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"The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family battles the Democracy Smasher!"": It’s a crazy new holiday called “Democracy Day” where everyone celebrates how much they love the concept of the people choosing what is law and also a good excuse for everyone to dress up like what they imagine the Gree

Quote1 King Kull kept himself and his scientific secrets alive down in a secret underground vault all through human history! And all through history, he has been attacking and plaguing the human race, giving rise to many legends of horrible evil! Quote2
Captain Marvel, on King Kull

The Marvel Family #67 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of January, 1952.

Synopsis for The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family battles the Democracy Smasher!"

It’s a crazy new holiday called “Democracy Day” where everyone celebrates how much they love the concept of the people choosing what is law and also a good excuse for everyone to dress up like what they imagine the Greeks (or Romans) wore. Billy Batson meets Mary Batson and Freddy Freeman at Station WHIZ before Billy inaugurates Democracy Day on WHIZ-TV and they’re going to have a big parade at Liberty Square soon. Mr. Morris thanks Billy for coming up with this idea, confusing Billy… who thought Mr. Morris came up with this idea first… Suddenly, the Ghost of Shazam appears and tells the three kids that he invented the idea and put the idea in their heads and has them come to his Secret Subway Tunnel. Therein, Shazam reveals a new room, his Stronghold of Democracy, where he keeps the Lamp of Democracy (which started 3,000 years ago when they first invented it,) the Flame of Freedom started by the signed of the Magna Carta in 1215 and the Torch of Liberty, which has been around since 1776 when America was born (though it still has a Statue of Liberty.) If any of the three stop burning, the world will fall into madness and chaos and guarding them is also part of his job and that it’s now their job too.

However, behind them, emerging from the Earth is King Kull, Enemy of the Human Race, who decides to crush the kids with the Greed Statue (of the Seven Deadly Enemies of Men,) only for them to call SHAZAM and CAPTAIN MARVEL to become the Marvel Family and shove it back into place. They look back and find that the torches have been stolen and that King Kull has them. Captain Marvel Junior flies forward and punches him in the face and finds it does little to stop him and Captain Marvel says that he’s a powerful prehistoric Subman with simian agility, managing to fight off the three of them. Although no normal water can douse the torches, King Kull poisons the water with a Pellet of Distilled Evil and does so anyways, throwing the wasted torches back at him. King Kull, knowing the intricacies of the underworld, dives into a river of dark water and swims into some unknowable underground realm. Captain Marvel explains further that 30,000 years ago the Submen (or now, "Beastmen") tried to destroy the Pre-Ice Age mankind with advanced weaponry. However, humans were numerous enough to kill them all except for King Kull, who escaped in faking his destruction. Now, he emerges from his intricate system of tunnels to plague mankind as the Boogeyman of myth whenever he can and has now taken up a more aggressive stance against humanity. King Kull sits on his underground throne, knowing that the Marvel Family cannot find him while the Marvel Family remember they have a Democracy Day Parade to get to! When they land, they find that people now hate Democracy due to the loss of the three Torches. In his stronghold, King Kull lights his own Torch of Evil, which causes humans to become violent and destructive, deciding that it’s now Dictator Day, demanding a leader to lead them into war!

The Marvel Family decide that they can do little to battle these crowds as King Kull emerges to become Dictator of Earth under the Torch of Evil’s authority. The Marvel Family figure that they’ll have to relight the Torches, but when they summon Shazam, he says that the Spark of Democracy, once lit, can “never really die!” and then disappears again. The Marvel Family figure they can just go back in time to when they were originally sparked and pick them up there and hang off the Rock of Eternity to travel to the past of 1,000 BCE in Athens.

There, they find that a philosopher has lit a flame, the Lamp of Democracy, and offers the people be ruled by a “dēmos” (a group of people) and begins Democracy. A phalanx of aggressive soldiers arrive to attack their democratic ideals, only for the Marvel Family to punch them away easily. They find a runner has picked up the Lamp of Democracy (as seen in the statue,) but he’s dragged into a ravine by King Kull, who has always been living below the Earth. He tries to punch the Marvel Family and finds this won’t work, then escapes into the myriad tunnels. They retake the Lamp of Democracy and save the Runner, with Mary Marvel taking it back to the future. Captain Marvel and Junior fly to 1215 CE to see the Magna Carta being signed, but are turned away due to their fine clothes making people think they are nobles, so they return Billy and Freddy to being normal kids. A similar looking philosopher brings forth the Flame of Freedom that will make people truly free. King Kull tries to rush the room where it’s being signed and manages to knock out Freddy and Billy with the flat of his blade, using them as human shields to rush at King John to kill him and stop him from signing!

Billy and Freddy find the grip on their chests is too powerful for them to call their magic words, so instead they kick at King Kull until he throws them and goes to tear up the Magna Carta itself. Billy snatches the Flame of Freedom itself and pitches it into King Kull’s face before he finds his breath and calls SHAZAM (and Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL) as they drive off King Kull and retake the Magna Carta. Once he’s gone, King John signs it and the Flame of Freedom burns on. Junior relights the Flame of Freedom for the future and returns to the future to put it back. Captain Marvel heads off to 1776 CE to Philadelphia on July 4th so he can wait at Independence Hall for Thomas Jefferson to bring the Declaration of Independence around. At Monticello, Jefferson tells his best friends General Washington and Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin that he’s finished the Declaration and reads some of it for them before he shows them his torch-bearing Liberty statue he has in his house, which King Kull suddenly appears out from under, trying to smash the three founding fathers with it. Captain Marvel manages to fly in fast enough to block the shot, which breaks the statue, then punches out King Kull. He tries to capture him, but a curtain fire forces him to stop and King Kull escapes to the nether regions once more. Captain Marvel relights the Torch of Liberty and salutes the three founding fathers, returning to the Rock of Eternity with the others.

Together, they find King Kull leading with the Torch of Evil, but the Marvel Family’s torches prove more powerful as the dark flame of the Torch of Evil is doused and King Kull legs it away to the underground while the crowds cheer for the Marvel Family and for Democracy. They soon finish the Democracy Day Parade and then return the three torches to the Secret Subway Tunnel. The kids sign off saying that as long as Old Glory waves and leads the way, democracy, freedom and liberty will never die.

Appearing in The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family battles the Democracy Smasher!"

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Notes

  • This story comes in three chapters:
    • Chapter 1 - King Kull Strikes
    • Chapter 2 - The Disaster of Dictator Day
    • Chapter 3 - The Battle of the Torches!

Trivia

  • This issue establishes that King Kull's (former) Submen are also known as "Beastmen."
  • In reality, Democracy was started around 508 CE under Archon Cleisthenes of Athens, previously being ruled under the infamously draconian Draconian Constitution.
    • Further, the Phalanx was not a common maneuver of the Greek military until at least 800 BCE when it was adopted from Asia Minor by the Spartans.
  • In reality, the Magna Carta was not seen as a defeat to King John, who reneged on his agreements with the Barons, starting the First Barons' War, which continued until King John's death a year later from dysentery.
  • In reality, Future President Jefferson didn't have a miniature version of Liberty Enlightening the World, which wasn't built until more than a century later.


See Also


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