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Shazam! Vol 1 34

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"The Führer of Chicago": Billy Batson and Uncle Dudley are on the road to Chicago, IL, when there’s a large blast due to mines being placed in the highway! Billy quickly calls SHAZAM to becmoe Captain Marvel and sets the van down carefully and starts to check the rest of the highway for mines, s

Why -- this says Sivana imprisoned the Marvel Family and all their friends in a strange substance! Then he launched them into space -- and since Sivana, too is now trapped up there, he can offer no competition to my world conquest! But is it possible they might be able to escape? Before I plan world conquest -- I must know! I cannot begin until they are destroyed -- they must not return and catch me off guard!
— Captain Nazi, putting Nazism on hold for 20 years in case he has to fight somebody.

Shazam! #34 is an issue of the series Shazam! (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1978. It was published on December 6, 1977.

Synopsis for "The Führer of Chicago"

Billy Batson and Uncle Dudley are on the road to Chicago, IL, when there’s a large blast due to mines being placed in the highway! Billy quickly calls SHAZAM to becmoe Captain Marvel and sets the van down carefully and starts to check the rest of the highway for mines, setting off each one. Captain Marvel drops off the van at a nearby garage to be fixed up and Dudley heads out to call Mr. Morris, who says he has urgent news! Dudley is so stunned by it, but says that he needs to leave now to help out in Manhattan! Meanwhile, Billy meets with Amalgamated Broadcasting System’s Chicago affiliate Station Manager Weldon Stone. Billy asks how these terrorists are planting mines in the street and Stone says they believe it’s the work of Neo-Nazis working under a “New Führer!” Within the Sears Tower, the (at that point) World’s Tallest Building, the New Führer is revealed to be Captain Marvel, Jr.’s arch-nemesis, Captain Nazi, who has recognized the lightning nearby (on a clear sky) to mean that Captain Marvel is surely near. He thinks about his past when he was once Albrecht Krieger. His father, Siegmund, fed him a secret “Miracle Food” since infancy that made him super-strong, agile and intelligent, sent him to Heidelberg for schooling where he received an “honorable” dueling scar and soon was introduced to Führer Hitler as the “ultimate development” of Nazi science and the supposed übermensch the Nazis can’t get enough of. Becoming Captain Nazi, he soon swore to the Dictator of Germany that he’d be able to defeat Minute Man, Captain Marvel, Spy Smasher and even Bulletman the Flying Detective, but was defeated every time, especially by his arch-nemesis, Captain Marvel, Jr, even after developing a special gas pellet that allowed him the power of flight. Captain Nazi looks down upon Chicago, thinking that now that Hitler is dead, he embodies the true qualities of the “Aryan” race. Upon hearing that the Sivana Family and the Marvel Family (among others) were trapped in a Suspendium Globe in space, he was able to crunch the physics numbers and figure that they would approach the Sun close enough to wake up in twenty years and created a tube to enter suspended animation himself for the two decades. Once he did, he rallied more new-age Nazis to seize Sears Tower.

Getting news about the takeover, Stone and Billy head to the roof and spot who Billy recognizes as Captain Nazi… but when he calls SHAZAM, he finds that… the magic lightning isn’t coming! The same aide runs in to tell Stone that the transmission cables are coming in fine, but all satellite relays have shut down. Billy calls up Station WHIZ in New York City to get Whitey on the phone and has him put on Freddy Freeman. Billy worries, having told him about Captain Nazi (since he’s the man who murdered Freddy’s grandfather and broke his leg hard enough to leave him with a chronic motion disability,) and has him set up amplifying equipment to call SHAZAM louder, which somehow summons a bolt of magic lightning through the phone lines. Captain Marvel soon figures that Capt. Nazi has managed to set up a forcefield around Chicago that prevents airborne signals and lightning from the area, but he’s managed to wire it all in. Freddy is heavily embittered to hear that Captain Nazi has returned. He recalls the fateful day when Captain Nazi landed in a lake nearby and his helpful grandfather saved his life, only for the murderous Capt. Nazi to kill the old man and bludgeon Freddy with an oar hard enough that now has a chronic motion disability and Billy was forced to take him to the Wizard Shazam to save his life by letting him become Captain Marvel, Jr. Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL, intent now on killing Capt. Nazi as Captain Marvel, Jr.!

Back in Chicago, Capt. Nazi huffs a pellet of his Flying Gas as Captain Marvel arrives and pulls a heavily-powered Luger that he claims can turn a herd of elephants to dust, but does nothing to the World’s Mightiest Mortal. He changes the settings on his Luger to fire a powerful pink bolt of lightning, which turns him back into Billy. Junior soon arrives to set Billy down at the Picasso Sculpture at Chicago Civic Center. Ignoring Billy’s warnings about Capt. Nazi’s secret weapons, Junior flies in and dodges past the lightning shots and punches him out of the sky, letting him fall into Buckingham Fountain. Billy finds with the forcefield on, he can’t change back into Captain Marvel, but he also can’t stop Junior from just beating Capt. Nazi to death. He pleads for him to stop and Junior manages to restrain himself, dragging him to jail, which upsets Capt. Nazi (since minorities are in prison too) and Junior mocks that they won’t like him either. With the forcefield destroyed, Billy calls SHAZAM and soon they clear Sears Tower of the occupying Neo-Nazis, but Billy finds from the same man at the garage that Uncle Dudley left suddenly. He gives him a note Dudley left. Meanwhile, on the Rock of Eternity, King Kull has used the magic lightning that bounced off of the forcefield to shatter his magical chains, freeing the Last of the Beastmen once more!

Appearing in "The Führer of Chicago"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

Other Characters:

Locations:

Items:

  • Flying Gas
  • The Eterni-Phone (Final appearance)

Vehicles:

  • Uncle Dudley's Van (Final appearance)

Notes

  • The issue is reprinted in Shazam!: The World's Mightiest Mortal Vol. 2.
  • This is the first appearance of Captain Nazi since the Golden Age/Fawcett Publications, and his origin is told by the first time since the creation of this character.
  • This is the first DC issue where Captain Marvel is no longer drawn in C.C. Beck's style.
  • King Kull is freed from his chains at the Rock of Eternity, where he was left in Justice League of America 137.

Trivia

  • Dudley wears a mustache in order to look like Mentor, character of the series Shazam!; other elements were also incorporated due to the influence of the TV series, such as the van and the fact that he and Billy are traveling.
    • However, this is the final appearance of the Studio WHIZ-TV van, Uncle Dudley's mustache and the Eterni-Phone altogether, ending their brief flirtation with media synergy.


See Also

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