Captain Marvel Kills All the Villains in Whiz Comics #7, at Auction

There’s a line from the recent trailer for the Black Adam movie that has Hawkman telling Black Adam that, “Heroes don’t kill.”  Black Adam’s only response is, “Well, I do.”  And really, killing was actually not so uncommon for the Golden Age heroes, at least in their earlier days.  Superman certainly killed his enemies sometimes, and threatened them with death frequently.  Batman killed villains at first as well, and Captain America has done so as well.  It took a while for the superhero no-kill rule to start taking hold in the Golden Age.  And while the Golden Age Captain Marvel aka Shazam is typically considered a kinder, gentler superhero even by the standards of the Golden Age, he too has killed his villains.  There’s an example of this in Whiz Comics #7 (Fawcett Publications, 1940) Condition: GD, which is up for auction along with many other issues of Whiz Comics in the 2022 June 26-27 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122226 at Heritage Auctions.

In the story, Billy Batson uncovers a plot at the North Pole that involves stolen military planes and a group of explorers who have discovered a frozen race of prehistoric men who are super strong, super intelligent, and extremely obedient to orders.  The leader of the expedition who discovered them plans to use this strange, powerful army to take over the world.  In stopping this plan, Captain Marvel shows no qualms in tossing pilots out of airplanes to their certain doom (a version of this is shown on the cover of Whiz Comics #7), and destroying the entire plane fleet and all of its passengers, concluding, “Too bad, but you had it coming to you.”

While this is less uncommon in the early Golden Age than one might think, it’s still surprising to see such casual brutality in a Golden Age Captain Marvel story.  A historical oddity of the early Golden Age, there’s a Whiz Comics #7 (Fawcett Publications, 1940) Condition: GD up for auction along with many other issues of Whiz Comics in the 2022 June 26-27 Sunday & Monday Comic Books Select Auction #122226 at Heritage Auctions.

Whiz Comics #7 (Fawcett Publications, 1940) Condition: GD. Dr. Voodoo stories begin. Captain Marvel cover by C. C. Beck. Story art by Beck and Mac Raboy. Slightly brittle pages on the corners (the upper corners of the pages have broken off, but it doesn’t affect the art). There is a 2″ piece of tape on the upper part of the spine, and a small amount on the lower corner of the spine. Overstreet 2021 GD 2.0 value = $275.