Captain Marvel, Jr. #90 is an issue of the series Captain Marvel, Jr. (Volume 1) with a cover date of October, 1950.
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Cities at Sea"
A Time Capsule is due to be buried and Freddy Freeman is peddling the Daily Gazette which is running this as a headline. After he’s sold out for the day, he heads over to see the Time Capsule and finds the Manager of the Time Capsule Project feeling pensive about the idea that it will survive unto the distant year of 5,000, when it’s due to be opened. To find out for himself, Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL behind a rock to fly off to the future, hanging off the Rock of Eternity to travel there. Once in the year 5,000 though, he finds that the Time Capsule is still intact… but New York City itself has been utterly destroyed and the land is covered in signs warning of radioactivity in the area. Junior assumes there must’ve been an Atomic War and wonders where people would be living other than land, and while heading to South America, he finds a gigantic floating city on the water! He quickly stops the City at Sea from running into an iceberg (by pushing it out of the way) and the people of the future (who wear white dress shirts, gold medallions and trunks) and finds they have a mostly marine-based society, eating shellfish, fish and kelps (especially for clothing) and have a Metal Extraction Plant to derive metals from the ocean itself. Junior points out that it’s quite dangerous to live on the sea and the man in charge agrees: A City sinks almost every day and turns on the radio, finding that Oceanopolis has sunk in the Pacific, killing 5,000,000. Junior offers they return to the land, but he finds that people believe the land to be covered in monsters, poison and witches. Junior looks over his book of Legends of the Land to find that land has now become a place of mystery and terror and they tell tales of “Land Serpents” like Sea Serpents of the past. When Junior offers they try looking themselves, he is derided as a fool and a madman. He soon finds no one else is willing to try, so he just drags three people to the mainland, where they freak out when a cow comes along. When they point to the signs of poisoned land, Junior points out that there’s plants growing everywhere, which they wouldn’t if the land was still radioactive. Further, he opens the Time Capsule for them so they can get a leg up in restarting a 1950 society. Soon enough, everyone has figured out that the land is safe again and begin to restart civilization again. Returning to the present, Junior tells the Manager that it’s a long story, but his Time Capsule will be very important in the future. Later, Freddy thinks about how superstition can make people afraid of things, but the truth always prevails in the end.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Cities at Sea"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- The Manager of the Time Capsule Project
- The People of the Year 5,000
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- The Time Capsule
- New York City
- The Rock of Eternity
- The Year 5,000
- The Cities at Sea
- Land
- Oceanopolis (Destroyed)
- The Year 5,000
Items:
- An Iceberg
- A Book, Legends of the Land
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Magic Trunk!"
Mr. Peabody leaves Mrs. Wagner’s to get another room in the city, only for a man to show up before she has to put up the sign for an open room. Freddy soon helps his new housemate up the stairs with a large trunk, as he warns not to let the lid open… He introduces himself as “Zarro” and asks merely that they not open his trunk while he goes out to do some business. Mrs. Wagner and Freddy, however, were standing near a loud radiator and don’t hear his request, so Mrs. Wagner decides to unpack it for him to be hospitable, but when it’s opened, it releases a large patchwork dinosaur that starts to make its way out the window. Mrs. Wagner faints and Freddy calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to go catch it as Captain Marvel, Jr. Mrs. Wagner comes to, only to find that inside the Trunk is also a living dummy, a robot and a band of three monkeys and promptly faints again. Junior finds the large dinosaur is actually rather timid and is scared by even a small dog barking at it, so he flies it back to Mrs. Wagner’s. Junior finds more and more strange things coming out of the Trunk, including a marching group of animated suits of armor, two patchwork Elephants and two patchwork Stegosauruses. Junior soon packs them all back into the Trunk and sits on it to keep it shut and they decide that Zarro is probably a magician of some sort. Zarro soon arrives home, angry that they opened his trunk and released his “performers” all over the city. When Junior points out that Trunk seems pretty magical, Zarro deflects about the source of his power and Junior decides to help him find the rest of his performers. Zarro is shocked he can fly and Junior assumes he’s a foreigner, but before Zarro can say where he’s from, they spot the simian band, who plead not to go back to the Trunk, only for Zarro to wave his wand, disappearing them all. Junior asks how he made animals talk, but Zarro again says it’s a secret. They soon find the Robot and Dummy dancing to music on a streetcorner, the Animate Armors playing on a playground and the Patchwork Elephants at a zoo. Once they’re all packed back inside, Zarro says that he’s leaving this world, since his performers prefer it too well and won’t be able to make his show at the Avon Theatre. Further, he removes his mask, revealing that he’s actually an alien with pink skin, a third eye and two large horns. He soon has Junior fly him to his Space Ship and takes off for Mars. Junior supposes it’s probably better that he isn’t there anymore and later, Mrs. Wagner and Freddy are pensive when a new boarder comes in and asks if they can help unpack his trunk...
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Magic Trunk!"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- Zarro the Great
- The Patchwork Brontosaurus
- A Dummy
- A Robot
- A Band of Apes
- A Pair of Patchwork Elephants
- A Pair of Patchwork Stegasauruses
Other Characters:
- Mr. Peabody
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
- Zarro's Space-Ship
Synopsis for Capt. Kid: "What Does It Mean?"
Captain Kid jumps on a train and says goodbye to Pudgy, saying that he’s going to visit his Uncle and Aunt. Pudgy tries to warn him about a dumbwaiter, which Captain Kid says he knows how to handle (Not tipping them!) and leaves for the city. Above on the top floor, Uncle Joe puts some garbage in the dumbwaiter as Aunt Clara tries to clean up every last thing. He pulls the rope to draw up the dumbwaiter, puts the trash in and then sends it back down to the basement as Captain Kid arrives. Aunt Clara hugs him tightly and asks many questions, though Uncle Joe offers she let him go to his room to hang up his clothes. Finding the closet is full of suits, he finds a small door in the kitchen and dumps all his clothes into the dumbwaiter. Aunt Clara asks if he has any snapshots from home and Captain Kid goes to retrieve them from his other outfit, only to find he’s dropped all his clothes into the dumbwaiter. Uncle Joe runs downstairs quickly to try to stop them before it’s too late… only to find that a supervisor has burned them in the furnace already. The next day, Captain Kid returns, not having any clean clothes with him and says that he now knows there’s two kinds of dumbwaiter. He asks Pudgy if he knows what a dumbbell is and Pudgy offers “something you exercise with,” but Captain Kid says he’s the other kind.
Appearing in Capt. Kid: "What Does It Mean?"
Featured Characters:
- Captain Kid
Supporting Characters:
- Uncle Joe
- Aunt Clara
Other Characters:
- Pudgy
Locations:
- Earth-S
- Podunk
- A Train Station
- The City
- Podunk
Items:
- Captain Kid's Clothes (Destroyed)
Vehicles:
- A Train
Synopsis for Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Battle of the Birds and Beasts"
Freddy Freeman wakes up at home in bed to the sound of Mrs. Wagner screaming and calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to investigate as Captain Marvel, Jr., finding her canary is missing! She says she’s very attached to her pet bird, since she likes it better than annoying boarder Jesse Marks, who just won’t stop making bad puns. Junior is stunned to find the canary outside… attacking a cat! Mrs. Wagner throws a pot at her own door rather than hear Jesse keep making puns as Junior returns with her canary, but when he goes to go back to bed, he finds there’s a police car racing out. He follows it to find a flock of pigeons attacking a horse, so Junior removes the horse’s feedbag and uses it to catch all the birds. The cops tell him this is the fourth call they’ve got about birds attacking other animals and soon get news that the City Zoo is even worse. Heading there, Junior flies the Tropical Birds have escaped and flies around their large cage to retake them all. A zookeeper tells him when they’re returned that they all rushed him when he went to feed them.
The next morning, Freddy is still puzzled by the avian antagonism and Jesse jokingly offers it was probably some they ate. Freddy goes to find Samuel Purks, the city’s lead bird food manufacturer and opens a box of his Purks Bird Food near his parrots, which Purks suddenly recoils from, making Freddy think that it makes the birds violent. Freddy says he can just take some to the police to have them test it, so Purks clocks him with a paperweight and he wakes up, as usual, bound and gagged, but this time Purks is going to dump him off of the roof of his building. He admits that he bought 500 tons of rare bird food from “the tropics” and mixed it with seeds of the “Pyrrhic” Plant that makes birds evil. While falling off the building, one of Purks’ Parrots eats the Purks Bird Food and attacks Freddy, tearing off his gag while trying to eat his face, so he calls CAPTAIN MARVEL to become Captain Marvel, Jr. and punches over Purks to drag him to jail. Later, Mrs. Wagner gets tired of Jesse’s puns and drops a cake on his head to shut him up.
Appearing in Capt. Marvel, Jr.: "Capt. Marvel, Jr. and The Battle of the Birds and Beasts"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Jesse Marks
Antagonists:
- Samuel Purks
- Violent Birds
Other Characters:
Locations:
- Earth-S
- New York City
- Mrs. Wagner's Boarding House
- The City Zoo
- New York City
Items:
- Purks Bird Food
Vehicles:
Trivia
- Despite the cover, none of these fanciful creatures exit the Magic Trunk. Instead, they're mostly large circus-type animals and dinosaurs that seem to be made of animate patchwork.
- This issue marks the final appearance of Captain Kid in Captain Marvel, Jr.. He'll return in Captain Marvel Adventures# 114
See Also