I've always loved Captain Marvel. There's something about the Big Red Cheese that I've always found immensely appealing, but it's not anything I can put my finger on. I don't think it's the 'everyboy' appeal of Billy Batson, as I usually just find the little runt annoying. His sole purpose seems to be to get knocked out and bound and gagged, so he can dramatically free his mouth and scream, "SHAZAM!"
The World's Mightiest Mortal's legal woes are legendary, and covered extensively on other sites, so I won't even say anything about it, except to say it's a fascinating story. I highly recommend seeking it out.
No, today we are looking at a story near the end of Captain Marvel's original run. From CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES #148, published in 1953, comes a tale scripted by Otto Binder and featuring the usual fantastic art of C.C. Beck.
One night, in the midst of an eerie fog, Billy Batson, intrepid boy newscaster for WHIZ (and also Captain Marvel!), heads over to the lab of Dexter Knox, boy scientist. It seems Billy's news program has need of a new story, and as Billy muses, Dexter is usually good for an unusual item. To wit...
After meeting Mr. Two, Dexter takes Billy to his new invention: ultra-radar!(Coincidentally, this is the last time 'ultra-radar' is mentioned in this story.) It works best with the lights out, apparently, and as soon as the lights are dimmed...
....the hideous shriek of someone screaming mathematical formulas heralds the entrance of a ghost! Young Billy Batson, who but has to utter one world and be transformed into the World's Mightiest Mortal, is scared senseless. Dexter, the rational mind of science is nonplussed. Everyone knows, on a scientific level, that a spirit can't harm anyone!
Dexter, and perhaps all of science, however...is wrong! The ghost picks up Mr. Two and hurls it at the two boys, screaming mathematical gibberish all the while. Only a quick shout of "Shazam!" by Billy saves the day, as the metal form of Mr. Two bounces harmlessly off the chest of Captain Marvel.
In a move worthy of the greatest ghost hunters of all time, Captain Marvel proceeds to...shoo the ghost away.
After the ghost is chased off, the scientific method is immediately brought out to figure out why a ghost would haunt a scientific laboratory! Well, the lab wasn't built on a graveyard. That'll bring out ghosts for sure! No murders were ever commited there, if you don't count the dispatching of Mr. Two mere moments before (whose remains Dexter is sweeping up as he says this). Dexter has no dead enemies who would want to haunt him from beyond the grave. Yup, this sure is perplexing...
....I mean, you expect ghosts to haunt old houses or swamps, right? But in a science lab? It makes absolutely no sense! There's no more time to contemplate it, though, because it's after Billy's bedtime.
While Billy gets some shut-eye, perhaps we should do the same. This story is about to heat up, and we can't help scientifically figure out this ghost shit if we didn't get enough sleep, right?
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