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in: Comics Published by Fawcett Publications, Will Lieberson/Executive Editor, C.C. Beck/Cover Artist,
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Captain Marvel Adventures Vol 1 97

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"Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the World Without Water"": Doctor Sivana releases a broadcast from his secret laboratory that he's going to steal one of the most important things in the world! Billy, listening in at Station WHIZ, wonders if he means the American Dollar, the Atomic Bo

Captain Marvel Adventures #97 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1) with a cover date of June, 1949.

Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the World Without Water"

Doctor Sivana releases a broadcast from his secret laboratory that he's going to steal one of the most important things in the world! Billy, listening in at Station WHIZ, wonders if he means the American Dollar, the Atomic Bomb or the “Boulder Dam,” but the next morning finds that it's water, since his faucet isn't working! Elsewhere, people are inconvenienced by New York City's water system shutting down while Sivana pours water between two pitchers on broadcast, demanding to be crowned “King” of All Earth. Billy decides he's had enough of this and calls SHAZAM for Captain Marvel to check out the City Reservoir, finding it's indeed empty! To solve the water shortage, he borrows a shovel from a local farmer in the forest and manages to dig a canal to the edge of town where tanker trucks pipe the water up to distribute throughout the city. Sivana soon finds out his failure in the newspaper and resolves to drain the water from ever river and lake for miles around! Activating his Whirlpool Maker, he creates a powerful vortex that disperses water, drying up a large lake in five minutes. Billy finds his faucet empty again and calls SHAZAM to save a barge stuck on the bed of the river, then hauls a dynamo at a nearby hydroelectric power plant that would otherwise be shut down. Captain Marvel flies after him, talking aloud about how important water is but cannot easily.

At that time, Sivana is drying up the entire Atlantic Ocean at millions of tons a second, meaning it has only hours to remain. Captain Marvel bemoans seeing a confused sperm whale and an ocean liner full of passengers, but their Captain tells him that they're stocked fine and instead points him where Sivana went, having seen him earlier. Captain Marvel flies out into low Earth orbit and finds that Sivana has managed to contain the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean in a gigantic orb in space with Doctor Sivana's rocket ship floating on one side. Seeing Captain Marvel coming for him, Sivana dives into the endless darkness of the whole ocean as Captain Marvel finds he also can't easily push water in the vacuum of space and water he does punch off of it floats back to the low gravitation of the orb. Sivana watches him struggle on a tiny television in his cockpit until Captain Marvel grabs an orbiting planetoid just large enough to drag the aqueous orb back to the Earth. The Captain of the ocean liner is worried that the giant orb is going to kill them all, but Captain Marvel flies in and says that it will burn up in the atmosphere and disperse as constant rain, which Captain Marvel assures them will not create any further problems. He flies off to find Sivana has crashed his rocket ship in the desert and waits around for three days straight until he finds him nearly dead for exposure and arrests him. Sivana gulps down water from a tin cup in jail as Captain Marvel tells him he'll be on bread and water for a while!

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the World Without Water"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

Other Characters:

  • An Ocean Liner Captain
  • Barge Workers
  • A Sperm Whale

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

  • Sivana's Rocket Ship (Destroyed)


Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Ownerless Diamond!"

Billy goes to interview Professor Bright, who angrily turns him away, having no time for interruptions to his work. While walking away, Billy finds a huge diamond on the ground, and after verifying it with jeweler Sam Skowl, goes on the air to report that it's missing. Skowl tries several times to pose as a rich businessman and claim the huge diamond, but is foiled from getting away with it. In the end, Captain Marvel decides to go back to where it was found and realizes it was near Professor Bright's laboratory. Skowl shoots at them to try and get the diamond, which suddenly pops like a bubble in his hand. With disgust, Professor Bright explains it was on the ground outside because he knew it would do that, like all the other flawed synthetic gems he's been trying make!

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Ownerless Diamond!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • Sam Skowl (also appears in disguise as "Pierpont J. Van Dyke" and "Chauncey Spinwheel") (Single appearance)
  • Two Unnamed Thieves (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

  • Professor Bright (Single appearance)
  • A Cop

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:



Synopsis for Capt. Kid: "The Manager"

Local kids brag that Captain Kid is a big shot since he's now the manager of the new bowling alley (or so he claims.) Pudgy is unwilling to believe his usual bluster and goes off to prove he's lying. Running in, he find that Captain Kid is clearly taking orders from someone else. Pudgy has another kid, Jack, round up the others so he can denounce Captain Kid and leads them to the New Podunk Bowling Alley to call him out. Meanwhile, the Real Manager gets a call that his stove has collapsed, so he needs to go get another one from the next town over and that Captain Kid is in charge until he returns tomorrow, but insists that there are no free games to anyone. His friends rush in and Captain Kid postures with his feet up to show he's "in charge," acquiescing that he wouldn't be the manager if he couldn't give them a free game, so he worriedly lets them each play one game each. Outside, the Real Manager has managed to meet a salesman from the Heater's Stove Company in Podunk, meaning he can put in his order without leaving town, then returns to see there's plenty of kids bowling, but nobody has paid and claim "the manager" gave them a free game. Captain Kid acknowledges that he's fired, but the Real Manager decides to just somehow tie Captain Kid to a lane and throws a bowling ball directly at his face as Pudgy watches, taunting that the Manager won't help him now!

Appearing in Capt. Kid: "The Manager"

Featured Characters:

  • Captain Kid

Supporting Characters:


Antagonists:

  • The Real Manager of the New Podunk Bowling Alley
  • Pudgy

Other Characters:

  • Jack
  • Salesman for the Heater's Stove Company

Locations:

  • Earth-S
    • Podunk
      • New Podunk Bowling Alley

Items:


Vehicles:



Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Is Wiped Out!"

We find Skid Row is where “human failures” end up like Walt Toady, a sidewalk artist who is told his works are too exact, mechanical and lifeless, but rejects their opinions all the same. Toady decides he'd rather just commit crimes rather than get a real job. Looking at the nearby Jewelry Shoppe, he finds their choice of jewels isn't that impressive. Down the street, he finds “the Great Yogi,” performing “magic tricks of the Orient.” Using what he openly describes as black magic, the Great Yogi places an orange on a box, sketches a picture of it, then uses a “Magic Eraser” to erase the sketch… which also erases the actual orange too! Toady decides he'll steal it, sketching a picture of the Great Yogi himself, cold-cocks him for the Magic Eraser and then erases him from existence. When a cop comes by, Toady claims the Great Yogi has gone to lunch and leaves. Later, he uses the Magic Eraser to erase a singing bird in the park and then a bench that Billy Batson and a random man are sitting, making them fall on their rears. When he erases a tree that a child was climbing in, he directly states that it will kill the child, but Billy calls SHAZAM and summons Captain Marvel to catch the boy and investigate things. Seeing the sketch of the park with the missing items erased, he becomes suspicious that black magic is probably involved.

Meanwhile, Walt Toady decides he'll just use the Magic Eraser to threaten rich people for their money and runs into issues immediately when he just walks into Sterling Morris' office and demands to draw him, promising it'll be worth it. Mr. Morris accepts this for a few moments until Toady asks for an unreasonable $50,000 for an uninspired sketch that Mr. Morris denounces as worthless. Toady tells him to pay for it or he'll “wipe you out with my Magic Eraser!” which only makes Mr. Morris tell him to get out again. Billy enters and recognizes him from the park, calling SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel. Quickly snatching away the sketch, he instead tears it up so he can't use the Magic Eraser on it. When he flies down to catch Toady on the street, he manages to lose him by following a different similar man. Toady soon gets his revenge by destroying the entire Station WHIZ building with it. Captain Marvel is horrified, flying in just after he does so and punches the blank canvas away from him. He demands to know the source of his power and Toady admits that it's the Magic Eraser, but he'll never find it on him. Captain Marvel, mildly disgusted, assumes that he's swallowed it, but that he will be sentenced to death for sure for the many people that were inside the building having been destroyed. Later, Captain Marvel mourns at the spot where Station WHIZ once stood, not wanting to return Billy to a life where his boss, friends and coworkers are dead and he has no job. Toady, in jail, takes the Magic Eraser out of a hollowed-out compartment in his shoe's rubber heel, drawing his cell door on his cell wall and erasing it to escape. Later, he finds Captain Marvel sitting on a rock near the former Station WHIZ Building as Toady draws a sketch of him and goes to erase him. Before he can swipe it, Captain Marvel calls SHAZAM to return Billy back, who instead tackles Toady himself, saying that he achieved nothing, since Captain Marvel generally only exists when he says the magic word. Billy points out that since Captain Marvel didn't exist when he was destroyed by the Magic Eraser, he can just call SHAZAM again and does so. Captain Marvel tears up the sketch so it can't be reused, then picks up the Magic Eraser. He finds that written on it in Arabic, it says that if it's destroyed by fire, everything will come back again, so he does that. The cop from before returns, assuming that the Great Yogi just had a long lunch hour!

Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Is Wiped Out!"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Walt Toady (Single appearance)

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

  • The Magic Eraser (Destroyed)

Vehicles:


Notes

  • "Captain Marvel and the Ownerless Diamond!" was reprinted in Shazam! #4.

Trivia

  • Despite the cover, Walt Toady's sketch of Captain Marvel is actually one of him sitting down, facing away in front of the ruins of the Station WHIZ Building, instead of him looking directly at him, astonished.
  • Billy refers to the "Boulder Dam," which on Earth-S may not have been renamed by Pres. Roosevelt to its current and more well-known name, the "Hoover" Dam


See Also

Recommended Reading

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