“Mary Marvel’s Rescue at the North Pole” (Mary Marvel #5, September 1946) saw two brothers work together on this strange tale of the North Pole. Written by Otto Binder, creator of Mary Marvel, it was drawn by his older brother, Jack Binder, a seasoned pro of Pulp illustration and owner of his own comics studio. (Jack closed his studio in 1946 and worked where he liked until retirement in 1953.)
“Rescue at the North Pole” begins when Mary reads about two women explorers flying to the North Pole. Later on the radio she hears that Ingrid Ingle and Stella Wilson have sent an S.O.S. from the Arctic. Mary decides to go to the radio station where Billy Batson, her brother, works. Billy has received a transmission from the two pilots, about being forced to land and being attacked by strange warriors. Billy is about to say SHAZAM when Mary interrupts him. She will go to the rescue. She takes along the portable radar finder that Billy gives her.
Using the radar detector, Mary finds the lost plane and follows. She is swept up in an invisible force that takes her to another North Pole, this one tropical and full of dinosaurs. The two women pilots are surrounded by bald-headed cavemen armed with clubs. Stella smokes a cigarette, thinking them only curious. One caveman grabs for Stella’s lighter and she has to frighten them off by shooting a rifle over their heads. The cavemen rally, wanting to capture the women for their fire-toy and thunder-stick. They almost have the duo when Mary Marvel shows up and a punch-up ensues. One caveman breaks his club over Mary’s head to no effect.
Cavemen routed the girls have a chance to talk. Mary explains that they have come through a dimensional door and have gone back in time. To get home, all the flyers have to do is fly back through the door. Unfortunately the plane is broken. At this moment the cavemen return with a brontosaurus in tow. It wants to destroy the plane so Mary has to punch it. A caveman gets inside the plane and flies off. But since it is damaged he flies in circles until Mary can rescue him.
The cavemen aren’t quite done yet. They roll a giant boulder down onto the plane and its crew. Mary deflects it back at the Neanderthals. Taking control of the plane, Mary flies the two women out the dimensional door so they can arrive at the present day North Pole. The two women are heralded as heroes in the newspaper Mary reads.
Yah Girl Power! Even back in 1946, Otto Binder wanted girls to like comic books and feel empowered by them. This shouldn’t be surprising since Mary was based on Binder’s own daughter, Mary, of course. What father doesn’t want the world for his girl?
As a Northern “Mary Marvel’s Rescue at the North Pole” has little about the true North, though much of it seems descended from Edgar Rice Burroughs. (I wonder if Otto thought to have them fly through an opening in the planet and enter a prehistoric world?) I laughed at Jack Binder’s follically-challenged apemen. No idea where that came from! In the end, it seems even less of a Northern than Billy Batson’s “Monsters of the North Pole”.