This is an in-universe article with out-of-universe material.
The Marvel Family #29 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of November, 1948.
Synopsis for "The Marvel Family battles the Monarch of Money"
In the heart of the Finance Square is the secret office of Carlton Clutch, the Richest Man in the World! He gloats how he is also the most powerful man in the world and anyone who gets in his way will be crushed! Thus, he decides to start a Propaganda Machine from Station WHIZ and decides to buy out Mr. Morris! Despite this, Mr. Morris refuses to do for any price. Clutch angrily threatens that he'll ruin him and then openly tells him he intends to steal expensive television equipment en route to the new Station WHIZ Transmitter and soon calls up some “Strong-Arm Boys” to go about doing so. Mr. Morris soon tells the Marvel Family about this (this seems to imply he knows all their secret identities!) as they call SHAZAM and CAPTAIN MARVEL to become the Marvel Family! They soon head out to the noon freight train to look into this up north and find that the goons are already at work, throwing a crate off the train it's coming in on. Luckily, the World's Mightiest Family clocks them out each with one hit each and manage to catch the crate too. They ask Mr. Morris where they can actually find Carlton Clutch, but Mr. Morris points out nobody knows where he lives in his secret office. Clutch soon calls up Mr. Morris again and says he knows three more shipments of parts are coming in that he'll destroy and nobody calls the police at any time. Mr. Morris tells them the parts are coming in on a boat, a plane and a truck respective and are highly valuable. The Marvel Family splits up as Captain Marvel handles the Truck, Mary Marvel handles the Boat and Captain Marvel, Junior will get to the Plane. Arriving at the Neptune II, finding the boat is owned by Carlton Clutch, Mary Marvel orders them to unload the equipment, but they first say they were orders not to do so and then decide they'll just pick a fight with her if she insists that they're breaking the law by doing so and clocks the Captain in the chin, taking the equipment herself.
Soon, Junior finds the plane with the WHIZ order is taking off and Clutch has ordered the pilot to dump cargo while over the sea and Junior takes off to go after him. Junior just smashes in through a window and punches out two goons at once, then takes the equipment himself. Captain Marvel soon meets up to find a toll bridge that is somehow run by a private company and C. Clutch Projects who are illegally holding the truck. Instead, the World's Mightiest Mortal just takes the truck with him. Returning with the three pieces of the Transmitter, Clutch if furious, gnashing his teeth with fury. Thus, he starts with a new ideal of just bribing the Marvel Family. He sends them a small waist-high television set that works both ways and sends them a video call offering them billions of dollars, which they all coarsely refuse. Clutch, furious again, starts picking up multiple phones to pick up his phones and get him his private airport, fetch the Vault Keeper and says he'll smash Station WHIZ yet! Thus, he decides to weaponize currency and drops a few million dollars on to the roof of Station WHIZ and then a batch of leaflets telling the people of New York City that there's millions of dollars on the roof of Station WHIZ, leading to a huge rush of people that Clutch presumes will just make the entire building collapse from sheer weight! The Marvel Family soon worry that this very well could be the case and so they just move the money somewhere else, handing it out to the crowds below. Clutch, raging and sweating, decides he'll just kill the Marvel Family and calls up his Inventor. His chubby Sivana-lite inventor tells him he finished his “Earthquake Machine” after a year at work and tells him how to go about operating it.
The next day, the Marvel Family get a note from Clutch saying to meet them at the Fork Road for a “conference” the Earthquake Machine is blasted at them from the apparently door-less back of the Inventor's truck that the Machine is sitting in, creating a huge chasm under them that somehow also closes up afterwards, hoping to drive back and get this $1,000,000 prize pot for killing the World's Mightiest Family. Luckily, the Marvel Family don't need to breathe and just immediately leave being buried in the ground, following the truck to find out where this Carlton Clutch. The Inventor points out the foolishness of this gamble and gets punched out. Clutch dives into a secret chute leading to the subway to make his escape, but finds he can't get just a nickel from the ticket taker, since he only has a $1,000 on hand, which is just enough time for the Marvel Family to all punch him out together! Later, the Marvel Family find that he has a statue of Mammon, the god of wealth and greed and a big sign that says MONEY IS POWER that Mary Marvel tears down. Soon, Billy signs off by saying that Clutch basically got all his money from dirty dealings and therefore all his money is due to be returned from those he swindled and he's now penniless in prison!
Appearing in "The Marvel Family battles the Monarch of Money"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Carlton Clutch, the Monarch of Money
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "The Web of the Weaver"
We see an elderly man with thick godly white hair and a high fivehead, who says that weaving is a trade old as man itself and he is the greatest of weavers… Fate! He tells us how one day, his complex pattern drew the invisible strange towards a certain girl named Mary Batson. Mary is reading in the paper (out loud to no one) about how two ancient tapestries insured for $1,000,000 each were discoveredand donated to the Art Museum! She decides to go see them and finds they were donated by Carl Bleak, owner of the Bleak Weaving Mills that discovered them in distant Europe and an authority on old tapestries! Seeing a man running past, she asks where the fire is and he points out it's at the Art Museum, because it's on fire. She quickly calls SHAZAM and becomes Mary Marvel, arriving at the Museum in seconds to stop it. The director outside, Dr. Diggs, is worried that the tapestries are doomed, since the whole wing they're in is where the fire is centralized, so Mary Marvel flies in and notices there's something strange. The fires haven't seemingly touched the tapestries, but it's somehow already burning and Mary Marvel realizes that this was done separately from the fire and that there are two fires being used here! She notes also that it's too late to save the tapestry (they confusingly seem to state it like there's only one of them and that only she would have seen this at her speed. Dr. Diggs despairs as Mr. Bleak will be really upset that his highly-insured gifts would be lost suddenly and late the next day, Mary finds Mr. Bleak complaining about his precious tapestry being destroyed, despite it being insured, since it's artistic merits are astounding. We find Mr. Bleak is a likely evil, bald man with an aggressively pointed beard as he's assured that the Other Tapestry is perfectly fine and in the gallery nearby and will certainly be taken care of, since he seems to be blaming the Museum for a fire happening inside itself at all. Mary goes to enjoy looking at the fine medieval tapestry and Mary soon heads home, since the Museum is closing.
Almost the second she leaves, the entire room explodes, blasting a huge hole in the wall and definitely destroying the second tapestry. Mary calls SHAZAM to investigate as Mary Marvel and finds pieces of a glass vial on the floor and some broken glass that weren't there before and Mr. Bleak has a fit over how it suddenly exploded and adamantly tells Dr. Diggs he won't be donating any more priceless tapestries! Mary Marvel notes his anger, but also recalls he was definitely the last one in the room and he stayed in there even after the Museum closed. She soon heads to the Bleak Weaving Mill to look into things further and finds Bleak himself there, opening a secret door and up a flight of secret stairs. Heading down, she finds that Bleak sure does seem to be making his own tapestries and, likely, that he's been forging these. She tries to mildly walk at him to take him downtown, but Bleak somehow manages to lift the entire loom, trapping Mary Marvel in it like a web… only for her to just tear out of it and give Bleak the ol' Sunday Special, knocks him into a rack of thread and ties him up in it to take him to the cops. Later, at the Museum, Mary Marvel reveals that these were fake tapestries that he artificially aged to make them look real enough to fool experts. Since he was secretly broke, he was insuring the fake tapestries, destroying them himself and collecting the money. Dr. Diggs tells her that everyone (except Bleak) owes her a vote of thanks. Walking home, Mary hears news about the giant tapestry fraud and thinks on how he can do all the weaving he wants in prison, but still feels bad that someone so skilled turned to crime! Fate finishes his tale by telling us that Bleak was a great weaver, but he weaves something far larger than any mortal and slowly but surely, the good threads will weave over the bad, as is the way he will weave forever…
Appearing in "The Web of the Weaver"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Fate (Earth-S)
- Dr. Diggs
Antagonists:
- Carl Bleak
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and the Perilous Pearl!"
Sebastian Beggs is a former Sea Captain turned beach-comber who just collects anything that washes up on the shore. One day, he finds a large chest with clothes and a saber inside and bemoans he'll never get rich literally waiting for treasures of the deep to just wash up in front of him. Putting on the clothes and wielding the saber (to open oysters mostly,) he soon spies a very large oyster and cuts it open with his new sword, finding a pearl the size of a beackball and is elated that he's rich now! Soon enough, he takes it to the Jasper Judd Pearl Syndicate to sell it big for a huge house or fancy clothes. However, when he gets there, the owner, Jasper Judd himself, declares the pearl must be fake without actually testing it in any way and shoves him out of his office, saying he'd never pay the asked $500,000 for it (Over $6M today!) However, once he's out, we find that Judd is evil and hires what seems to be a hobo and an evil bald sailor to steal the Giant Pearl from Judd. The hobo soon does so, blackjacking him in the street, despite seeing that Freddy Freeman is watching them and could very easily report him to the police. Freddy instead calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. and flies into the two goons, punching the hobo into the evil bald sailor. They drop the Giant Pearl and Junior picks it up, returning it to Ol' Cap'n Beggs, confirming it is worth what he thinks it is. Beggs explains how everything went so far and Junior offers he just stay at a hotel until he can sell the Giant Pearl, but Beggs points out until he can sell it, he's basically broke. Junior offers he can stay with Freddy Freeman and flies off to “go tell him” about it and soon, Beggs bunks with Freddy while his head recovers. Freddy offers he'll help him sell the Giant Pearl and Beggs soon goes to bed, dreaming of a butler (of course, he's named Jeeves) handing him a giant pile of money to spend for the day. However, in the waking world, the two goons set up a ladder and climb into Freddy's unlocked window, only for us to find he left it unlocked, since Junior was just waiting in the hall for them to pull something like this. They try to scarper on to the ladder, only for Junior to drag the ladder into the sky, flying them to jail.
Junior finds that they wouldn't rat out their employer and he flies back to check on Cap'n Beggs. The next morning, Freddy finds that Cap'n Beggs is still dizzied by blunt force trauma and Freddy puts an ad in the paper for bids on the Giant Pearl, getting back quotes for $300,000 (Over $3M today!), $600,000 (Over $7M today!!) and finally one from Dock 18 offering $1,000,000 (Over $12M today!!!) from someone named “JJ.” Since Beggs never mentioned Jasper Judd at all, Freddy takes the Giant Pearl out that night to try selling it, not seeing Jasper Judd hiding behind a crate with a club. He then wryly offers Freddy a million stars and knocks him out, keeping him bound and gagged on his speedboat where he intends to leave him likely to drown on nearby Tide Island, especially since he leaves him inside the shell of giant beached clam that he somehow knew was there. Somehow, it takes Freddy a while to think of using a rough sharp clamshell to cut his gag off, but does so in time to not drown to death and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL, flying off to take out Judd as Captain Marvel, Jr. He tries to dump the Giant Pearl into his ocean like a dog in a manger…
We cut back to Cap'n Beggs dreaming of picking from a selection of fine cars with Jeeves, only for Junior to show up tell him that… tragically the Giant Pearl fell into the sea in the scuffle… but he just took a few hours looking for it and did so! Judd was also arrested and he sold the Giant Pearl to a “jewel house,” handing Cap'n Beggs a fat check and Cap'n Beggs tells Junior that he has a real heart of gold.
Appearing in "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and the Perilous Pearl!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- "Ol' Cap'n" Sebastian Beggs
Antagonists:
- Jasper Judd
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for "Captain Marvel Fights the World's Mightiest Crook!"
Duke Titano is a known gangster with a head shaped like a brandy snifter and quite a chin. Next we're shown the fist of Captain Marvel, the World's Mightiest Mortal and likely the strongest person in the world. We find that they are clearly not equal in the very next panel when Captain Marvel punches him out in one shot. Duke wakes up in jail and says his head is still dizzy from it and wishes he could the cell door would just fall off so he could escape. Stunning and confusingly to him and the doctor who's just finished checking him when it does fall over! Duke Titano figures out he's (somehow) mastered the art of “pure will power,” which means he can just order anything to happen and it will, exercising this to make the doctor do a somersault (though… he doesn't seem to complete a somersault, but falls on the floor.) Duke soon just runs out of jail as the doctor is confused, deciding to investigate via his medical texts. Outside, Duke finds a car parked outside and orders it to just fly in the air, starting to dream big!
Some time later, Billy gets a call from a nearby small town, Tullytown, but all he hears is a scream before the line goes dead. Billy tries to call after them as we see that Duke has merely ordered the switchboard operators to pull the jacks and orders the switchboards to go dead, confusing the women therein that they seemingly cannot reinsert them any. Duke announces that nothing can stop his “will power” and that he's taking over Tullytown! Billy, suspicious, calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel to fly off to Tullytown to investigate. He soon hears police sirens and Duke ordering a cop car to just spin like a top to throw out the coppers inside as Captain Marvel lands and asks how exactly he can do this. Duke states it is his will power that cannot be stopped even by him and orders an incoming squad car ram him in the rear to mildly knock him over. Captain Marvel openly points out that that didn't stop him whatsoever, so Duke instead orders a fruit cart to dump itself on his head, allowing him to escape by flying a bicycle away. He soon decides to shut down the trainyards, cutting off most access to the town, ordering the trains to just now enter or leave town at all, which the engineers are frustrated by. As Captain Marvel soon flies in, Duke orders a train to leap the track and charge in to him, which works somehow (the Speed of Mercury!) and then he just gets back up. Duke offers he'll fix him yet, despite Captain Marvel pointing out actively trying to hit him is a bad idea, but when Duke wills his blow to knock him to the next county over, it does so (sending him from non-existent Swain County to misspelled Duchess County.)
Meanwhile, Duke has invaded the Tullytown radio station and announces himself as the World's Mightiest Crook, Mayor of Tullytown, Police Chief and “the rest of it,” then claims that what he says goes as an “ultimatum.” Captain Marvel soon flies back as he's doing so and points out that he can also just dodge every hit Duke tries to lay on him and anything he throws at him, but also that he sure hasn't taken a hit himself! Duke confidently says he'll take the shot and wills that he will have the strength of Captain Marvel. The World's Mightiest Mortal punches him into the wall, but Duke reveals that his power does seem to have the same strength, managing to punch Captain Marvel back! Captain Marvel worries that this may not be too easy to solve with this power in hand until the prison doctor shows up out of nowhere and reveals that Captain Marvel punching him in the jaw somehow altered his brain chemistry enough that he can now order anything to bend to his will, but if he falls asleep, he'll lose his powers immediately, which are all things he claims to have found in a medical book. Captain Marvel finds new strength and stands up, punching Duke through the roof and ten miles into the stratosphere where he passes out due to lack of oxygen and is taken back to jail. Later, Duke Titano is furious to find his powers no longer exist and Billy signs off, saying that Duke Titano's sheer will power did make him as strong as Captain Marvel, but only for a while, since Captain Marvel proved he had so much more!
Appearing in "Captain Marvel Fights the World's Mightiest Crook!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Duke Titano, the World's Mightiest Crook
Other Characters:
- An Unnamed Prison Doctor
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- WHIZ Radio
- Tullytown, Swain County, NY
- New York City
Items:
Vehicles:
Trivia
- Despite the cover, the Marvel Family do not get physically attacked by currency or large bags of coins.
- This version of Fate seems to be particularly different than the usual one, who is more of a specter of death, but clearly holds the same powers of directly controlling the fate of humanity itself.
See Also
Links and References
