The Marvel Family #78 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 1952.
Synopsis for The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family Battles the Red Star of Death"
Billy Batson, Boy Broadcaster, reports that UN forces fighting in the Korean War are being attacked by propaganda fliers mocking “Yankee Pigs” and that the bombs of the “Red Vulture” will soon kill them. Meanwhile, Billy also reports a crackpot astronomer has discovered a Second Moon that 1,000’ large and rotates around the world every two hours! Billy heads out with his sister, Mary Batson, and his best friend, Freddy Freeman, to volunteer their youthful blood to the American Red Cross! They decide to have the Marvel Family involve themselves in the Korean War and call SHAZAM and CAPTAIN MARVEL to get there faster. The UN forces are confused by the attacks from a seemingly invisible bomber. Nearby, the Red Vulture, an obese racist caricature of a North Korean man declares that he will kill them and that he is a brutal killer who likes torturing people for the pleasure of seeing Americans stop being alive near him. The Marvel Family jump into the salvo of bombs he drops and destroy them and they take off to find where the Red Vulture is hiding in the skies above the Korean Peninsula. The Red Vulture is almost impressed, but is confident he’s smarter than them. The Marvel Family are mystified. Captain Marvel tells the Commanding General not to lose hope and to hold the line for just one more day and they’ll bring them results and then soon investigate the mysterious Second Moon, which is actually a space station shaped like a sphere with a star shoved into it. The Red Vulture tries dropping a Giant Fireball on the UN forces, who run in fear.
The Marvel Family manage to steal three blockbuster bombs and throw them into the Giant Fireball, which destroys it and they return to siege the Red Vulture’s space station, the Red Star as the Red Vulture shifts to a different type of orbit. They soon find descending to get more bombs and supplies from North Korea and Captain Marvel decides to invade North Korea, tearing apart fighter planes and find the Red Vulture whipping captured South Koreans to load supplies on to his giant green rocket-ship and then starts stomping on a slave who collapses from hunger. The Marvel Family start laying into him together he orders his men in to attack them, but the Marvel Family defeat the Communists quickly. The Red Vulture orders them to leave by threatening to blow up his own rocket ship with his prisoners inside. Instead, they return to being kids and sneak aboard his ship and hiding out in a storage room until they’re discovered and knocked out by a guard. The Red Vulture, uninterested in them, orders them dumped into space as space garbage!
The Marvel Kids are floating in the empty void of space and Billy manages to kick off of Mary hard enough to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere enough to call SHAZAM and summon Captain Marvel to retrieve the other two kids, who call SHAZAM and CAPTAIN MARVEL to join him. After 24 hours though, they find the Red Vulture hasn’t struck again and is seemingly gone. Captain Marvel points out that an orbital attack station could theoretically strike any aerial site on Earth and realize that the Red Star are likely going to attack America directly, deploying himself into his Red Grinder, a spherical ship with a buzzsaw edge on it that is good at cutting down forests and bisecting American buildings. Captain Marvel, Jr. runs his diamond-hard body into it, shattering the bladed edge and then follows him to the Red Star, but finds that he’s got to hold up a building from collapsing.
Captain Marvel returns to space and shoves the Red Star into a meteor, only for the Red Vulture to leave in his green rocket-ship. As he lands though, Mary Marvel punches him out, defeats his North Korean Army minions and free their South Korean allies. They then dismantle the entire North Korean Space Program, which was run entirely by the Red Vulture. The Commanding General tells the Marvel Family they’ll get medals for this, but Captain Marvel says to be sure to give them to the troops instead. Back at home, Billy, Mary and Freddy enjoying looking into a night sky that doesn’t have the imminent threat of being attacked by a North Korean orbital space station.
Appearing in The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family Battles the Red Star of Death"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- South Korean Prisoners
Locations:
- Earth-S
- The Red Star Space Station (Destroyed)
Items:
Vehicles:
- The Red Vulture's Rocket-Ship
- The Red Vulture's Red Grinder (Destroyed)
Notes
- This issue's story comes in three chapters:
- Chapter One: The Red Vulture Strikes
- Chapter Two: Horror from the Space Station
- Chapter Three: Death in Outer Space
Trivia
- Despite the cover, the Marvel Family does not fight a giant red vulture, instead finding a brutal racist caricature of a North Korean General.
- In the real world, the "Democratic" Republic of North Korea's NATA have yet to send anyone into space and have not launched any satellites since 2017, only controlling several crashed observation satellites and a repeatedly failed military recon satellite program.
- It is not made clear how the Red Vulture is able to stay alive while moving at a speed around the Earth where he approaches the Korean Peninsula every two hours, though there is very little that is realistic about this character.
See Also