Happy World Penguin Day: Captain Marvel Jr. and the Crystal City of the Peculiar Penguins (1943)

by Bob Schwartz

I could talk about how special penguins are to the world and to me, or talk about the existential threats they face, or show pictures of impossibly cute penguin chicks. You can find that everywhere.

Instead, this is something you may not find anywhere.

An issue of Master Comics from 1943 features the story “Captain Marvel Jr. and the Crystal City of the Peculiar Penguins”.

I have included a few pages, which may be hard to read. Instead of my description, I will let the penguins explain.

CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.:
But how do you keep your city so warm?

PENGUIN:
Through our sun-crystal! It captures and magnifies the sun’s light and heat — a strange gas keeps the crystal aloft! Those thieves you fought had come down to steal our crystals from us! They had heard rumors of our invention from a lost explorer whom we saved years ago!

For centuries we have kept our civilization secret because we felt the world wasn’t ready to receive us! We feared your war-like ways and your unscrupulous merchant-bandits! We pretended to be ignorant and permitted your explorers to capture us for your zoos just to keep our secret!

The efforts of the bandits to steal the crystals is thwarted and they are defeated. Once they are captured, the penguins build an enclosure for them.

CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.:
Frankly, I don’t know what to do with these crooks! If I take them back to jail, your secret will be out! Yet I can’t** let them go free!

PENGUIN:
Leave that to us, Captain Marvel Jr. … we know what to do!”

You see? We’ve always wanted to start a zoo…and these animals will be our first specimens!