What caused it? Why--uh--eh--? I don't know! Nobody knows! Everybody has forgotten what the war started over! After all, that was over a million years ago! 
- — Representative of the Dish Galaxy, on the origins of the Million Year War
The Marvel Family #61 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of July, 1951.
Synopsis for The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family and the Million Year War"
The Marvel Family finds out that two extraterrestrial civilizations from different galaxies have been at war for a million years, in a conflict whose origins and motivations neither side remembers. One of them found a way to weaponize a third galaxy, moving it towards their adversary. The Marvel Family attempts to intervene and eventually finds out that the conflict was caused by failed peace brokering attempts among the ancestors of the opponents.
Appearing in The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family and the Million Year War"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- The Warlords of the Football Galaxy
Other Characters:
- The Tall Green People of the Dish Galaxy
Locations:
- Earth-S
- The Football Galaxy (Messiers 33)
- The Dish Galaxy
- The Buzz Saw Galaxy
Items:
- The Great Gravity Ram
Vehicles:
- Football Galaxy Spaceships
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Unknown Genius"
A scientist walks down the street, but finds that his complex quantum mechanics cannot be easily explained to the layman. He asks aloud how to get “electronic dephasing into the quadridimensional molecular stasis,” but a man sitting around merely notes to “Hook your Z-phase tube into the thimgamabob where the dimensional dingus is,” seemingly solving the Theory of Relativity. The scientist discovers this man is Jeb Jutter, an autodidact who enjoys mostly fishing and can answer complex square roots in his head. The scientist tries to demand he use his genius for betterment of the world by force until he pushes him in the water. Billy Batson, walking along, sees a fight and calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel to save him, since the scientist can’t swim. Captain Marvel is stunned to hear that Jeb is apparently a genius and tests him, finding he can immediately figure when the next lunar eclipse is. Captain Marvel is able to convince him to use his genius to at minimum earn himself enough money to buy a new fishing outfit. Flying him to the Scientific Research Foundation, he finds that Jeb speaks informally, but seems to know what he’s doing and leaves.
Later, Billy reports on how there’s a new genius in town, but afterwards sees an explosion from the Scientific Research Foundation and calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel over to fly in, finding that Jeb just walked out mid-experiment when he got bored. Captain Marvel points out that they paid him money to do this, meaning he rather is responsible. However, when he starts helping the scientists with a new sort of cyclotron, but wanders off when he looks to the fish again and just doesn’t finish his instructions, almost causing a nuclear explosion while Jeb is fishing again. Captain Marvel yanks at Jeb’s line, making him fall in the water and Jeb says that it’s Captain Marvel’s duty to not let him drown and Captain Marvel helps him realize that he has a duty to help people before enjoying himself if it’s his duty and promises to change his way. However, a week later, Jeb has become a Professor on live television and says he’s found that his work is more fun than fishing: his duty has become his pleasure!
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and the Unknown Genius"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Jeb Jutter
Other Characters:
- Other Scientists
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- WHIZ-TV
- The Scientific Research Foundation
- New York City
Items:
- A Cyclotron
Vehicles:
Notes
- Despite the cover, the Football Warlords are orange in color and have yellow shirts with striped belts and hats with curly mustaches, but are generally a similar shape.
Trivia
- In reality, Beta Orion (β Orionis) is the star Rigel and not a galaxy, while 13 Orionis is a differing star near the Orion constellation that is not part of the constellation proper.
- The Messiers 33 Galaxy is more commonly known as the "Triangulum Galaxy," due to being in the constellation of the same name.
- At no point does anyone just ask Jeb Jutter to write down instructions rather than show people how to do them and nobody seems to even be writing down the things he does say, considering they'd notice him consistently walking away.
See Also