From 1978,
Shazam! #33, "The World's Mightiest Race" Written by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Tenny Henson, inks by Vince Colletta with an assist by Kurt Schaffenberger. (That's somewhat unusual, Colletta's usual main selling point was that he was timely.)
This was pretty late in this series' run, and the book had been updated to more closely resemble the TV show; with Billy travelling the county with a newly mustached Uncle Dudley. He had more contact with the gods of his namesake for assists; but all this meant no Mary Marvel or Captain Marvel Jr. (Or so I thought, maybe it was just this issue: C.M. Jr. would be in the next issue; and the rest of the Marvel Family in the last.) This issue does feature a classic villain, that the TV show wouldn't have had the budget for, at all, ever: the robot Mister Atom! Mr. Mind had rebuilt him, and tasked him with challenging "
the best car on earth" at the Indianapolis 500. The people had one hour to produce a racer, or Mister Atom would meltdown, irradiating the entire city.
Captain Marvel has an idea, and a reporter tips him to a garage where he can build a racer, with the help of some plucky kids. The wizard Shazam had tipped Billy, say his name while in the car, which the kids dub the Shazamobile--a great name, that Captain Marvel couldn't say! Now with the car powered by magic lightning, CM races Atom, who is dismayed when the Shazamobile pulls ahead, doing "
300 miles a minute!" Which would be, what, 18 thousand miles an hour? That's 23 times the speed of sound, so wouldn't Indianapolis have been destroyed by sonic booms? Atom tries running him off the road, but the Shazamobile was as invulnerable as its driver, and knocks the Atomobile out.
Mister Atom then summons his body back by remote control, and gets punched off the face of the earth. (Atom could take that, but didn't seem able to fly fast enough to get back to earth!) Captain Marvel throws the radioactive remnants of the Shazamobile into the sun, while Uncle Dudley backtracks Atom's trail with a geiger counter to catch Mr. Mind. CM leaves the depowered Shazamobile with the kids.
3 comments:
Exactly, so I wonder why Colletta needed the assist, unless even he was bogged down by other assignments & fell behind or his work wasn’t deemed good enough by the editor.
Anyhoo, so….Captain Marvel as Speed Racer then I see. Both cars are infinitely better looking than any of those fugly cybertrucks Musk has successfully littered the roads with. But apparently they’re just as bad for the environment because of the radioactive parts used to power them. How would tossing the Shazammobile into the sun NOT cause a solar flare that would in turn fry the plant?
I think they’re more dangerous than bad for the environment. They’re still electric cars- they’re just huge mirrors that fall apart and are razor sharp.
I don’t think they’re that ugly though- kinda reminds me of the Delorean from Back to the Future. Retro-futurism is somewhat in still.
As to the comic, the assist is probably drawing certain figures on model- I know they had somebody redraw Kirby’s Superman heads for his Fourth World books. The difference is Colletta isn’t a big enough name or a distinctive enough style to not mention it. Also, I think those last couple of issues after this were another ‘update’ to make the book grittier and more like other 70’s books.
Naww man, even the Delorien, the fever dream of a rich coke head looked infinitely better than these metallic abominations. Besides I’ve yet to see Musk’s temu transformers be the main character of a hit movie, let alone a hit franchise.
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