Captain Marvel Adventures #111 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1) with a cover date of August, 1950.
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel, Citizen of the Universe"
On a pleasant Sunday afternoon, a green reptilian alien in a spacesuit has landed in City Park and grabs a young girl by the arm. He seems to understand little English and the girl faints when he tries to explain he is there peaceably and just wants to talk. Billy Batson hears screams and looks around to see the alien and calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel. The World’s Mightiest Mortal grabs him off of the girl, but finds that she’s unhurt, but terrified and the alien looks very plaintive and contrite, so Captain Marvel decides to talk. This alien is Thoth of Brazzia who is establishing a general peace agreement among planets to avoid general ideas of interplanetary conflicts as “Citizens of the Universe,” hoping to get at least the Sol System signed up for it. Since Captain Marvel is pretty big on peace, he decides that this is a worthy cause and condemns that the people who have judged Thoth were foolish and should be ashamed of their fear. He discovers further that these fools have lost all semblance of shame and now become a violent mob that immediately accuse Captain Marvel of treason against Earth and the police demand to arrest him for “disturbing the peace,” ignoring his word about the Great Peace Movement. Captain Marvel begins to realize that humans are barely able to think of themselves as merely “citizens of Earth” no less as members of any sort of interplanetary community and that the US Justice System will not be kind with Thoth of Brazzia. Suddenly, a team of pantsless spacemen appear and claim that Thoth is a wanted criminal and demand that he be turned over to them. However, since they are humanoid, brawny and blond, they are immediately rewarded. Once they are out of earshot of normal humans, they immediately smirk that they are Munitions Manufacturers that spread interplanetary hate and are more than willing to profit from conflicts between them. They prepare to shoot Thoth in the head with a rifle for daring to interfere with their galactic war profiteering before Captain Marvel punches over the pantsless space weaponers. Captain Marvel allows them to get to their ship to escape, but only so he can follow them personally to a large Conference Room underground where they discuss starting interplanetary war on purpose and selling weapons to both sides for maximum profit, so he tears their door off and gives them five minutes to get to their ships and leave before personally detonating all of their munitions to explode, leaving a giant crater where they once had weapons and then pushes them to a peaceable area where the space weaponers are arrested for their crimes. With a signed confession from the munitions makers, Captain Marvel returns to Earth where the mob now cheers for Thoth and Captain Marvel signs up to be a Citizen of the Universe. Thoth cries in gratitude and leaves as everyone agrees that Thoth has a beautiful soul and he is now accepted.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel, Citizen of the Universe"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Thoth of Brazzia
Antagonists:
- Interplanetary Munitions Makers
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- WHIZ Radio
- City Park
- New York City
- Brazzia
Items:
- Interplanetary Munitions (Destroyed)
Vehicles:
- Thoth's Space Ship
- The Munitions Makers' Ship
Synopsis for Captain Kid: "Captain Kid and the Buried Treasure!"
Captain Kid overhears two guys discussing buried treasure being hidden in Old Man Flotsam’s Junk Yard, which is going to be some kind of prize chest on a radio show for Burpsi-Kola pop. However, neither of the two men can win since they can’t enter due to being related to someone who works at the junkyard. Captain Kid legs it to get there ahead of time and rents a shovel and pick from a hardware store, then spends money on a taxi to secretly move to the junk yard so no one will know he’s got equipment with him. Finding the gate is locked, Captain Kid hops the fence with his tools, rips a hole in his pants and digs all around the junkyard before he finds the chest… only to discover that he spent more money trying to get the prize of six bottles of free pop. He decides to leave it anyways, figuring that if he had listened to the radio in the first place, he’d have known it wasn’t worth it!
Appearing in Captain Kid: "Captain Kid and the Buried Treasure!"
Featured Characters:
- Captain Kid
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Podunk
- Candy Store
- Hardware Store
- Old Man Flotsam's Junk Yard
- Podunk
Items:
- A Pickaxe
- A Shovel
- A Prize Chest for Six Free Burpsi-Kolas
Vehicles:
- A Taxicab
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Fights the Menace of Greed"
Mr. Sterling Morris departs to Europe from New York City for a month as Billy Batson sees him off. He finds out that Jason Cox, Morris’ Financial Manager, is in charge of money matters while he’s gone. Billy thinks about what a good boss Mr. Morris is as he looks at the Research Library with his name on it and how he’s got a school, church and an orphans’ home named after him for his known charity and good works. Jason Cox almost immediately calls him in to his office to say he’s cutting everyone’s pay and that Mr. Morris paid everyone too much and insists he has power of attorney, so he’ll do as he pleases. Billy decides he’ll wait to see about reporting this to Mr. Morris, but thinks better of ruining his vacation too quickly. However, in the coming days, things begin falling apart due to overuse, Miss Jameson can’t get new ribbons for the typewriter and paychecks are coming out a week late! Billy is now more than suspicious and calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel who demands to see what Cox is putting all of Station WHIZ money’s into and finds that he’s invested it all in a lucrative Pyramid Investment Corporation for huge profits. Captain Marvel accepts that this is greedy of him, but not illegal, so he instead investigates PIC to discover that nobody works there but two goons who can’t answer specific questions about their Alaskan oil wells, African uranium mines or Patagonian diamond mines. A sign on their door says their President is one “Jac Oxson.” Captain Marvel finds that each area does have one of the resources he was looking for, but each one is different. He figures that this means that everyone is fine and up to snuff, but when he returns to their offices, the goons pull guns on him and fire wildly to predictable results. Breaking into the door they’re guarding, Captain Marvel finds that Jac Oxson was secretly Jason Cox the whole time and that he was just embezzling funds from Station WHIZ into his own dummy corporation. Mr. Morris soon returns and tells Captain Marvel that he’s investigating those legitimate investments they found and that Cox went to prison for fraud. Captain Marvel is happy, since this also means tons of other people will have jobs. Billy signs off saying that everyone at the Station loves Mr. Morris for using his wealth to make everyone happy and everyone got a raise too!
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Fights the Menace of Greed"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Jason Cox / "Jac Oxson"
Other Characters:
- Mr. Morris
- Miss Jameson
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- WHIZ Radio
- Pyramid Investment Corporation
- Africa
- Alaska
- Patagonia
- New York City
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Story of Lester, the Seal Who Could Not Swim"
Billy Batson & Mr. Morris go to the City Zoo and Billy notes that he’s gotten to know the seals by talking to their keeper. The four seals are the Great Jonas, a former vaudevillian who juggles fish, Phineas who plays the horns, Elmer who swam the English Channel (in record time!) and Lester, who doesn’t do anything and can’t even swim! Mr. Morris notes a wry sorrow that Lester lives in a barrel away from the other seals. Meanwhile, the Zoo Keeper speaks to an aggressive vaudevillian who needs to rent the Great Jonas for his troop for $2,000, but the Zoo Keeper says that despite him having advertised for the show already, Jonas is too old to perform and that he shouldn’t have made promises he couldn’t have kept. The barker starts to get violent with him and Billy calls SHAZAM when he overhears shouts to summon Captain Marvel, who punches him over. The Barker leaves, saying he’ll get a seal yet. Some days later, one of the seals has gone missing, so Billy calls SHAZAM after reporting about it to summon Captain Marvel, finding that Lester was kidnapped, but nobody cares, including the Zoo Keeper. Captain Marvel soon finds that the barker has escaped on a train with Lester in his barrel, but he dumps him out when he finds that he isn’t the Great Jonas. Captain Marvel punches out the abusive seal entertainer and the police arrest him on the train, but Captain Marvel finds that Lester is missing from where the barrel hit a rock. While trying to find another barrel, Lester climbs into one near Niagara Falls and accidentally sealed inside it for a stuntman to go over the falls in it! The barrel cracks open when it lands at the bottom of the falls, but is caught in a whirlpool. Captain Marvel swoops in and saves him and Lester becomes famous for being the first seal to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and is now the most famous of the City Zoo Seals, honking proudly.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Story of Lester, the Seal Who Could Not Swim"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Lester, the Seal Who Could Not Swim
- The Zoo Keeper
Antagonists:
- An Unnamed Evil Vaudevillian Barker
Other Characters:
- The Great Jonas, the Juggling Seal
- Mr. Morris
- Phineas, the Musical Seal
- Elmer, the Swimming Seal
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- WHIZ Radio
- City Zoo
- New York City
Items:
- Lester's Barrel (Destroyed)
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Discovers the Eighth Sea"
At sea, Viking ships are being commanded by villainous sea captain Captain Sharker to capture American freighters, boasting loudly that he has the perfect hideout that no one can find. Hearing about the news of naval attacks, Billy calls SHAZAM and summons Captain Marvel to look into things, finding and punching over Capt. Sharker with relative ease, only for the pirate to point out that he ran aground the ship he was robbing on the rocks and they’re soon to crash, but warns that his secret hideout is in the “Eighth” Sea. Captain Marvel flies all around the world, but isn’t sure where an Eighth Sea would be at this point and soon just follows their ship home to find that they enter a secret cave and are hauled up a cliffside to a large underground Eighth Sea where Vikings also exist. To find out just where any of this came from, Captain Marvel calls SHAZAM to return Billy, who easily asks how ancient Scandinavian sea warriors are on the Eighth Sea and is told by a guard that they they just got stuck there, created a new Viking society and joined up with Captain Sharker when he discovered them and offered them a way to loot the world as they see fit. Before Billy can call SHAZAM again, Captain Sharker blackjacks him in the head and has him bound to his main mast and gagged. Once he is back on the ocean again, Capt. Sharker destroys the opening to the Eighth Sea with dynamite, which Capt. Sharker mocks will flood the world and create a drowned world where they can loot the largest cities. He soon dumps Billy into the ocean to drown, but he manages to drag his face on some flotsam and catch his gag on a nail to call SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel. The World’s Mightiest Mortal quickly sets a mountain atop the entrance to the Eighth Sea to keep global oceanic heights have only flooded low-lying coastal areas, which Capt. Sharker is now sailing longships into. Captain Marvel quickly finds them as they run aground, saying that the world’s waters only increased mere inches and punches them out to be arrested. Later, Billy signs off saying that everyone got arrested and Captain Marvel went to the Eighth Sea to get back all the stuff that Capt. Sharker stole.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Discovers the Eighth Sea"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Captain Sharker
- A Lost Tribe of Vikings
Other Characters:
- Other Ship Captains
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Eighth Sea
Items:
- Dynamite
Vehicles:
- Viking Longships
Trivia
- Despite the title, it is never made explicit that Lester cannot swim, but more that he is either elderly or cowardly and merely doesn't like to swim.
See Also