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129,908
pages
in: Comics Published by Fawcett Publications, C.C. Beck/Cover Artist, Otto Binder/Writer,
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Captain Marvel Adventures Vol 1 124

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"Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Discarded Instincts"": A little old man in a little quaint cottage in “a faraway, unknown place” and finds that his wife has sold his Chest of Discarded Instincts to the junkman and gets dressed like a fanciful train conductor to go find the bad

Captain Marvel Adventures #124 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 1951.

Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Discarded Instincts"

A little old man in a little quaint cottage in “a faraway, unknown place” and finds that his wife has sold his Chest of Discarded Instincts to the junkman and gets dressed like a fanciful train conductor to go find the bad instincts he stuck in it many years ago. As it turns out, Mr. Morris bought a very similar ancient chest from an antique shop with a warning that specifically says not to open it and release the Discarded Instincts. Mr. Morris (unwisely) chooses to do so anyways as Billy Batson calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel to deal with what he entirely expects to be some kind of monster or spirit, but also finds he can’t punch it, since it has the same consistency as a cloud. He introduces himself as the Instinct of Hibernation, who wraps around Captain Marvel’s head, offering they can sleep for months! Captain Marvel starts to settle into an armchair and falls asleep as Mr. Morris finds more creatures emerging from Chest of Discarded Instincts. Mr. Morris finds himself possessed by the Instinct of Migration, which drives him to think he can fly out the window to join a flock of birds, but Captain Marvel wakes up in time to catch him and stuff him into a closet so he doesn’t keep trying to jump off high places. Captain Marvel slams the Chest of Discarded Instincts shut and dumps water on his face to stay awake, then dashes off to find the Instincts that already have escaped into Station WHIZ. He finds an Instinct of Moon-Baying infecting a singer and chases it out of her by moving away the background with the Moon on it, but ends up falling asleep on a chaise longe soon after.

Joe, a technician, gets the “Lemming Instinct” in him to migrate into dangerous waters and started swimming in to the harbor, followed by sharks, forcing Captain Marvel to wake up, punch out a shark and carry him back. However, the Instinct of Hibernation gets into a fight within him with the Life-Saving Instinct that overtakes Captain Marvel instead. He manages to fly Joe out of the water and meets the little old man outside of Station WHIZ. He calls them together with a magic whistle into the Chest of Discarded Instincts and takes it home to lock back in his attic. Mr. Morris, confused and upset, wanders out of a closet as Captain Marvel promises him that things are at least over.

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Discarded Instincts"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • The Instinct Man
  • The Instinct Wife

Other Characters:

  • Instincts (Spirits that act as avatars of certain instincts) (Single appearance)
    • The Instinct of Hibernation (Single appearance)
    • The Instinct of Migration (Single appearance)
    • The Instinct of Moon-Baying (Single appearance)
    • The Lemming Instinct (Single appearance)
    • The Live Saving Instinct (Single appearance)

Locations:

Items:

  • The Chest of Discarded Instincts

Vehicles:




Synopsis for Captain Kid: "The Wild Beast"

Betty Mae calls Captain Kid and says that there’s a wild animal loose in her house, so Captain Kid gets dressed like he’s hunting and dashes over to her house, only to find there’s a rogue mouse on the loose. Captain Kid tries to jump at the tiny beast, but it runs into a mousehole and escapes. Captain Kid tries to lure it in by calling with a moose horn, which only summons a moose. He is amazed and decides to shoot a moose in his girlfriend’s yard (not knowing it’s escaped from the circus), but manages to miss entirely at point-blank range and instead shoots a hole in her wall. However, this has revealed the mouse! Captain Kid goes to shoot a mouse in his girlfriend’s house with a rifle and she decides she’ll take wild animals over keeping Captain Kid around her house!

Appearing in Captain Kid: "The Wild Beast"

Featured Characters:

  • Captain Kid

Supporting Characters:

  • Betty Mae

Antagonists:

  • A Mouse
  • An Escaped Circus Moose

Other Characters:


Locations:

  • Earth-S
    • Podunk City
      • Betty Mae's House

Items:

  • A Hunting Rifle

Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Unknown Danger"

Billy Batson has heard that a foreign translator is needed at Station WHIZ and has volunteered Captain Marvel to help out, since his Wisdom of Solomon allows him to speak any language known or unknown. However, Captain Marvel starts to get a call that even he cannot understand and decides this must be an “unknown” language, but sounds like they’re in trouble! He’s able to track down that it’s merely somewhere “east” and “in Europe” and clearly isn’t France, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece or any other established country with a known language. While trying to look where there are other small mountain countries like the Principality of Andorra and the Most Serene Republic of San Marino and finds a small Forgotten Valley where the streets are paved with gold! He finds he cannot understand these mountainous people and only is able to understand as far as them indicating the nearby mountain. Flying around it, he finds it’s not due to erupt, but does find a small cabin built on a glacier owned by Prof. Grabbe, an English-speaking language expert who’s been studying the Hidden Valley for a year… but can’t learn a thing about it!

Captain Marvel goes about learning general terms from the Hidden Valley people until a knife flies at one of them and someone throws a lantern on to one of the thatched-roof cottages nearby. Soon, Captain Marvel has entirely learned the language and figures out that these people have been separated from humanity since the Ice Age and hasn’t changed for 25,000 years! Captain Marvel finds they have a golden radio as well and realizes who’s been attacking lately: Professor Grabbe is trying to steal all the gold from the area and follows him into a tunnel dug under his hut. He finds that he was due to kill everyone in town by exploding the glacier with dynamite and stolen the gold over the death of the entire culture. Captain Marvel angrily punches him out in the center of town. Later, Billy signs off by saying Ordo (Hello) to the Hidden Valley and that Captain Marvel is writing a translating-dictionary for them and they’ll soon be invited to the UN, then says Zooyilna! (Goodbye!)

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Unknown Danger"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Professor Grabbe (A language expert) (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • The people of Hidden Valley (Single appearance)
  • United Nations (Mentioned only)

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:



Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Strange Time Circus"

Billy Batson finds the circus is in town: Doc Wunder’s Wonder Circus featuring “Genuine Historical Heroes” like Chief Thundercloud, Daniel Boone and Don Quixote. Billy spots they seem to have a darker-colored Woolly Mammoth, but it suddenly bolts, scaring people. Billy calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel who sternly puts the elephant back on the ground and marches it to Doc Wunder, announcing his Time Traveling Circus. Doc Wunder offers that he has a Time Ship that he uses to pick up interesting people from the past to meet people of the modern age (of 1951!) However, on the way home, Billy spots Don Quixote trying to tilt against a streetcar and calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel, who picks him over the streetcar before he’s flattened by it. Don Quixote grumpily says that Daniel Boone, Chief Thundercloud and “Oob the Caveman” have all quit the Time Traveling Circus and have run away! Captain Marvel finds Daniel Boone trying to shoot the lions outside the New York Public Library and Chief Thundercloud trying to scalp a burglar (hilariously finding that he’s wearing a toupee) and that Oob is trying to cook food on a campfire in the middle of a street. Oob tries to defend his food, but Captain Marvel carefully permits him to just keep eating as he puts out his fire and flies him back to the circus with the others. They explain that none of them signed up for this and they aren’t getting paid, which Captain Marvel finds is quite the problem. What’s more, inside one of his pockets in a coat in his dressing room, Captain Marvel finds that Doc Wunder is a criminal from the future who has stolen a time ship and kept a wanted poster of himself in it. Captain Marvel is forced to try to round up the time-displaced characters to send them back in time as well while Doc Wunder tries to leg it to his Time Ship. The Mammoth grabs him by the waist with its trunk and turns him over to Captain Marvel. Later, Billy signs off saying that everyone went back to the time they should be at and now the circus has been renamed the WHIZ Circus with proceeds going to charity!

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Strange Time Circus"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Doc Wunder (A time-traveling circus owner from the 25th Century) (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:


Vehicles:

  • Doc Wunder's Time Ship (Single appearance)

Concepts:

Notes

  • Despite the cover, Captain Marvel pointedly cannot grasp these Instincts and they seemingly cannot be grabbed in any physical manner.

Trivia

  • It would be hard for Doc Wunder to pull off such a circus as this!:
    • Chief Thundercloud is a seemingly invented persona for the Native American on the Buffalo Nickel who never truly existed, having been based on sketches of three different men from three different tribes.
    • Don Quixote is a fictional character, even in his own narrative story: Alonso Quijano only becomes Don Quixote in a fevered madness and decides to stop when brought to his senses, eventually.
      • Further, this version of Don Quixote also speaks fluent, if outdated, English.
    • Daniel Boone had died in 1820 while settling the wild frontiers of the Commonwealth of Kentucky
      • Further, despite being a skilled hunter, he somehow mistakes Patience and Fortitude, the speckled granite lions outside the New York Public Library as being alive and dangerous.


See Also

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