What it’s taking you all months to experience was merely a day or two to me. I had borrowed the compete run of SHAZAM from my grade school friend Donald Sims, who had gotten it handed down to him by some other older relative. and there was no way that an unread comic book in my possession was going to stay that way for very long (oh, how things have changed!) So I powered through the stack in maybe two periods at most. We were beginning to near the end, though there were still a bunch of issues yet to read, the next one being this one, #27. That’s a not-terribly-attractive cover by Ernie Chan/Ernie Chua and Kurt Schaffenberger. Chan had become DC’s defacto cover artist for super hero titles for some reason–this despite the fact that he wasn’t really great at the sort of larger-than-life exaggeration that the form called for. Accordingly, Captain Marvel on this cover seems a bit awkward
After two issues’ worth of set-up, new writer E. Nelson Bridwell had arrived at a status quo that mimicked that of the Saturday morning live action television show, as had been his instruction from publisher Jenette Kahn and new series editor Joe Orlando. Billy Batson was now traveling across the country in an RV, accompanied by Uncle Dudley (who was often referred to as his Mentor in another sop to the TV show.) Bridwell had set up a plotline for the bicentennial in which Doctor Sivana was intent on destroying the nation city by city, thus giving Billy a reason to be out on the road. This was also a parallel to a sequence that Fawcett had done with the character back in the 1940s that also saw the Big Red Cheese visiting an assortment of cities and meeting real-world politicians and businesspeople who lived there.
This month, Billy and Dudley have followed Sivana to Philadelphia, where Captain Marvel clobbes a bunch of criminals. But one escapes, and winds up running into Sivana, who recruits him for his gang. Sivana and his daughter Beautia have developed a machine that allows them to bring the greatest criminals from history back to life: Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Micajah and Wiley Harpe, Captain William Butler, Simon Girty and of course Benedict Arnold. (Bridwell’s extensive knowledge of history serves him well here–this sequence is almost educational.) Sivana divides his gang into three groups, each one led by some of the historic criminals, and sends them out to cause havoc. But this is all a feint to keep Captain Marvel busy while Sivana arranges for the Captain himself to destroy the city.
Captain Marvel winds up racing from situation to situation, clobbering portions of each gang but not being able to contain them all. Realizing that he’s deliberately being kept on the go, Billy uses the Eterni-Phone to talk to one of the Elders, the got of speed, Mercury. Mercury tells Billy that he’ll send him somebody to help. This turns out to be Kid Eternity, a character originally published by Quality Comics in the 1940s who shared some similarities with Captain Marvel. In fact, in later years, Bridwell would perfectly tie the origin of Kid Eternity to that of Captain Marvel Jr in an extraordinary act of cross-company continuity. I wonder if he had that bit in his mind already when he did this story? Anyway, in response to Mercury’s summons, Kid Eternity and Mr. Keeper appear, and Billy brings them up to speed. The Kid says that he’ll deal with the villains from the past while Captain Marvel tracks down Sivana himself.
Billy is swiftly able to locate Sivana’s whereabouts, but in typical fashion he’s discovered before he can summon captain Marvel and captured. Meanwhile, Kid Eternity is racing from place to place to round up all of the historic bad guys. He’s got the power to summon any figure from throughout history at the utterance of the word Eternity, s he’s able to bring forth a perfect counter to each one of Sivana’s agents. He’s able to get them all except for Benedict Arnold, who flees. Kid Eternity races after Arnold without Mr Keeper realizing it–and Kid Eternity’s powers only work when he’s in Keeper’s presence. Accordingly, he’s left powerless and captured by Sivana and his remaining goons as well.
Sivana had planned to use Captain Marvel to destroy Philadelphia by changing the atomic structure of the Liberty Bell, turning it into an atomic bomb. Captain Marvel was scheduled to ring the bell at a special ceremony, and now doing so would set off an explosion that would destroy the city. but with Billy and Kid Eternity in his power, Sivana realizes that he doesn’t need to be so complicated in his planning. He traps both kids under the Liberty Bell, then intends to get to a safe distance and set the thing off by remote control. But Benedict Arnold’s sword juts through the bell’s crack, and Billy is able to use it to cut away his gag, allowing him to summon Captain Marvel once again.
After that, the rest is wrap-up. It turns out that Benedict Arnold betrayed Sivana deliberately–he has remorse for the action that he took in life that were motivated by personal greed. With Sivana cowed, Cap is able to get him to restore the Liberty Bell to normal–but of course the wily scientist is able to teleport himself away before Marvel can turn him in. He tells Captain Marvel before he goes that his next stop will be Boston, thus setting up the next adventure. With the danger over, Kid Eternity and Mr Keeper take their leave, departing without another word–though Keep expresses that he wishes he had an opportunity to meet Uncle Dudley on this caper.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 