The Marvel Family #42 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 1949.
Synopsis for "The Marvel Family and the Endless Menace"
A criminal scientist tries to rob Fort Knox by covering it in a giant black bubble, so nobody can see inside it except him. He's unnaturally calm when the Marvels show up and capture him. This is because his lair contains a device that simply resets everything to the day before, and he wears a special helmet that means he alone remembers what happened when he reappears safely in his hideout. The Time Master attempts other grand crimes he'd planned, snapping back to the day before when the Marvels thwart him again. The cycle's interrupted when Billy comes to interrupt him before time resets, and a bump from the cell door knocks the helmet onto Billy's head, causing him to realize everything that's happened. When time resets again, the Time Master doesn't have his helmet and sets off to rob Fort Knox, not remembering the Marvels will catch him.
Appearing in "The Marvel Family and the Endless Menace"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- The Time Master (Single appearance)
Other Characters:
- The Maharajah of Issdore (Single appearance)
Locations:
Items:
- The Time Master's Silver Memory Cap (Single appearance)
- The Time Master's Time Reversal Machine (Single appearance)
- The Time Master's Earthquake Bomb (Single appearance)
- The Time Master's Water Solidifier (Single appearance)
- The Time Master's Expanding Black Bubble (Single appearance)
- The Time Master's Black Bubble Goggles (Single appearance)
Vehicles:
- The Time Master's Rocket Ship (Single appearance)
Synopsis for Captain Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel Jr. and the Enchanted Roc!"
Freddy sees a sailor fall off a bridge, terrified by the sight of an ordinary bird. Captain Marvel Jr. catches the man, who explains he was shipwrecked on a remote island. Seeing a giant egg, he tried to cook it to stave off starvation, only to unwittingly hatch the last remaining roc egg, as told of in the tales of Sinbad the sailor. He floated away from the island and was picked up a day later, but was traumatized by the experience and has been terrified by the sight of any bird at all ever since. Jr. flies off to investigate the area and see if the roc really exists to put the aggrieved man's mind at ease. He finds a native village, but is perplexed when they deny seeing any such bird, but then also start avoiding him.
That night, he sees the tribe sailing out, their boats loaded with tribute. Jr. then sees the giant roc is real, sitting on an island. The islanders are bringing it gifts in the hope it won't destroy their village, but it grabs several of them. Jr. attacks to save them, which angers the bird into taking to the air. It's much too large to be able to fly, and sinks out of sight within moments of hitting the water. The young hero ponders that's how they went extinct.
Appearing in Captain Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel Jr. and the Enchanted Roc!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Thomas Eggles (A sea captain) (Single appearance) (Flashback and main story)
Antagonists:
- An enchanted roc (Single appearance; dies) (Flashback and main story)
Other Characters:
- Froband, ancient wizard who magically sealed the roc (Mentioned only)
- Sinbad (Mentioned only)
Locations:
- Earth-S
- The South Pacific (Flashback and main story)
- Bali (Mentioned only)
Items:
- A "Ghasta"
Vehicles:
- The S.S. Vornado (Flashback only)
Synopsis for Mary Marvel: "Mary Marvel and the Runaway Colors"
Mary Batson is out buying some paint at the Jack Frost Paint Co. owned by a man, appropriately, named Jack Frost. She jokingly asks if he’s the same one that turns the autumn leaves so many colors, but he says it’s just his name. She assumes his “bad mood” is due to his poor business and goes back to painting. However, when she starts painting the porch green, a man with a pointy nose in a yellow outfit appears and says that he’s Jack Frost and proves it by whirling his arm and making the leaves change colors. He announces he’s come to do this in the summer since he believes humans are not “imaginative” with their color choices. He fires a rainbow at her porch, changing it into gaudy colors that he thinks are beautiful. She decides that this is enouh nonsense when he declares he’ll recolor the rest of the city too and calls SHAZAM! Mary Marvel flies by a couple houses being ruined with colors and punches him in the face while he recolors a lamppost. He threatens that he can blind her with his colors, flashing a shock of colors on to her face, making it hard for her to see while he escapes. A woman walking by shows her her face in a pocket mirror, showing that her face is splattered with the colors. She retreats to her room to try to remove it, but finds these magical colors don’t wash off so easily, so she instead applies greasepaint to make her face look normal again.
In the meantime, Jack Frost has progressed worse, deciding now that people don’t deserve colors and has starting throwing black splotches all over town, even into oncoming traffic, making a car swerve towards him. Mary Marvel is able to stop the car from hitting the curb as Jack Frost legs it once more. She soon loses track of him and finds that there’s a big line outside Jack Frost Paint Co. where he’s price-gouging people with marked-up paint to fix all their problems. When she tells him this, he tells her to basically get lost and that it’s not illegal, so she can’t really stop him. That night, she sneaks into the back door of his company and finds where he makes the paints and discovers he has been doing this all around town to drum up business for his paint shop. She angrily dumps paint on him, drops him in some paint and then pours paint on his arms until he confesses that he did it all, using a special spraying device in his sleeves to use it. She punches him out and calls the cops, noting she can remove the “magic” paint with turpentine and notes the paint at his store should be given to those he vandalized so they can fix it themselves and that he totally deserves being in jail and bankrupt for these crooked practices.
Appearing in Mary Marvel: "Mary Marvel and the Runaway Colors"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Jack Frost (Not the legendary character) (Single appearance)
Other Characters:
- Jack Frost (The legendary character) (Mentioned only)
Locations:
Items:
- Jack Frost's Spraying Guns
- Turpentine
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Rescues Billy Batson!"
Billy announces on his broadcast where gangster Ears Eggert's likely to be hiding out, and sends one of his henchmen to catch Billy before he can turn up the heat. Observing that Ears is a sucker for a good story upon seeing him listening to an audio drama, Billy starts writing down stories about Captain Marvel's adventures to entrance him, then repeatedly "forgetting" the ending, until Ears gets so frustrated he rips Billy's gag off to demand to be told the endings. This allows Billy to say his word and transform, then easily capture the crooks.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Rescues Billy Batson!"
Featured Characters:
- Captain Marvel/Billy Batson (Flashback and main story)
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Doctor Sivana (Flashback only)
- "Ears" Eggert (A notorious bandit) (Single appearance)
- Eggert's gang
- An Unnamed Thief (Flashback only)
Other Characters:
- A Man who closely resembles an Unnamed Thief (Flashback only)
Locations:
Items:
- Dr. Sivana's Light-Ray Bomb Tower (Flashback only)
Vehicles:
See Also
Recommended Reading
- Marvel Family Recommended Reading
- Whiz Comics (Volume 1)
- Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1)
- Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1)
- Mary Marvel (Volume 1)
- Master Comics (Volume 1)
- Wow Comics (Volume 1)
- The Marvel Family (Volume 1)
- Hoppy the Marvel Bunny (Volume 1)
- Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Shazam!: The New Beginning (Volume 1)
- The Power of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder (Volume 1)
- Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil (Volume 1)
- The Trials of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Shazam! (Volume 2)
- Shazam! (Volume 3)
- Shazam! (Volume 4)
- The New Champion of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Shazam! (Volume 5)