uses the Speed of Mercury to fly in an interior swirl that leads him to find Bodyn being attacked by alligators and punches them over and knots their tails together to throw them several miles away. Bodyn pleads that he’s so close to the Life Stone and points at a nearby stone, which he claims to have found on an ancient Spanish map. Junior touches it and Bodyn says he now has the Touch of Life and offers he touch a tree and it comes alive and runs off. Bodyn goes to touch the Life Stone, but Junior says it’s way too dangerous to let him do so and carries him off, though Bodyn promises he’ll find it again. Junior doesn’t believe the tree is alive, but when he finds it again, the tree swims away from him with its new tree limbs. Junior touches the rowboat to go after it and it comes alive too and Junior decides to take the Life Stone with him so it won’t cause more problems. He soon ties the tree to the rowboat as Bodyn soon finds him and rushes over to touch the Life Stone, though Junior blocks his path, touching a nearby shack that comes alive and flies off. Junior drags the tree, the rowboat and the shack with him to drop the Life Stone somewhere it won’t cause trouble or be found and abandons the living things on a desert island. In his frustration, he hits the ground… making the island come alive and starts careening towards a nearby ship! Bodyn, who has been following Junior and is aboard the ship, gets into a diving suit to go after him, only for Junior to pick him up and drags him off the ship before the island runs into it and sinks it. Junior shows him to the island and finds that the living tree, rowboat and shack have all gone back to normal. Bodyn, disappointed, realizes that he’ll just have to make his art a form of immortal life that lives forever, which Junior says is a good idea. Later, Freddy finds the Life Stone has been buried forever in the ocean and the only thing that changed is the island, which is confusing cartographers quite a bit.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Touch of Life!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Eric Bodyn
Other Characters:
- A Tree
- A Rowboat
- A Shack
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Freddy's Newsstand
- The Florida Everglades
- A Slightly-Alive Island
- New York City
Items:
- The Life Stone
Vehicles:
- A Ship (Destroyed)
Trivia
- Despite the cover, the Crime Chariot is bright yellow and the goons using it don't wear masks.
- The goons, Damon and Pythias, are named after the legendarily good friends of ancient Syracuse of the same name.
- Eric Bodyn's name and occupation as a sculptor of human figures in a moderately Naturalist are likely a reference to famed French sculptor, François Auguste René Rodin.
- The name of the Spark Ark's leader, Anho, is a clear anagram of Nōaḥ.
See Also