Van Hoek
In secrecy a meeting of the international diamond merchants of America is being held. They decide Captain Marvel is the only man on Earth for a certain job. Vanderhoof meets Billy Batson, who summons Captain Marvel. He tells him he wants him to go to South Africa, to the Kimberley mines, and bring back a diamond. Cap asks why they cannot send a ship, but Vanderhoff says it is a special diamond and no information must leak out because all the crooks on Earth would be after it. Yanderhoff begs the reluctant Marvel, and when he gives in, he tells him to go to the Kimberley mines and ask for Peter Quentin, who will turn the diamond over to him. He'll cable him that he is coming. Cap gets to the mines, where there is a storehouse surrounded by guards. He is let in, and meets an armed man sitting on a large stone. He asks if the man is Peter Quentin and is told he is. When Cap asks where the diamond is, Quentin says it is the stone he was sitting on, which is uncut so it does not shine. It is the biggest diamond ever mined, with a value of 485 billion dollars. According to Quentin if crooks got it they could ut it up into a million small stones and flood the market. All the diamond merchants on Earth would be ruined. They're sure no information leaked out, but the Manager of the mines wants the diamond, and has the tough mine workers with him. They start shooting down the guards, then the Mines Manager throws a bomb to open the vault.
Quentin realises who the robber is as he gets in, so Cap punches him back. Cap goes out to get the others, but Quentin tells him the diamond is rolling away. Cap does not hear though and defeats the criminal gang. However he then hears what happened from Quentin, and there are big rocks which are the diamond's shape all over the area. One of Van Hoek's henchman spots it, and with Van Hoek he carries it to their plane. Cap sees this and goes after the plane, finally smashing in. Hoek drops the diamond to the city below, planning to follow it by parachute. Cap lets Van Hoek go to get the diamond. People think it's a meteor, but the Jeweller outside whose shop it conveniently landed realises it is a huge uncut diamond worth billions. He claims to collect meteors and takes it inside his shop. When Cap turns up he hears what happened to the stone. Cap goes out through the bak door, but is tod the man was tending his rock garden, not noticing the blackp aint he drops from behind his back behind a bush. Cap thinks the man in the street has given him 'a bum steer', but when he goes to notify the Police Van Hoek sees black paint on his suit, and tries to hold up the Shopkeeper, realising he painted the stone black. However the Shopkeeper says they can split on the deal, he will help him cut the diamond into small stones they can sell for a huge fortune. Van Hoek agrees to this, not noticing Cap flying up behind him. He hits their heads together, having noticed the black paint on his suit. Cap calls the Police and tries to take the diamond to America, but as he flies over the sea the wet paint makes it so slippery it slips out of his hands. He is able to catch it and the paint has washed off, though he feels he will be glad to turn it over to Vanderhoff.
He shows it to Vanderhoff who checks it, and then tells Cap to destroy the diamond. They do not want it cut into 10 million diamonds, as it would flood the diamond market with cheap small stones and ruin them all. Cap decides he knows what he is doing and hurls the diamond into space, with such speed the atmosphere sets fire to it and it flashes across the sky like a blazing comet, the most expensive firework the Earth ever saw.
Read more about this topic: List Of Marvel Family Enemies
Famous quotes containing the word van:
“An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)