Number 2149: Pappy gets back to business, and Captain Marvel gets swamped

Pappy is back. No confetti and no "welcome home" banner, but yes, I have returned to this blog.

Now that I am resuming a regular schedule, first up is a Captain Marvel tale which has some features I thought newsworthy. Billy Batson does not get conked on the head, or tied up and gagged so he can’t yell out the magic word. He does his reporting job, and lets his alter ego, Captain Marvel, do the muscle work.

It is an early story, published in Captain Marvel Adventures #5 (1941). The Grand Comics Database credits “Fawcett staff” for the writing and drawing.

Captain Marvel went on to become one of the great successes of the Golden Age, which was probably his eventual undoing. The GCD has circulation numbers for issues from 1944, and they are over one million per issue. The broad appeal and large numbers surely got DC Comics in a suing mood. That suit and a glut of comic books on newsstands in 1953 caused Fawcett to call it quits, shutting down not only the Marvel Family, but their whole comic book division.

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