Whiz Comics #154 is an issue of the series Whiz Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1953.
Synopsis for Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and Sivana's Monster World"
A wandering world drifts in from outer space, straight toward Earth. Also Dr. Sivana escapes from prison. Captain Marvel flies into space to intercept the asteroid, which he then places into a stable orbit around Earth, like a second Moon, for astronomers to study. Sivana shows up in his rocket ship, landing on the new world, and proclaims himself ruler thereof, and immune from all Earth law. Almost instantly Captain Marvel shows up to arrest him, but it's too late: here on Sivana World (according to Sivana) he has no authority to arrest him. But just as the superhero is flying away, a dinosaur-like monster shows up and tries to eat Sivana, who yelps for help. Captain Marvel restrains the giant beast long enough for Sivana to reach his rocket ship, then leaves. Sivana stays, as ruler of an unpopulated planet covered in monsters.
Finding it unsatisfactory, Sivana soon radios advertisements to Earth, declaring that gold has been found on Sivana World, and recruiting miners. Sivana's rocket ship makes several remote-controlled flights to Earth, ferrying prospectors into space. Captain Marvel is unable to dissuade the greed-addled speculators, so he accompanies the rocket ship to Sivana World. Sivana, in his ermine-lined cape and ornate crown, greets the new arrivals, who immediately start finding gold nuggets literally strewn about the fields, but their excitement turns to terror when giant monsters show up and rush at the gathered humans. Captain Marvel fights the monsters, which he easily defeats, but many more monsters live here. In order to remain on Sivana World and protect the colonists, the World's Mightiest Mortal agrees to sign a document making Sivana his king! He reluctantly accepts, and his life is sheer hell from that moment forward as Sivana orders him about, demeans him, and gloats continuously. Cap goes along with all of this, because a deal is a deal.
But behind the scenes, Marvel does some super-powered tunneling and earthquake-making, until he convinces Sivana that the little asteroid world is falling apart. Sivana jumps in his rocket ship and flees back to Earth, leaving all his other subjects to perish, but Captain Marvel immediately follows him to Earth, and arrests him as soon as he lands, then uses the rocket ship to fetch the prospectors back to Earth. Later, Billy signs off, saying that Captain Marvel flew the wandering world back into space, because eventually, it really would crack up.
Appearing in Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel and Sivana's Monster World"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- off-world gold prospectors
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Sivana World
Animals:
- alien giant monsters on Sivana World (at least 3 types)
Vehicles:
- Sivana's Rocket Ship
Synopsis for Lance O'Casey: "Lance O'Casey and The Killers of Shark Pool!"
Mike Bellew's uncle, Professor Cyrus Bellew, owns the Marine Gardens, near Greenville, Florida, and Mike hikes inland to pay him a visit. He arrives at nightfall, outside the Garden, in time to see his uncle get knifed to death, and when he tries to grab the knife-man, Mike gets half stunned with a front kick to the abdomen, then knocked out with a club to the head. Very shortly later, old Bellew's assistant, Rig Daven, just happens to come along, and just happens to meet some Greenville police officers there. The cops are pursuing some bank robbers, but have lost the trail. Rig frames Mike for Cyrus' murder, but Mike calls in his friend Lance O'Casey, who vouches for Mike, which satisfies the cops, at least for the moment.
Rig Daven and his accomplice Fain are the bank robbers, and Rig has hidden the loot at the bottom of an enormous shark tank, which he enters on a daily basis in a deep-sea diving suit, to personally take food to the Marine Gardens' famous giant manta ray. But now that young Bellew and his pal have shown up and the cops are still around, it's time to recover the loot and leave town. But back at the predator tank, they find Mike Bellew, sneak up, and push him into the tank. Lance O'Casey sees this, dives into the tank, finds Mike, rescue swims him to an island in the middle of the lagoon-sized tank, and drags him ashore, all while knife-fighting a series of sharks. The robbers wrongly calculate that they now have time to recover the loot and split, but using stone-age technology to create some gorge hooks, Lance and Mike are able to catch the two remaining sharks, and swim past the giant electric eel and giant mantas, to reach the Marine Garden, before Rig and Fain can get away. They thrash them and turn them over to the police.
Mike Bellew wants no part of owning this sea-life museum, either, and is eager to sign the place over to the local community.
Appearing in Lance O'Casey: "Lance O'Casey and The Killers of Shark Pool!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- 1st Mate Mike Bellew
Antagonists:
- Rig Daven, Prof. Bellew's assistant
- Fain
Other Characters:
- Professor Cyrus Bellew (Dies)
- three Greenville Police Officers
Locations:
Animals:
- many species of sharks
- giant mantas, one extremely large
- giant electric eel
Vehicles:
- The Starfish
Synopsis for Ibis the Invincible: "Ibis the Invincible and The Man-Eater from the Deep!"
Two deep sea scientists use a magnetic hook to pull a massive limestone block out of the deepest part of the ocean's bottom, and show it to Ibis and Taia. Ibis detects powerful evil in the rock, and asks the scientists to postpone an X-ray examination of it, to which they agree. But that night one of them, Philip Manston, sneaks into their museum and X-rays the rock anyway. This activates a powerful evil deep-sea larval life form, which physically bursts (hatches, actually) out of the stone, and devours the renegade scientist.
The next morning Ibis and Taia are back at the museum, and the Ibistick is used to display the last moments of the late Manston. Now that they know what they're up against, Ibis uses the Ibistick to mark the monster's trail. Meanwhile at a big pond in a city park, the monster attacks some children, but they all get away. Police bullets just bounce off the buglike beast, and it's getting bigger very rapidly. As Ibis arrives, it is lurching into buildings and toppling them; at least two structures go down!
Ibis magics up a big net to envelop the creature, and compels it to release a captured human, then grows himself a hundredfold, to fight the monster directly, which is a terrible idea, and another nearby building gets damaged. Then Ibis shrinks them both down to a height of one foot, which is another terrible idea, as long as they're fighting at close quarters. The monster's jagged pincer inflicts a grievous wound on Ibis's shoulder. While the little monster skitters away, Taia uses the Ibistick to restore Ibis to normal size, and fix his shoulder.
Their search for the foot-tall bug monster leads them into the kitchen of a local seafood restaurant, in which, as it turns out, the bug has stupidly sought out a watery refuge, and instead gotten boiled.
Appearing in Ibis the Invincible: "Ibis the Invincible and The Man-Eater from the Deep!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Man-Eater from the Deep (Dies)
Other Characters:
- Carl Drew, Deep Sea Scientist
- Phlip Manston, Deep Sea Scientist (Dies)
- A Cook
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Drew's Museum
- City Park
- Business District
- A Restaurant
Items:
Synopsis for Dr. Death: "Pardon My Dust!"
In Bordeaux, France, two gendarmes hear screaming from a nearby castle and race to it, especially since it's been abandoned since the Revolution and every window and door were bolted when he left. Now, the door is opened. They head in to find a decapitated head of a man and his body on the floor, but with a large gate between them. They wonder how the dead man could pass through the bars, but a creepy man in purple robes appears, saying "they" wanted to let the dead man in. He tells them he's the Castle Guard and that the dead man is the Marquis de Lounsberry, who is dead because his ancestors owned the castle. The Castle Guard tells them the story: The serfs demanded better conditions and food, only for the Marquis to lock them in his dungeon to let them starve. They did, but not before cursing him that any descendant who enters the castle will lose his head to the guillotine. When the Marquis tries to have the serf's bones removed though, they find the dust will not move... When the Revolution seized France, the Marquis was naturally executed. The guards ask what that has to do with the dead man, but the Castle Guard says that he was the descendent of the Marquis. Despite his wishes, the young man entered the dungeon and the mysterious gate disappeared. Once inside, the young "Marquis" finds the dust turn into green ghosts that judge him as guilty, despite the judge's bench and the guillotine seemingly also being the work of ghosts, since there's no real murder weapon. The guards threaten to arrest the Castle Guard for his part in this, but he laughs at them, saying he's also a ghost and turns into dust and a cloak. The two gendarmes leave, deciding to merely say that the "Marquis" died of "mysterious causes."
Appearing in Dr. Death: "Pardon My Dust!"
Narrator:
Supporting Characters:
- Gendarmes
- The Castle Guard (Dies)
Antagonists:
- The Marquis de Lounsberry (Dies in flashback)
- The Descendent of the Marquis de Lounsberry (Dies)
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Bordeaux, France
- The Castle of the Marquis de Lounsberry
Items:
Synopsis for Golden Arrow: "Trail of Death!"
In Mesa Valley, two Indian braves on ponies, with carbines, attack a mule-drawn freight wagon, shooting both muleteers. Golden Arrow rides onto the scene, and with two shots disarms both, and chases them away, but it's too late for the wagon drivers. Bringing along a captured rifle, Golden Arrow visits the nearest U.S. Marshal, in the frontier town of Stockwell. He identifies the gun as a new type of Army rifle. Secretly a local freight company owner, Cy Hardwick, has been illegally selling these rifles to some Indians, and the Marshal has formed a suspicion about this.
That night Golden Arrow stealthily searches thru Hardwick's company's wagon camp, and finds some of the contraband rifles, but he gets captured by the smugglers. They describe their ongoing plot to murder the Marshal, the next morning, while they tie up Golden Arrow and toss him into a covered wagon, with his bow and arrows still on him, then leave him unsupervised all night, which is long enough for him to wear his way through the ropes with some garden tools. He escapes the camp, rides back to town, and rescues the Marshal from getting gassed to death, then encounters and punches out Hardwick. By telegraph, the Marshal alerts the closest Army post to the situation. Soon, a return telegram advises them that the freight wagons have been found and confiscated, and that Hardwick's gunmen are on their way to a Federal prison.
Appearing in Golden Arrow: "Trail of Death!"
Featured Characters:
- Golden Arrow (Final appearance)
Supporting Characters:
- White Wind (his stallion) (Final appearance)
Antagonists:
- Wild Indians
- Cy Hardwick, freight boss
- his gunmen
Other Characters:
- Two Freight Muleteers (Both Die)
- U.S. Marshal
- Doc Ferel
- Brownie
Locations:
- Earth-S
- American Old West
- Mesa Valley
- Stockwell, frontier town
- American Old West
Items
- Nitrous Oxide Tanks
- Illuminating Gas Tanks
Vehicles:
- mule-drawn buckboard wagons
- mule-drawn Conestoga wagons
Notes
- First appearance in the series for Doctor Death. He is the host/narrator for two short stand-alone horror stories, appearing in this issue and Whiz Comics #155. He debuted as host of the horror comic This Magazine Is Haunted (Volume 1) in 1951.
- Last issue for Golden Arrow.
- Much has changed since this series began, in Whiz Comics #2. White Wind now wears a saddle. More oddly, the whole setting seems to have been moved back from the 1940s to the 1870s, with this story featuring a "frontier town," and freight being moved in animal-powered wagons, and Indians on the warpath. The "new type of Army rifle" looks exactly like a Winchester Model 1873, and the Marshal communicates with the Army post by telegraph.
- In Lance O'Casey, Mike Bellew gets head-konked unconscious one time.
- Also appearing in this issue of Whiz Comics was:
- Doc Sorebones" (top halves of the "Wilbur the Waiter" pages)
- Wicky and O'Shawnessy: "Strawberries" (text story) by Walter Farmer
- Wilbur the Waiter (bottom halves of the "Doc Sorebones" pages)
See Also
Recommended Reading
- Marvel Family Recommended Reading
- Whiz Comics (Volume 1)
- Captain Marvel Adventures (Volume 1)
- Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1)
- Mary Marvel (Volume 1)
- Master Comics (Volume 1)
- Wow Comics (Volume 1)
- The Marvel Family (Volume 1)
- Hoppy the Marvel Bunny (Volume 1)
- Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Shazam!: The New Beginning (Volume 1)
- The Power of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder (Volume 1)
- Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil (Volume 1)
- The Trials of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Shazam! (Volume 2)
- Shazam! (Volume 3)
- Shazam! (Volume 4)
- The New Champion of Shazam! (Volume 1)
- Shazam! (Volume 5)