JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Captain Marvel was once upon a time in the 1940's a superhero more popular than Superman, though Superman is the obvious victor over time (and a long time at that). I don't know what Captain Marvel is doing here hawking a paper punch-out flying "buzz bomb", particularly since it seems to have been produced during WWII.1 It does seem unlikely to me that a flying toy modeled on the buzz bomb would be sold to kids during the war. After all, the "buzz bomb" was the German advanced weapon called the V-1, or Vergeltungswaffe 1, (“retaliation”, or “vengeance” weapon), or Fieseler Fi 103, or Doodlebug, and was a flying bomb (on the order of a very primitive cruise missile guided by a gyroscope autopilot) launched against population centers in England by the Nazis during the June 1944-January 1945 period. The bomb was about 27’ long and 17’ wide, weighed 4,700 pounds, and reached 400 mph with an 1,800 pound warhead. Thousands of people were killed in the 8,000+ sorties of this foul-sounding beast--there was only a general sense of where it was going and where it might land, so the death and destruction it caused was indiscriminate. Given all of this I'm assuming that the guesses on the year of production of this are wrong, and that it is a post-war bit, which would be in less bad taste than had it been actually produced in wartime. It seems to me that most superhero/action hero types were busy punching Hitler or some such thing, and not selling a toy based on Hitler's weapons when they were actually killing thousands. In any event, I'm sharing this unusual image with its unusual story.
Notes:
1. Most sites that I've seen selling this thing stipulate the age as "1940's), while the history department at Ohio State University (https://origins.osu.edu/article/2139/images) states 1944. I have my doubts about that. Also the typography looks wrong for 1944.
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