Kickin It Ooooold School

I have recently had the pleasure of acquiring a large amount of older comics from girlfriend's dad. He goes through houses for an auction company and sends any comics he finds my way. I've gotten a lot of great stuff including some old Walt Disney comics, some of the classic Frank Miller Daredevil issues, and Fantastic Four #28. As with anything though, you take the good with the bad. And some of the bad comics in this selection are the baddest of the bad. The weirdest book I've come across is Captain Marvel #3, published by M.F. Enterprises in 1966. This ain't your daddy's Captain Marvel, hell, this isn't even your Captain Marvel.



This Captain Marvel, aka Prof. Winkle, protects the "bustling metropolis" of Riverview safe from such dastardly fiends as The Bat, Mr. Brilliant, Pyro, Vapor Man, Dr. Darkness, and Col. Cold (think virus, not temperature). The Captain, created by Carl Burgos, has quite the array of abilities. First and formost, he can split his appendages and head from his torso with the simple call of "SPLIT!" "XAM!" brings him back together. In addition he can switch from civies to costume at will, smell great distances, fly, shoot lazer beams from his eyes, see radiation, breath under water, and whistle at a very high pitch. To keep his powers going he must rub a mystical medallion every so often (the exact origin and time limit is never made clear). You can just imagine the out of context quotes that come from situations when he runs out of power: "If I don't rub it soon and re-energize my system, I'll be in serious trouble!" Hey, what fanboy can't relate to that?



The basic concept of this book sounds quite silly: a character with a very familiar name and (for the most part) familiar powers fights halfwits bent on world domination. Then again, this was made in 1966. The story and inks are acredited to Carl Hubbelle. Carl seems to have followed the common comic book equation of adding powers when the character was in need of them.

It would be easy to sit here and completely bash this book and character, but I'd rather look at the posibilities. This is the kind of character that someone like Garth Ennis or Grant Morrison could do a lot with. Just imagine what they'd do with a guy who can detach a head from his body. Hehe.