Whiz Comics
Entry updated 2 March 2026. Tagged: Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1940-1953). Fawcett Publications. 155 issues (#2-#155, with two numbered as #3). Artists include C.C. Beck, Pete Costanza, Kurt Schaffenberger and Basil Wolverton. Scriptwriters include Otto Binder, Rod Reed, Basil Wolverton and Bill Woolfolk. Initially 68 pages, down to 36 by the end of its run. Initially with several long strips, declining to 3-4 as the page numbers reduced; there was also a short text story, plus short strips as filler.
Whiz Comics introduced Captain Marvel to the world (see America's Greatest Comics; Captain Marvel). In #2 (that is, the first issue) a mysterious stranger takes homeless newspaper boy Billy Batson to an underground cavern, using a post-modern (and a little psychedelic) subway car; in the cavern are seven statues indicating the "seven deadly enemies of man" (pride, envy, greed etc.) and a white robed old man on a marble throne. He is SHAZAM – an acronym for Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury – and for three thousand years has used those heroes' powers (wisdom, strength, stamina, power, courage and speed) to battle the forces of evil. Billy is to be his successor, who by saying "Shazam" becomes Captain Marvel, a costumed adult with the same set of Superpowers (also including flight, though in #95 a criminal persuades the air traffic authorities to ground him). Evil is duly fought, including the regular Mad Scientist foe Sivana. In the second #3 Captain Marvel travels to Venus in a Spaceship, fights Monsters and prevents Queen Beautia, the Empress of Venus, (a woman whose subjects are human-sized frogs) from conquering Earth aided by Sivana; in #4 her first step is an attempt to become President of the USA ("Every man in this country will vote for you"). Genre tropes are common, including brainwashing machines; shrink Rays; a formula that reduces adults to babies (Billy is thus treated and finds he can only say "Tha-Tham", fortunately he finds an ageing formula); facing Captain Nazi (a costumed Nazi Supervillain who first appeared in Master Comics #21 (1941)); using a Time Machine; visiting Utopia; a serum which evolves apes into humans (see Evolution) and beyond, the subject eventually becoming a super-intelligent man of the future; tourists arrive from 8998 CE to watch contemporary disasters; stamp collecting on other worlds; the owner of some Arctic islands decides to shift the Earth so the poles are elsewhere, making her properties more salubrious and valuable (see Climate Change); Aliens prepare to invade the Earth and being amoeba-men split in two whenever Captain Marvel hits them; warring Intelligent ants and wasps drop miniature atomic bombs on each other; trading aliens want to exchange gold for Earth's copper, leading to an Economics lesson on the importance of that metal to Earth's civilisation. In #100 Sivana fires his "dimensional lightning" gun (see Weapons) at Captain Marvel, sending him "to a world 100 trillion miles" away: though he can fly in space, he does accept identifying our star from the thirty billion in the Milky Way might be difficult ("It would take me 100 years to visit all the stars"), until seeing Vega and Sirius enables him to work out our sun's position, and flies back – the journey taking less than 100 minutes. #154 has a small world on collision course with Earth: as Sivana lands before Captain Marvel does, he points out that – just as Columbus claimed America – he is thus its ruler and so can forbid the other's presence. Being a stickler for the law, Captain Marvel leaves.
#2 also introduces Ibis the Invincible, an Ancient Egyptian mummy who comes back to life as a turbaned gentleman and fights crime with his Magic wand (the "Ibistick"), aided by his beloved, Princess Taia; though the frequent genre elements are primarily Fantasy (including Gog and Magog appearing in #108), occasional sf tropes appear. These include Ibis discovering the Earth's brain in #132 (see Living Worlds), and the rubber inhabitants of another Dimension stealing a scientist's formula for synthetic rubber in #133. The costumed Spy Smasher uses the Gyrosub, which travels by air, ground or underwater "as fast as light", whilst other sf elements sometimes appear; but the sequence is mainly mundane. In one set of Captain Marvel stories, Spy Smasher is Hypnotized into being the villain (last appearance #74). Doctor Voodoo starts as a US doctor working in the Brazilian jungle, so named because the white tribe of headhunters he helps believe his medicine is magic; he is helped by jungle girl Maxinya and becomes a Tarzan figure, fighting giant apes and oddly attired Arab ivory hunters (in Brazil), until #18 when he is sent on a quest back to the time of the Spanish colonization of South America (the Time Travel is by magic) becoming a swashbuckler, facing giants, Monsters and getting involved in the Crusades (last appearance #34, still stuck in the past).
The other strips are often adventurers who fight crime and spies (see Crime and Punishment), their tales sometimes having genre elements – such as evil scientists, the fountain of youth (see Rejuvenation), and a giant Cyclops – and in #5 news reporter Scoop Smith foils not one, but two underground Lost Races in Mexico; one green-skinned, the other descendants of Mexicans buried centuries ago, both wanting to conquer the country above (last appearance #6). Golden Arrow is an archer in the contemporary wild west (see Westerns); private detective Dan Dare should not be confused with Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future (last appearance #22). #35-#39 had a strip entitled Colonel Porterhouse, a Parody of some other story in that issue: the pompous Colonel assure two children that he has experienced a similar event, duly recounted as a tall tale in Club Story mode. Of the shorter strips, Wolverton's half-page "The Culture Corner" (in most issues #65-#146) featured absurd solutions to everyday problems (see Humour).
Captain Marvel and Ibis the Invincible strips appear in all issues; Golden Arrow in all but the last. Golden Arrow is only a borderline superhero at best, but might be considered an early archer hero (though not the first, who seems to have been Arrow in Funny Pages, September 1938). Captain Marvel is often entertaining, with much humour: Scientific Errors (such as those mentioned in #100 above) tend to come across as self-parody rather than a writer's indifference. The other notable strip is Ibis the Invincible, which is frequently imaginative. Both strips' artwork is often good, though each has its weaker moments in both art and story. Whiz Comics' most successful year was 1944 when 8.27m copies were sold. [SP]
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