Number 1943: The Marvel Family’s adolescent brains

We now know what we did not in 1950, that teenagers have brains that are still developing, still growing.* Sometimes teens do dumb things, even though their larger bodies may fool us into thinking they should be smarter than they are. (I am not disparaging you, teenage readers...as a teen my brain was once undeveloped, and now with age is becoming undeveloped again.) Anyway, developing brains explains why the Marvel Family should be duped by a scientist, leading to Captain Marvel (a youth in a man’s body) hitting Dr. Dunkel first, then demanding an explanation for his actions. Teens can be impetuous and impulsive.

“The Menace of the Rings Around Earth” is the kind of screwball plot Fawcett got away with for several years in stories with Captain Marvel and his family, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. The best thing about it for me is the artwork of Kurt Schaffenberger. He had the ability, in my opinion, of making his art so precise it looked almost as if done by a machine.

Written by Otto Binder, and published in The Marvel Family #54 (1950).

*See this article from NPR.

A Marvel Family story where the silliness is deliberate. Just click on the thumbnail.

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