The Marvel Family #45 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of March, 1950.
Synopsis for The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family and the Hoax City"
A small city now exists where days before there was nothing but bucolic forest land. At Station WHIZ, John Stoneheart, a business enterprise promoter and he intends to build a new city named New City at the bend of the Blue River. When Billy checks a map and finds nothing, Stoneheart shows him a big photograph of it that he claims he’s made in such short time using “advanced methods” he wants to advertise on Station WHIZ. To investigate further, Billy calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel and takes off to find that there certainly does seem to be a city there and decides to head back. People begin flocking in by the highway, but Stoneheart insists that they pay him rent in advance and enjoy their new homes before they can enter. Billy soon tells his sister and best friend about New City and they decide to call SHAZAM and CAPTAIN MARVEL to become the Marvel Family to help people get settled.
However, people in New City soon find out that doors are made of cardboard, the floors are made of paper, some houses are papier-mache and can be pushed over, shop windows are made of cellophane and the skyscraper tears in half when a strong wind blows in. The Marvel Family arrive, thinking that there’s been a horrible skyscraper disaster, but are more upset and confused when they find it’s also made of cardboard and paper and they find that the entire city is fake, a Hollywood-type set created to fool them all. They resolve together to find John Stoneheart and make him pay for this, renaming this “Hoax City.” Elsewhere, Stoneheart is counting his ill-gotten gains in a secret cave in the hills and just assumes everyone will go home now that Hoax City is discovered, but will still support his “final plans.” Mary Marvel tries to stop the houses from blowing away in another hard zephyr, but Captain Marvel points out these are worthless homes that people couldn’t live in anyways, only for Captain Marvel to decide that he can create a New City atop of the ruins of Hoax City by lifting buildings from an abandoned ghost town nearby, creating a new city out of an old one. Stoneheart, watching with binoculars, becomes angry that they’ve succeeded, but notes he does still own the property… but he can’t leave or the Marvel Family will arrest him for fraud. Thus, he decides to throw some dynamite into the hills to cause a huge avalanche, only for the World’s Mightiest Family to lock hands in a chain and let the avalanche run against them, creating a tall wall of stones. Captain Marvel notes that these rocks include a lot of shale and soon dives into the Earth to find that New City is a rich deposit of oil! This gets Stoneheart to emerge from his hole, only for Captain Marvel to point out the people did pay him for the land, but he’s going to prison for fraud. He explains that Stoneheart’s scheme was to create Hoax City to afford enough money to fund the oil-drilling operation, since no one else would trust a crook like him. As they leave, Mary Marvel notes that New City should be on the map soon as a prosperous oil town, but the citizens remark that New City won’t be on any maps… Later, the three kids discover this is because the townspeople renamed it as Marvel City in their honor!
Appearing in The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family and the Hoax City"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- John Stoneheart
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- New City / Hoax City (Destroyed)
- Marvel City
Items:
- The Hoax City
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Mary Marvel: "Mary Marvel Meets the World's Wealthiest Woman"
Mary Batson is out collecting donations from rich people for a Charity Drive for Orphans, deciding to have Mary Marvel get some more attention for it by calling SHAZAM! Her plan is to look into the “World’s Wealthiest Woman,” Mrs. Van Upsmoot, who has been refusing her before. At the Van Upsmoot Estate, her butler tells her her Rolls-Royce has a slight scratch and she decides it should just be replaced with a new one as Mary Marvel shows up at her door. She asks her to please donate money to orphans, but Van Upsmoot refuses as always and slams the door in her face. Later that day, Van Upsmoot is having tea with other wealthy women who notes that there’s one thing money can’t buy: Mary Marvel, since she doesn’t work for money. She challenges her to see if she can hire Mary Marvel as her maid for a day and she decides to take the bet. The next day, Mary Marvel returns to ask again, but this time Mrs. Van Upsmoot invites her in to talk it over, offering that if she work as a maidservant for one day, she’ll donate $1,000,000, but if she disobeys her in any way she wont’ do it. Mary Marvel openly points out that’s a weird way to put it, but accepts anyways. She dons a small maid tiara and apron as she wheels Mrs. Van Upsmoot around her garden in a wheelchair, serves tea to her friends, and cleans up after Mrs. Van Upsmoot when she purposefully drops a cup on the floor for Mary Marvel to pick up. Mrs. Van Upsmoot, ever the villain though, decides she will give her all the worst jobs so she’ll quit and so she won’t have to give money to orphans. She charges Mary Marvel to dig up a large patch of weeds, but Mary Marvel uses her spade like a plow to easily clear the field of them all. Next, Mrs. Van Upsmoot charges her to polish all of her non-stretch limousine collection and clean out her attic of all her junk. Soon enough, she decides to pivot to making Mary Marvel do something she won’t do and has her take a break. She has her butler Jeeves drive her to a nearby orphanage and releases a gang of boys on to her yard, telling them they can play on her estate, but then charges Mary Marvel with spanking them each and driving them off. Naturally, Mary Marvel does refuse, but when Mrs. Van Upsmoot tries to say the deal is off, they both hear a loud shout from the house: it’s being burgled! Mary Marvel dashes in to find the two burglars have beaten Jeeves on the head as the goons escape out on to the Estate to find Mrs. Van Upsmoot herself. Before they can menace her for her personal effects, the orphan boys rush the two goons, tackling them and knocking their guns from their hands until Mary Marvel flies in to punch them both out and have them arrested. Mrs. Van Upsmoot is amazed that the boys were willing to help her despite her actions and Mary Marvel says they were unselfish, something that she never learned about. Mrs. Van Upsmoot, a changed woman, decides she’s going to donate $2,000,000 to the orphans and at her next tea party, asks for donations from her rich friends as she is the World’s Wealthiest Woman, but not the World’s Most Selfish Woman!
Appearing in Mary Marvel: "Mary Marvel Meets the World's Wealthiest Woman"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Mrs. Van Upsmoot, the World's Wealthiest Woman
- Unnamed Burglars
Other Characters:
- Jeeves the Butler
- Orphan Boys
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Van Upsmoot Estate
- New York City
Items:
Vehicles:
- Mrs. Van Upsmoot's Limousines
- Mrs. Van Upsmoot's Wheelchair
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "A Valley of Fear!"
In the pleasant pastoral farm community of Friendly Valley, farmer Uriah Grudge is digging a well, wishing he owned the whole valley so everyone would work for him. He manages to dig into a strange vapor that is released and, when he smells it, finds a crooked tree next to him seems to come to life, growing suckered fingers and limbs and a terrifying place. Uriah runs madly, thinking his area is “bewitched” and drive to the Big Apple to tell Freddy Freeman to call the militia, police and/or Army to defend Friendly Valley, so he calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Junior to go up against these “horrible monsters.” Flying in, Junior finds he’s not affected by the vapors, but the townsfolk are, seeing Junior as a fanged monster with a giant tongue and clawed hands. While in the city, Uriah figures he should go home and finish that well, thinking better of there being some kind of monsters in his yard. Returning, he is reticent to approach the well-hole, since the vapors soon get to him again, making the tree, a boulder, his car and his barn becoming animated and terrifying, prompting him to run in terror, trip over a big rock and careen into the river, which wakes him up and makes him realize that the vapors are to blame. He decides to get a gas mask and bottle up this vapor for his own use…
He soon takes it to the President of the Bank, the Miller and the Widow (as well as a fourth guy) to demand they give him valuables in their absolute terror. However, when Junior decides to try returning to being a presumably less-threatening Freddy Freeman, Uriah sprays him in the face with his Fear Gas, making him stutter too much to say his magic words before Uriah throws him in the river to be dragged under the mill’s wheel. Falling in the water diffuses the effect of the hallucinations and Freddy is able to get his head above water to call CAPTAIN MARVEL before he’s dragged under and Captain Marvel, Junior uses super-breath to blow the Fear Gas back at Uriah, then forces him to burn his papers, return what he’s stolen from people and follow him to jail for his crimes. He is soon arrested and sent to City Jail, where Junior tells a Constable that he intends to block the gas forever with a large boulder and children soon play around it, never suspecting that under the boulder is a frightening power indeed!
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "A Valley of Fear!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Uriah Grudge
Other Characters:
- The Banker
- The Widow
- The Miller
- The Constable
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Friendly Valley
Items:
- The Devil Vapor
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Capt. Kid: "The Toothache"
Captain Kid reads in the paper that famed murderer “Killer” McGurk has escaped Alcatraz and the FBI are searching for him… meaning he’s not listening to the dentist telling him that he’s next. Captain Kid asks to have a tooth pulled and is gassed out to have it done. Minutes later, he is alack to find that the dentist charges $5 for an extraction, meaning that he doesn’t have spending money for the month! The dentist offers that if he watches his office until he returns from some errands, he won’t charge him at all, so Captain Kid accepts. He tries on a dentist’s smock, only for Killer to suddenly burst in, shove a gun in his face and demand that he remove a bad tooth and that if it hurts, he’ll also shoot him. Captain Kid tries his best and does manage to remove a tooth… but it ends up being the wrong one! Killer points his gun in Captain Kid’s face, threatening he’s trading a hole in his mouth for a hole in his head, only for Captain Kid… to wake up!
Captain Kid realizes he’s been dreaming Killer McGurk showing up at all and that his tooth is removed. The dentists offers him the same offer: watching his store for no charge, but Captain Kid is far too scared and says he’s not going through that again!
Appearing in Capt. Kid: "The Toothache"
Featured Characters:
- Captain Kid
Supporting Characters:
- A Dentist
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Podunk
- New York City
Items:
- Nitrous Oxide
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Discovers the Wooden Age!"
While out on the town, Billy Batson discover a drifter asking him for change is famed archaeologist Professor Pearson! However, Pearson says he was laid off after a “big mistake” of insisting that there is a “Stone Age Tribe” of people living in the Himilayas. He put a bunch of money into an expedition, but it came up with nothing and he was laughed out of academia. Billy finds that Pearson does still believe that there are plenty of Himilayan valleys he hasn’t searched, so he gives him a handful of bills and tells him to clean himself up in an hour and meet Captain Marvel in the park to help him with things. Billy dashes off to get a leave of absence from Station WHIZ and calls SHAZAM so Captain Marvel can meet with Pearson, flying him to the tallest mountains on Earth.
Later, they quickly discover a tribe in the unreachable valley that Pearson was looking for, spotting a burly man with no shirt, wearing a wooden skirt, clogs and hat, wielding a large beam of wood. The wood-bearing brute decides to immediately capture these outsiders, but finds that clubbing the World’s Mightiest Mortal in the head with a beam yields predictable results and gets a punch in the face, then orders him to take them to his village. They soon find that the roads are also paved with wood and that this is clearly not a “Stone Age” society, but a Wooden Age. Prof. Pearson finds they have books made of wood, but notes that there would have been some Wooden Age between the Stone Age & Iron Age (when people learned to develop iron) and, oddly enough, their soil is packed with tons of iron ore! Captain Marvel hears a rumbling and flies off fast to save a woman from a collapsing building, noting that she shouldn’t be living in such a condemnable home, but the wood-dressed woman says they’ve run out of wood to use and the mountains are impassable. Captain Marvel solves this by flying tree after tree to them for a few hours, finding that in the meantime, Pearson has build a smelter to temper iron with. However, the Wooden Age Tribe are aghast at them having “endangered” their valley; in their Wooden Age society, fire in any form is considered dangerous and outlawed. Captain Marvel tries to appeal him to use iron to build tools and machines, but the man refuses, knowing nothing of such things. The Tribe decides to arrest Pearson for this crime and Captain Marvel calls it childish to get upset about a harmless fire… before he’s notified that the sparks have reached their homes, threatening their city. Captain Marvel picks up one of the fresh trees and squeezes it hard enough to use the sap like a fire-hose. Once done though, he is aghast to learn that the penalty for bringing fire to the valley is death and at sunset, Pearson will be killed. Captain Marvel thinks hard about how to do this, recognizing that fire is a great hazard in their society, but that the introduction of iron will spur them into advancement. Thus, he decides to use the smelter himself far away in a cave to smith the ore into sheets, then rivets them together into a house. Captain Marvel shows them by setting a small campfire and indicating that he has built a house that cannot be burned! The Tribe accepts that iron is good, since it is both hard and fireproof and voice regret that they held back for so long against progress, abolishing the anti-fire law. Leaving the valley, Pearson is amazed that they introduced iron to a new culture, but Captain Marvel insists that Pearson will get the credit for doing this all. Later, Billy signs off, saying that Prof. Pearson is accredited and honored again, both in America and in the former Wooden Age Tribe.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Discovers the Wooden Age!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Professor Pearson
Antagonists:
- The Wooden Age Tribe
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Valley of the Former Wooden Age Tribe
Items:
- A Smelter
- An Iron House
Vehicles:
See Also