Dude in Distress Week - So Golden Age Captain Marvel was more innocent was it?

[icon_uk]

If any dude got into more distress than Messr's Grayson and Barnes back in the day, it HAS to be young Mr Batson over at Fawcett Comics. Since he needed to be able to say his magic word to actually BECOME the superhero he was often gagged and tied up by the villain (whether they knew about the magic word or not). There are many, MANY examples I could have picked of the incredibly creative ways he came up with to free himself; from sticking his face into burning torches, to hypnotising monkeys, from dripping acid onto his face, to convenient micrometeorite strikes, but this one is something else...

From 1951, in Captain Marvel Adventures #142 we have "Captain Marvel fights the Tiger Terror" as Billy Batson comes across a shape-changing menace who uses the name John Jones... Honest! (2 1/3 pages of a 7 page story)

Billy Batson's friend Mr Talky Tawny, the civilized tigerhas taken in a lodger for company (For some people sharing a house with a seven foot tall articulate tiger is a bit... off, though I imagine he has the furry market all sewn up). Mr Jones seems like a nice fellow, even when a couple of savage night-time tiger attacks in the locality suggest that Mr Tawny is reverting to his feral origins. Billy is able to change to Captain Marvel before he becomes tiger chow but even his speed isn't enough for him to locate the offending animal, which has sort of conclusively proven it's Mr Tawny, by talking as it attacks him. Billy can't believe this of his friend, even when Mr Jones mentions his suspicions that Mr Tawny has become a were-tiger (Wolves aren't the only were-beasts in the world), and the full moon will turn him into a ravenous monster. When they get back to his house, they find Mr Tawny sleeping soundly in his bed... but was he really?

The next night a woman has her throat nearly ripped out by the tiger beast, and a patrolling Captain Marvel has to take her to hospital rather than chase the creature down. But when he gets back to Mr Tawny's house, he's apparently fled (according to Mr Jones at any rate)

Cap is determined to give his friend one last chance, but knows his presence will scare Tawny off, so reverts to Billy, and he and Mr Jones set themselves up as bait for the beast, sitting in the living room with the curtains open, so that when Mr Tawny comes back, he'll see two very edible human ready-meals in his home.

But....



Ouch! At age about 12, Billy must have a more dented skull than Frank and Joe Hardy combined!

And now we get to the distress...



So this kid, our hero no less, and still several years off even needing to wonder about buying a razor, is now running for his life, and choking to death on his own blood thanks to a tiger tearing at his throat... Ahhh comics, y'know... for kids!



Yes, that's an interesting point you raise Mr Tawny, presumably Cap flew to a hospital, changed back and got treatment, because I don't think Billy magically heals.

Still, MY story ends with a super-smart tiger staking a weretiger through the heart! Beat that! :P

Comments

[freezer]

And the very next issue, we see a pissed-off Mr. Jones yelling at Mr. Tawny "IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT, YOU JACKASS!"

[icon_uk]

Universal Studios have a LOT to answer for in terms of perpetuating the "one way" to kill a specific type of monster

[saralakali]

I'm pretty sure the transformation cured Billy. And a stake through the heart would kill anything, supernatural or not.

[icon_uk]

Well, magical healing when he transformers back would explain why BIlly doesn't have a skull whose X-ray would like a jigsaw puzzle.

[q99]

Yea, quite.

There's a couple traditional 'weaknesses' that are just too universally effective, like beheading :)

--
On the injury, maybe his magic metabolism, once active, gets to work repairing stuff that happened to his fleshy body, so a couple minutes transformed closes up small wounds.

[tacobob]

And nobody had any questions about the dead guy with a stick jammed in his heart? o_o

[icon_uk]

When a 7 foot tall tiger in a suit explains, with considerable verbal dexterity, what happened, YOU BELIEVE HIM (especially when a guy who can drop kick the moon is standing behind him)

[cypherfdp]

Uhhhh I'm no doctor, but wouldn't clearing your punctured, bleeding throat out with water be incredibly painful? I might be wrong, but still, ouch.

[q99]

Better than the alternative, I'd think.

Billy Batson, badass.

[silicondream]

I'm pretty sure it's not even physically possible. I mean, if your trachea is filled with blood, dumping water in after it isn't exactly going to make you choke less.

[icon_uk]

Perhaps when you have a hole in your throat the water just gushes out, clearing the blood clogging your airway?

[silicondream]

But if there's a hole that big the blood itself should already be gushing out. Fresh blood is pretty liquid, unless Billy's got some special type that clots in five seconds...

[blackruzsa]

Billy Batson scares me now.

[icon_uk]

And so he should, the kids a seriously badass trouper!