Gold Nuggets: A Captain Marvel Christmas Carol

The Obscure Adventures of Comics' Greatest Generation!

One of my absolute favorite stories (especially this time of the year) is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
The story's powerful messages of redemption and social responsibility are timeless and transcend its original Victorian England setting...which is why I enjoy its adaptations into so many different media, time periods, and social settings.

One of the many media forms to adapt Dicken's classic morality tale is, of course, comic books...such as the (somewhat looser) adaptation found in Captain Marvel Adventures #42 (1945). 

"The Plot Against Christmas" opens with young radio journalist Billy Batson being sent to cover a special Christmas surprise at the Smith Toy Company. Billy learned that Happy and Jolly Smith were planning to give a sleigh full of free toys to the children of a local orphanage. Sounds great, right?  Well, not according to their older brother (and president of the company) Gouge Smith. Yes, that's "gouge" as in "chisel" or "swindle". Like any Scrooge stand-in would do, Gouge pulled the plug on the good-hearted plan....

An orphan himself, Billy Batson vowed to set things right as Captain Marvel!

(click on the panels for a larger view)

Fulfilling the role of Scrooge's ghostly guides, Cap flew Gouge to a local
 family's home to witness the simple joys of the Christmas season...

 

Undeterred, Cap took the anti-Christmas curmudgeon to 
visit a noble home of civic responsibility and sacrifice...

Finally, Cap brought greedy Gouge to the very orphanage
 the old man had turned his back on earlier that day...

Upon awakening, those troubled dreams (resulting from Cap's heart-tugging tour) inspired Gouge to not only change his ways and help the orphans...but to also dress up as Santa Claus and get stuffed down a chimney while doing it! Now that's a turnaround!

Like all the closing scenes of countless Christmas Carol adaptations, a spirit of giving and fellowship enveloped Gouge and his new-found friends...ending in a toast that echoed Tiny Tim's immortal "God bless us...every one!"

Comments

[Alexandra Kitty]

Love Captain Marvel of yore -- it's always a sweet pleasure to read -- and no "dark" Mary Marvel to tick you off...

[Mark Engblom]

Amen. Plus, Captain Marvel just works in a Christmas-themed story like no other superhero ever has. Is it the kid alter-ego? Is it the magic and mythic underpinnings of the character? Is it his big red suit? Whatever the reason, a Christmas Cap story is always a treat.

[Pat Curley]

I don't know why, but it has always seemed to me that a disproportionate percentage of the Christmas stories end up being absolute classics. All the Batman and Superman Christmas stories of the 1940s, the Christmas Spirit stories, the Silent Night of the Batman, etc., are all way above the mean.

Maybe it's because we don't mind the sentimentality (some would call it schmaltz) when it's associated with the holiday season? There's one particular scene in a Batman story where Bruce and Dick are out shopping and they encounter a young lad who looks as if Christmas is going to pass him by. So they load him up with Christmas gifts and give him some money for his mother's medicine. I first read the scene when I was a pretty callous teenager, and suddenly I had something in my eye. It's absolutely the finest bit of characterization for Bruce and Dick that I've ever seen.