Ozballs Thoughts!

Above is one of the weirdest covers I've come across, as the world of Sad Sack merges with the Wizard of Oz.


And while I was thinking about OZ, I remembered that when Captain Marvel was undergoing his life-changing transformations way back in issue #11 of his title, he was brought under the power of "Zo", which is pretty obviously "Oz" spelled backwards, such as it is. Among the powers Mar-Vell gets from Zo is teleportation, the ability effectively to think yourself to another location, very like the ability Dorothy is given at the end of the story when it's revealed her slippers are under her control and can take her home. I never got that as a kid, but I've figured it out since.


But what just occurred to me, and maybe I'm just slow is that the good Captain Mar-Vell's adventures after meeting Zo have Wizard of Oz aspects too.

The first threat he faces is from the Mad Thinker who has thrown in with Egghead and The Puppet Master to cause trouble for not only Captain Marvel, but also the Avengers and the Sub-Mariner. This formed an early Marvel Universe crossover between Subby, Mar-Vell, and the Assemblers that lasted a few months.


Captain Marvel for his part faced the Man-Slayer, a plastic android which was remotely controlled by the Mad Thinker. A "Scarecrow" of sorts if you will.


Next Marvel was pitted against Iron Man who is under the sway of Puppet Master, a "Tin Man" of a certain kind actually.

Now I've not found an equivalent to the Cowardly Lion, but the story was cut short as Mar-Vell was taken to the Kree homebase and Zo's identity was revealed. It turns out that Zo was a fake and actually a disguise for Zarek, at the time a major official in the Kree power who was in league with Ronan the Accuser and who wanted to take power from the Supreme Intelligence.


And doesn't the Supreme Intelligence doesn't look like the "Great and powerful OZ". I thought so.


He kind of sounds like him too as he gives Captain Mar-Vell his new duds and life mission. This is a great splash by Don Heck and Syd Shores. The colorist at least knew that the Nega-Bands were on the way as he or she has put golden stripes on each glove where the bands would go.

For the record the Zo issues were pencilled by first Dick Ayers when he and Don Heck switched assignments one for one and Heck took over Captain Savage and his Battlefield Raiders. After a few issues of straight-up superhero work, Ayers gave way to Frank Springer and Tom Sutton before Don Heck returned for the finale.


With the very next issue Gil Kane shows up and Cap goes more Shazam than OZ.

Was all this planned? Probably not that carefully at all, but it's always fun to look back and speculate about at these possibilities.

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