This is an in-universe article with out-of-universe material.
Whiz Comics #103 is an issue of the series Whiz Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of November, 1948.
Synopsis for "Captain Marvel At Boys' Ranch"
Billy is reporting for Station WHIZ at “Boys' Ranch,” a ranch run by boys! He talks with local ranching boy, Tim Boyd, who says his father left him this ranch and a huge load of debts, something that apparently the State of New York is fine with. Instead of selling it, he created a “Boys' Ranch” and are starting to slowly turn a profit. Tomorrow will be the big Annual Boys' Rodeo for some bigger funds and the boys therein are training for it now. Suddenly, a man riding a black horse wearing a buzzard mask, a black catsuit and bright orange gloves, who decide to just declare there won't be a Boys' Rodeo! Tim identifies this man as a member of the “Black Buzzard Gang” before the BlackBuzzard lariats him by the ankle and starts dragging a young boy, directly telling him he plans to drag him into the badlands to be eaten by vultures. Billy calls SHAZAM to summon Captain Marvel to immediately break the rope and punch the first two of the Black Buzzard Gang (There are suddenly three of them) and the last, finding that he's in a pinch, pulls out a tiny blue horn and blows it with a HONK HONK to somehow summon a flock of buzzards. Tim helpfully explains that the Black Buzzards want to murder him so they can buy Boys' Ranch at auction for cheap. The World's Mightiest Mortal more or less scares them off, but finds the Black Buzzard Gang have scarpered. Tim thanks him for his help as our hero tells him that he'll keep an eye out for the Black Buzzard Gang and offers that Tim go back to showing Billy around Boys' Ranch.
Later, Billy asks Tim if the land is valuable at all, but Tim says it's actually not at all, which is why it's been difficult to turn a profit and they especially need the Annual Boys' Rodeo to keep them in the pink and out of the red. Meanwhile, the Black Buzzards go for the Wile E Coyote method of shoving a boulder off a cliff to crush children to death. Billy quickly calls SHAZAM and Captain Marvel punches the boulder out of the way and throttles a real buzzard, finding the Black Buzzard Gang are gone. Elsewhere, they tell each other they must kill Tim before he finds out how valuable this land really is. Captain Marvel tells Tim that clearly the land must be worth killing him over and starts some simplistic prospecting. They try panning and find only pyrite, the fool's gold and Captain Marvel attempts leaping directly into the ground, finding no oil for at least three miles down. The Black Buzzard Gang, watching nearby, snicker how he'll never find out what the real treasure is, since they passed it already. The day winds to a close with Captain Marvel apologizing to Tim that he couldn't do more to help.
In the dead of night though, the Black Buzzard Gang somehow quietly blackjack Billy while he's asleep and ride off him bound and gagged to feed him to the vultures, but more horribly exposing that he's wearing green pajamas with black polka dots. The Black Buzzards are alack to find that they somehow managed to kidnap an entirely different person than Tim (despite it being a ranch literally entirely populated by boys) and leave Billy with his shirt off, gagged and staked spread-eagle in the badlands for the buzzards and go to murder a different child. Tim is naturally confused as to where Billy is at the moment, but remembers that he did tell Tim not to worry if he wasn't around as much. The Annual Boys' Rodeo starts up and people are well-entertained as Billy tries to not be eaten by scavengers in the desert. It helps some when a buzzard manages to dive directly as his face, tearing off only his gag, letting him call SHAZAM for Captain Marvel to frighten them off. He suddenly finds that there is a bitter tasting dust clouding up around him and discovers… this is the real treasure of the Boys' Ranch! He seemingly flies back and punches out the Black Buzzard Gang (some of this page is MISSING!) and reveals that the treasure is a salt bed, which can sell for cents by the pound… but with this much of it, it's worth ten gold mines! Billy signs off saying that Boys' Ranch is incredibly prosperous now for Tim and his young cowboys and deserve to live well, since they're the salt of the earth!
Appearing in "Captain Marvel At Boys' Ranch"
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- The Black Buzzard Gang
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Synopsis for "Golden Arrow and the Passenger Bandit!"
Appearing in "Golden Arrow and the Passenger Bandit!"
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Synopsis for "Lo-Kar's Circus"
Matilda the Diving Elephant is forced by a cruel ringmaster to jump off a platform in a 200' dive into a tank of water. From a distance, Lo-Kar the Talking Gorilla watches, telling no one in particular how sad it is that she is cruelly forced to dive into a tank of water every day. We see this is because Lo-Kar is an actual talking gorilla (which shockingly isn't a gimmick in any way whatsoever, he's just a sentient ape-man.) He complains to the Ringmaster that one day Matilda will surely die doing this (or ruin her quality of life,) but the Ringmaster tells him to basically get lost, not even listening to what he said. The next day, Lo-Kar is ordered to jump through a ring of fire, despite his main feature being that he speaks English, and Lo-Kar refuses. The Ringmaster goes for the bullwhip, only for Lo-Kar to say that he will no longer be tormented, starting an animal's revolt, joined by Leo the Man-Eating Lion and Matilda the Elephant. Lo-Kar has unfortunately decided to go a step further and enslave the circus owners and trainers to form a circus that abuses them instead! Days later, Prince Ibis and Princess Taia arrive at the Circus and find that the diving man looks like he's practically shitting himself and screaming, but also lands perfectly fine. Later, Ibis tries looking into this and finds no people around, then just finds Leo the Lion is around and walking about. He lunges for him and Ibis wishes for the Ibistick to form a cage around him, which Leo ends up smacking his head on mid-dive. He soon finds a clown in the Man-Eating Lion Cage and says that he wants out of this altogether. He asks him to hurry with the key despite Ibis knowing full well he can do literally anything with magic, which is long enough for Lo-Kar the Gorilla to show up, rabbit punch the Prince of Egypt and snatch the Ibistick from him. Luckily, he merely thinks it is a weapon at all and doesn't seem to understand its function, instead just taking a punch to the chest from Ibis and then throwing him bodily into the Clown's Cage. The Clown apologizes that he didn't see him until it was too late, but that Ibis did a great job trying to hold him back.
Ibis bemoans how he basically screwed up every part of doing this and underestimated his opponent, but the Clown offers they get some rest and dream about beating them. The next morning, Taia comes to find where Ibis went, but the ticket taker says he hasn't seen him. After she leaves, we find this was just Lo-Kar wearing a yellowed clown mask and at the matinee show, the Ringmaster nudges Prince Ibis to get up on the high wire and do it, since their performer is ill. Ibis, realizing the men of the circus, are hostages that the animals will kill, begins his ascent. The Ringmaster announces he's walking 100' over a field of fire and Ibis makes it almost the entire way through. Grabbing a platform rope, he manages to swing down and drop kick Lo-Kar in the solar plexus, knocking the Ibistick from his hand and retrieving it. As soon as he does, he wishes that the animals were in an arena pit too deep to escape from and Lo-Kar explains that he did this only to show the humans how they were the cruel ones to them. The Ringmaster thanks Ibis for saving his circus and making him a ton of money, but Ibis demands that it is contingent on him treating his animals better. Later, the Ringmaster approaches Ibis and admits that it turns out these big, crazy, animal-abusing stunts were never necessary and Ibis agrees: animals can be “real troupers” and enjoy performing when they're not being treated cruelly. We see Lo-Kar in the background, pleasantly smoking on a throne.
Appearing in "Lo-Kar's Circus"
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- Lo-Kar the Talking Gorilla
- Leo the Man-Eating Lion
- Matilda the Diving Elephant
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Synopsis for "Vexing Visitor"
Freshman Freddy is in the country, visiting his Aunt Mamie and says he only intends to stay two days or so. He asks where his Uncle Charlie is, but finds he went into town to pick up cake for dessert and goes to put the car in the garage for him while he's gone. Freddy generously offers to do it himself, since he learned how to drive a car in college. Aunt Mamie warns him not to hit the flower bed and Freddy manages to… and then immediately backs into the other car in the garage, crushing up the front and rear of both. Somehow, the door closes behind him, locking him in and Freddy starts having a panic attack, driving through the door to escape and directly into the flower bed, in front of Uncle Charlie who just arrived home. He then somehow drives at his own Uncle, making him shout for him as he tries to turn around, driving into the patio on the front porch, then into the kitchen, destroying most of Aunt Mamie's dishes. His Uncle and Aunt ask how long he does intend to stay for. He replies again “Two days” and this time far more aggressively, they answer “That long? That's too bad!”
Appearing in "Vexing Visitor"
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- Freshman Freddy
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- Aunt Mamie
- Uncle Charlie
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Synopsis for "Lance O'Casey and the Lamp of Three Wishes"
Appearing in "Lance O'Casey and the Lamp of Three Wishes"
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Trivia
- Despite the cover, Captain Marvel does not punch a bullet out of the sky! They don't even use guns! However, he does punch a boulder out of the sky.
- Lance O'Casey returns after having been on hiatus since Whiz Comics Vol 1 53
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