Captain Marvel! Mary! Y-you don't trust me. You th-think I'm... I'm lying! Well, if that's the way you feel about it... Goodbye! We're through! Do you hear me? Through! 
The Marvel Family #88 is an issue of the series The Marvel Family (Volume 1) with a cover date of October, 1953.
Synopsis for The Marvel Family: "The Jokes of Jeopardy!"
A suspicious individual tries repeatedly to rent a room at Mrs. Wagner's boarding house, but she has no vacancies. Meanwhile, residents Leroy and Freddy start playing pranks in an effort to outdo each other. While merely annoying at first, soon the Marvel kids find things like a real live cobra, exploding firecrackers and a cloud of tear gas in their rooms. Soon the Marvels catch the suspicious man carrying out the destructive pranks, and arrest him. He was a member of a group of group of spies stealing "atomic secrets", and he wanted to rent a room in the boardinghouse because its turret was the highest spot in the neighborhood, where his compatriots could easily take possession of the stolen documents in their helicopter.
Appearing in The Marvel Family: "The Jokes of Jeopardy!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Leroy Marks
- Officer Jim Bellows
- Red O'Reilly
- Mrs. Wagner
Antagonists:
- Foreign Spies
Other Characters:
Locations:
Items:
- Several Pranks
Vehicles:
- A Green Helicopter
Synopsis for The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family Battles the King of All Time"
A siren sounds, but Billy announces it is a test of the air raid system, but as he goes home he thinks about the fact he didn't have time to report about Zotan, the dictator who took over the mountain kingdom of Javania in one week. Real ships appear, but the Army think their Air Force is doing this to help the practice and fire blanks. However it is really the fleet of Zotan, who has taken advantage of the lulled security. His fleet starts dropping bombs on the city. The Marvels transform when they realize this is real, however a bomb reaches the basement, hitting the other occupants. They are unharmed, but start shouting 'Down with America! Down with democracy!', attacking the Marvel Family. The Marvels see an air raid warden has also been affected and realizes the bombs only effect the mind. Captain Marvel finds the bombs are soft plastic, and instead of explosives hold a drug-like gas that enslaves human minds. Zotan talks about how his weapons possess minds. In his arsenal are 'Mental ammunition', 'Dictator Bombs', 'Lie Bullets', 'Slavery Shells,' 'Evilness Rays', the 'Tyranny Cannon' and 'Propaganda Rockets.'
The Marvel family decide to attack the bombers. However only a dozen are smashed, and Zotan has over a hundred. He orders one of his henchmen at the Century Control to move the Time Lever so the rest of his ships can be saved. His fleet shifts to a different century. The Marvels find only a few thousand citizens were mentally bombed, so go to have them held for observation. The Marvels fly faster than light and get to the Rock of Eternity to ask Shazam about who attacked their century. He tells them it was Zotan; in One Million AD he was exposed as a brutal tyrant. He was exiled to 1953 and dropped in Javania. Using his advanced knowledge he made weapons of the future. Shazam explains all wars are fought over ideas, in the future all killing weapons were abandoned and only mental weapons were used. They go back to Earth, but find Zotan has taken over America. They are chased away, and find everywhere on Earth has been taken over by Zotan, meaning they leave Earth.
The Marvels travel to Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome to stop Zotan's invasions, but fail. They think Zotan is about to attack the future, but the Marvels realise it was a trick to leave the Rock unguarded, but Shazam has already been captured and chained up. Zotan brags he will cut the wizard's throat when he feels like it. Shazam obeys Zotan's order to get rid of the Marvels, as so it is written, and uses a thunderbolt of Zeus to apparently destroy the Marvels, however it only transforms them into the kids, and they cannot change back as Shazam is captured. 'No gags seal of their tongues. No bonds restrict them.' But they cannot change.
Shazam is left chained to a rock on a faraway world, with a monster about to eat him. However the Marvels light a brazier to summon him to the cave. This enables them to transform back. They then create weapons to free the minds of those Zotan conquered. They free 1953 and the Time fleet leaves to free the other eras Zotan has taken over. Zotan finds Mary Marvel at his destroyed Time ship, but escapes a month into the future using his time belt. However Billy is waiting there, pretending to still be Zotan's subject. He takes Zotan's belt, transforms and defeats the Dictator, who is jailed.
Appearing in The Marvel Family: "The Marvel Family Battles the King of All Time"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Mrs. Wagner
- Red O'Reilly
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Kingdom of Javania (Mentioned only)
- The Rock of Eternity
- A "Faraway, Savage World"
Items:
- Zotan's Mental Ammunition
- Zotan's Dictator Bombs
- Zotan's Lie Bullets
- Zotan's Slavery Shells
- Zotan's Evilness Rays
- Zotan's Tyranny Cannon
- Zotan's Propaganda Rockets
- Zotan's Slave-Gas
- Zotan's Hypno Smoke
- Zotan's Time-TV
- Zotan's Time Belt (Destroyed)
- Red O'Reilly's Chair (Destroyed)
Vehicles:
- Zotan's Ship (Destroyed)
- The Zotan Warfleet (Destroyed)
- A Century Crosser Ship
Notes
- This issue's second story comes in three chapters:
- Chapter ONE - The Conqueror of All Earth!
- Chapter TWO - The Trap of No Escape
- Chapter THREE - All History Enslaved
Trivia
- In the real world, Babylon generally didn't exist in the year 2,000 BCE, having been part of the Neo-Sumerian Empire and didn't grow to power as a great society until around 1,792 BCE when King Hammurabi took control from his obscure father.
- Similarly, this places Ancient Greece in the Early Iron Age, after the collapse of Bronze Age cities. For example, the first legislator, Draco, wouldn't be born for another 400 years or so.
See Also