Captain Marvel Adventures #142 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1953.
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Red Lightning Blitz"
Billy Batson is reporting on the front lines of the Korean War, finding that Communist forces are using some kind of lightning weapon to attack UN forces in the Yangdee Sector! Once finished, Billy calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel who starts flying into the path of lightning bolts and using old tanks to take the hits. He rolls up barbed wire and posts, tossing the electrified wires into the North Korean lines. Captain Marvel is soon informed that the brutal Red Crusher escaped UN custody and is likely the heart of this and they soon find him out at “Position X” trying to use his own lightning gun to melt American soldiers. Captain Marvel punches him over, but he fires his Lightning Gun into Captain Marvel’s face, blinding him a moment. The North Korean Army are able to hold him back by driving tanks at Captain Marvel while the Red Crusher escapes. He activates his Lightning Machine to create another storm while Captain Marvel tears apart a tank to make a giant lightning rod that absorbs the incoming electrical blasts. Captain Marvel returns Billy, who sneaks his way towards the Lightning Machine, but is knocked out by a North Korean soldier. Billy wakes up, as usual, bound in an ad hoc Korean prison camp where the Red Crusher prepares to turn him into a charred corpse with his Lightning Gun. Billy manages to tilts his head up that lets him speak and call SHAZAM, summoning Captain Marvel who flies off to find the Red Crusher is creating Ball Lightning that he has to punch to break up, then uses a large glass chute that route the ball lightning into the Korean camp and destroys the Red Crusher’s plane, crashing it into the ground and destroying the Lightning Machine aboard it. Captain Marvel reports he died and he’s commended by a military official. Later, Billy finds that all that static charge has been hard for him to fix his hair with, but it saved his life!
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles the Red Lightning Blitz"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Korea
- The Yangdee Sector
Items:
- The Red Crusher's Lightning Machine
- The Red Crusher's Lightning Gun
Vehicles:
- The Red Crusher's Plane (Destroyed)
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles Sabotage Aboard the Space Station"
Billy Batson is reporting from the WHIZ World Watchtower, the first telecasting space station until it’s attacked by a meteor and he calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel who knocks it out of the way. Once he’s back and Billy’s returned, Billy explains further that he’s there with the three people who are most needed here on WHIZ World Watchtower: the two inventors, Doc Quartz and Dexter Knox and their primary financier, Mr. Morris. Doc Quartz explains that a space station is sealed and has a giant aerial on the bottom side of it. Dexter Knox, Boy Scientist, explains they have to wear magnetized steel shoes to keep them lodged on the floor due to a lack of gravity in low-Earth orbit and lets them arrive at any spot of the Earth in two hours’ time! They look down and find out via their huge telescope that there’s a Pacific volcano erupting and they start broadcasting it via Long-Range Zoomar Lens! Thus, they are able to catch more scoops than literally any media company in the world!
Back on Earth, jaded and failing radio reporter “Scoop” Barton is furious that he’s lost out and sneaks aboard the WHIZ World Watchtower via a Contact Rocket that sends supplies to them, shutting off the magnetic gravity floor, sending everyone floating until Billy calls SHAZAM and summons Captain Marvel to save everyone and figure out what’s going on. Barton escapes and hides out to do more horrible things. Captain Marvel gets news of an imminent iceberg attack and uses some spare whale oil to light the iceberg on fire. While he returns to space, Barton returns on the Contact Rocket, having set the WHIZ World Watchtower’s Drive Jets to send them propelled into deep space forever, forcing Captain Marvel to go create a giant mirror that helps him search through space and find the space station himself. Captain Marvel returns it and hears the scoop from someone else that WHIZ World Watchtower has gone missing forever, meaning he’s clearly the one responsible and flies over to knock him out, especially since it’s not visible from the Earth’s surface. Later, Billy signs off saying that Barton is in jail and the WHIZ World Watchtower is a huge success that he’ll report from tomorrow.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Battles Sabotage Aboard the Space Station"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Mr. Morris
- Dexter Knox, Boy Scientist
- Doc Quartz, Local Pharmacist
Antagonists:
- "Scoop" Barton
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- WHIZ World Watchtower
Items:
- The World's Largest Space Mirror
- Magnetic Steel Space Shoes
- Long-Range Zoomar Lens
Vehicles:
- A Contact Rocket
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "The World's Mightiest Man Meets the Womanly Wiles of The Beauty in Black!"
Billy Batson walks by Parfums Inc., a nice-smelling perfume store, and sees some goons carrying boxes out and calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel. Defeating them, he finds their leader is a sing-song woman with black hair and a black dress who is more than willing to take advantage of Captain Marvel’s reticence to both flirtations and wanting to harm a woman, backing him up until he falls into a hole in the street. He stands up covered in mud and finds she’s scarpered and interrogates a gangster now in prison from the Norton Gang; the hot news is Black Beauty showed up out of nowhere and said she’s in charge before defeating a man with a judō toss. When “Bull” Norton tried to get involved, she shot him looking only at him with her compact. She then threatened everyone into letting her run the gang now and he’s happy that he’s in jail rather than working for her, thinking she’s unstable. Meanwhile, Black Beauty is confident that she can’t be stopped even by the World’s Mightiest Mortal. He tries to catch her with a lariat, but she cuts it with a paring knife in her clutch purse. When he tries to physically stop her, she flirts with him and he starts to sputter until she throws a hand grenade into someone’s apartment window, forcing Captain Marvel to jump on it. Back at her hideout, she names herself the World’s Cleverest Woman and Captain Marvel can’t stop her! Suddenly, Captain Marvel lands and confidently confesses his love to her and grips her in a crushing bear hug while holding a bouquet, only to withdraw a canister of tear gas to spray in her face. She is furious at having her feelings toyed with as he cleans house, defeating her entire gang. Later, Billy signs off saying that Black Beauty is in prison and that crime doesn’t pay even if Captain Marvel wouldn’t strike a woman, since he only loves fighting crime!
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "The World's Mightiest Man Meets the Womanly Wiles of The Beauty in Black!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Black Beauty (Single appearance)
- "Bull" Norton (Dies in flashback)
- The Norton Gang
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Station WHIZ-TV
- Parfums Inc. Perfume Store
- New York City
Items:
- A Tear Gas Canister
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Capt. Kid: "Capt. Kid and the Boisterous Bully"
Bruiser, a local bully, walks into Captain Kid’s house and Captain Kid offers they take this outside. Bruiser walks out first and Captain Kid just locks the door behind him. Bruiser says that he’s tall, but he’s short of temper, so Captain Kid says he’s only short on his brain and offers him a brain teaser: “If water with ice in it is ice water, what’s ink with ice in it?” When Bruiser answers “Iced Ink,” Captain Kid retorts “You certainly do!” and laughs him in the face. Bruiser insists he’ll tear him into five pieces for the birds and boasts he can knock down five guys with one finger and can knock down buildings. Captain Kid tests Bruiser’s theory by cold-cocking him in the face, giving him a black eye. Bruiser, defeated, realizes that he’s not as powerful as Captain Kid and scurries off as Captain Kid boots him in the rear.
Appearing in Capt. Kid: "Capt. Kid and the Boisterous Bully"
Featured Characters:
- Captain Kid
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Bruiser (A Boisterous Bully)
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Podunk City
- Captain Kid's House
- Podunk City
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Mr. Tawky Tawny: "Captain Marvel fights the Tiger Terror!!"
Mr. Tawny gets a roommate, John Jones, whose hobby is studying creatures of the night like vampires and lycanthropes. When Billy's walking home after a visit, he's attacked by a talking tiger thirsting for blood. Billy transforms and Captain Marvel easily fends him off, but only finds Mr. Jones walking by, who explains it must have been a weretiger. Furthermore he speculates Mr. Tawny must be under a curse to transform and attack the innocent. Billy decides to wait with Jones in the shared house so they can get Tawny to attack him, only for Billy to realize Jones has no reflection in a mirror, exposing him as the weretiger! The real Tawny attacks Jones, giving Billy the chance to transform. After knocking out the weretiger, they finish him off with a wooden stake through the heart. They realize Jones had been rooming with Tawny so that the talking tiger would be an obvious suspect for his own crimes.
Appearing in Mr. Tawky Tawny: "Captain Marvel fights the Tiger Terror!!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- John Jones, Were-Tiger (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Ann
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Mr. Tawny's House
- New York City
Items:
- Birdbath
- A Wooden Stake
Vehicles:
Trivia
- Despite the cover, Black Beauty:
- Doesn't have a jaunty red hat
- Cannot and does not bodily throw Captain Marvel
- Has a pearl necklace instead of a black cape
- This issue features Captain Marvel and Billy Batson having access to a space station that rotates and has a general disc-shaped structure almost 16 years before the Justice League would decide to implement one
- John Jones, despite his name, does very little successful man-hunting and may not even be from Mars.
See Also
- Cover gallery for the Captain Marvel Adventures series
- Images from Captain Marvel Adventures Vol 1 142