Captain Marvel Adventures #106 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1950.
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Plague of Lies"
Virgil Klance is a man plagued by the truth: his girlfriend calls him ugly and refuses his marriage proposal and later that day, his boss fires him for breaking equipment in his laboratory, being a brilliant research scientist, but the sloppiest man ever. Virgil tries to at least get some positive news from a weighing machine and gets a card calling him “the most disguisting human being who ever weighed himself on this machine!” He next tries to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Brainsill, who just tells him that he is inferior. When he leaves though, Dr. Brainsill thinks on how he told him that only to shock him out of his depressive stupor. Instead, it makes Virgil go insane and decides to destroy truth forever and to make it so nobody can tell the truth anymore! For weeks that become months, he works to create a “Prevaricator Ray” that can “change the basic physiology of people so it will be impossible for them to tell the truth!” He soon attaches it to a plane and circles around New York City, spraying everything to start his Plague of Lies.
Just below, Billy Batson reports that he’s feeling dizzy and then has a devious grin as he announces a comet is going to hit the Earth, destroying all life on the planet! What’s worse, the “comet” is going to unleash an invasion force from another planet that intend to exterminate all survivors. Mr. Morris soon dashes in and declares that Billy is outwardly causing a panic, but the rays soon strike Mr. Morris, making him lie about how “pleased” he is and Billy decides to call SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel to ostensibly make things even worse. Luckily, this is also a lie, revealing that Billy was worried enough to call for him while Mr. Morris tells him nobody likes when he shows up and he’s not happy to see him and Captain Marvel, unaffected, wonders why they both seem to be lying. Captain Marvel offers him a fraternal pat on the shoulder and asks if he misspoke, but Mr. Morris angrily tells him to basically get lost. An insulted Captain Marvel flies off and finds that the cars are going nuts below trying to evacuate from Billy’s broadcast about imminent destruction by invasive comet-men. Captain Marvel assures a cop directing traffic that he’ll help, but the cop says he likes having fun by ruining traffic and says he’s very serious about how he wants Captain Marvel to basically get lost. Captain Marvel decides to help anyways, building a giant stone bridge from rocks in a quarry, but finds no one will listen to his words, believing that he’s the one who’s lying and drive off over the bridge anyway. He tries to appeal to an elderly friend “Apple” Annie, but she angrily says she doesn’t want to sell apples and that she’s the “Duchess of Bloopinshire” and that she owns a castle with 189 rooms in it! Further still, he finds the local Captain Marvel Club has become a We Hate Captain Marvel Club (even saying they do hate him personally and offers they may change the name to Sivana Club.) Rejected by society as a whole, Captain Marvel decides to move out to a lonely barrier reef and sits around, tired of the lies of the people of New York City.
Meanwhile, Virgil Klance gets on a ship so he can fire his Prevaricator Ray to make more cities horrible and full of lies. However, the ray makes the men on board lie until they start driving into a reef (unable to pilot correctly due to lies.) Virgil tries to insist the Captain right their course away from the reef, but the Captain naturally believes he’s lying and Virgil realizes he’s doomed himself with no way to stop the Plague of Lies. Luckily, this is the same reef that Captain Marvel is on, so he rights the ship with ease and Virgil explains himself. Captain Marvel figures out some way to reverse the ray and says he needs to turn himself in. Later, Billy reports that Captain Marvel destroyed the Prevaricator Ray and that telling lies can be very dangerous! Mr. Morris agrees that that’s the truth!
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Plague of Lies"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Virgil Klance, ex-research scientist
Other Characters:
- his ex-girlfriend
- his ex-boss
- mean psychiatrist
- policeman
- Apple Annie
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Atlantic Ocean
- Barrier Reef
Items:
- Klance's Prevaricator Ray (changes human physiology, making people unable to tell the truth)
Vehicles:
- Klance's airplane
- passenger steamship
Synopsis for Captain Kid: "The Lucky Sign"
Captain Kid is running home so he can take Betty Mae rowing with some money he borrowed from his father. He knocks on a tree for luck that it’ll go well and one of his friends calls him superstitious over it. Captain Kid says it’s just an expression… before he leaps up and jumps on to the tree again to prevent a black cat from crossing his path. Pudgy sends him to the park where he claims there are tons of four-leaf clovers to improve his luck, but Captain Kid blows off this idea… until later, when he tells Betty Mae that he wants to find just one before they go rowing. Betty Mae is very uninterested in doing so, so he does it quickly himself. Running back to her though, he accidentally steps on Betty Mae’s new $5 sunglasses, destroying them utterly underfoot. He offers that his good luck will reward him by getting him an easy job to make good money. He helps her up and finds that there’s a sign up for help wanted with a boy to mow the lawn. He tells her to just go home while he works off the cost and runs up to the house… stepping on a bulldog on the way in that bites him on the rear. Later still, Pudgy tries to sell Captain Kid a rabbit’s foot for luck, but Captain Kid says that if it was so lucky, how did the rabbit lose it?
Appearing in Captain Kid: "The Lucky Sign"
Featured Characters:
- Captain Kid
Supporting Characters:
- Betty Mae
- Pudgy
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Podunk
Items:
- A Four-Leaf Clover
- A Black Cat
- Betty Mae's Sunglasses (Destroyed)
- A Rabbit's Foot
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Laughing Peril"
A promoter for a new comedy show is afraid it might not be funny enough and ruin his reputation, so he skywrites promotions for it laced with laughing gas, causing chaos all over town. Eventually Captain Marvel cures everyone by dousing the city with tear gas. It turns out the show is a roaring success, and there was no need to "cheat" with laughing gas.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Laughing Peril"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Booster Beale, publicity man
Other Characters:
- Beale's Pilot
- David Stuart, play critic
Locations:
Items:
- Beale's laughing gas / skywriting vapor
- Tear Gas
Vehicles:
- Beale's hired airplane
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Fights the Menace of the Moon"
Professor Dyke worries that the Moon might be used as a bomb-launching base by an enemy power, so his solution is to destroy the Moon by breaking off pieces of it and having them form rings like Saturn's. Captain Marvel ends this project, and the scientist realizes he'd only be creating hundreds of orbital bodies that could be used as encampments to bomb the Earth.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Fights the Menace of the Moon"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Professor Dyke
Locations:
Items:
- Dyke's Mover Ray
- Dyke's Pounder Ray
Vehicles:
- Dyke's Rocket Ship
Synopsis for Colonel Corn and Korny Kobb: "Defective Detective"
Colonel Corn calls over Korny Kobb in the middle of the night to complain about someone breaking into his house and attacking him, but after several non-sensical jokes, he admits that it all happened in a dream he had, prompting Korny Kobb to clobber him in the head for waking him up about it.
Appearing in Colonel Corn and Korny Kobb: "Defective Detective"
Featured Characters:
- Colonel Corn
- Korny Kobb
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Town That Never Heard of Crime!"
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Town That Never Heard of Crime!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- "Hugger" Jason, robber
Other Characters:
- Mayor William O'Dwyer
- Jonah Latham, Patriarch Chief of an isolated town
- isolated townspeople
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Nebraska
- An unnamed isolated town in a volcanic crater
Notes
- In The Plague of Lies, Virgil Klance's Prevaricator Ray changes human physiology, making people unable to tell the truth. The device also has a reverse setting. At the end of this adventure, Captain Marvel has confiscated the only known prototype of this machine, but its demented inventor is still alive and at large, only left at the steps of a police station to turn himself in.
- In The Laughing Peril, the antidote to Booster Beale's extremely potent laughing gas is tear gas. Like Klance, Beale is still at liberty at the end of this adventure, after idiotically endangering thousands.
- At the end of The Menace of the Moon, Professor Dyke also gets the same break that Klance and Beale got, despite recklessly endangering the entire population of Earth. He's not only alive and free but still has his rocket ship and his planet-breaking ray projectors.
- On Earth-Prime, Mayor O'Dwyer was not shot by criminals, but instead resigned while under investigation of being complicit in a police corruption scandal before being given an informal exile as Ambassador to Mexico under Pres. Truman, being replaced by President of the NYC Council, Vincent R. Impellitteri
- Also featured in this issue of Captain Marvel Adventures were:
- Dopey Danny Dee: "No Picnic!" by George Marko
- Comix Cards: "Rod Cameron"
- Tightwad Tad: "Borrowed Trouble"
- The Captain Marvel Club
- Singing Sam: "Opera House"
- "Interplanetary Colony" (text story, featuring Jon Jarl) by Eando Binder
See Also