San Diego Comic Con has given us many things to talk about ranging from the new Godzilla movie to the new edgier version of the Teen Titans. However, one thing that has got people talking is the trailer for Shazam! Shazam, or Captain Marvel as he's been known as for most of his publication history, is a very interesting part of comic book history. Although a DC character he did not originate in DC and he was even more popular than Superman at one point! Captain Marvel got a radio drama before Superman did and in 1941 he was the first superhero from comics to get their own movie. Today we'll look at Shazam a.k.a Captain Marvel.
Origins - Real World and Fictional
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| Whiz Comics #2, his debut |
Captain Marvel originated in one of the many new comic book publishers which emerged in the late-1930s and early-1940s thanks to the success of Batman and Superman, especially Superman. One such was founded in 1939 called Fawcett Comics who hired writer Bill Parker to make superhero stories for them. Parker planned to create a superhero group years before Justice League and the Avengers came along, (although the League's precursor the Justice Society made its debut the same year Captain Marvel did), where each member had a superpower granted by a mythical being. Fawcett's executive director intervened suggesting that one character should have all the powers, mostly to compete with Superman. Parker then made 'Captain Thunder' and got C.C. Beck to draw the new hero. Beck later said: "When Bill Parker and I went to work on Fawcett’s first comic book in late 1939, we both saw how poorly written and illustrated the superhero comic books were. We decided to give our reader a real comic book, drawn in comic-strip style and telling an imaginative story, based not on the hackneyed formulas of the pulp magazine, but going back to the old folk-tales and myths of classic times." Beck's cartoony style of drawing would greatly influence how comics were drawn for a long time afterwards. In 1939 their comic was first published to low sales and they hit an issue: they couldn't copyright their original title. A year later the comic itself was renamed Whiz Comics instead of Flash or Thrill Comics and their hero renamed 'Captain Marvelous' which became shortened to 'Captain Marvel'. This reprint, in 1940, became very popular and propelled Fawcett Comics to national fame.
Now to get into Captain Marvel's fictional origin. Unlike Batman and Superman Captain Marvel is a literal child which explains his popularity. With a young audience Parker decided to make him a child for the primary audience to empathise with. A homeless orphan (despite being seemingly well fed and dressed) called Billy Batson is living in the subway of New York, later retconned to be Fawcett City, ends up meeting a strange old man on a subway with strange runes on it. He is then transported to an underground throne room where the old man explains that he is the Wizard Shazam who gets his power from the six gods - Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. Shazam wanted to give Billy his powers as he is soon to die but the reason why changed. Originally it was because he had a hard life being orphaned at an early age and turfed out by his uncle who stole his inheritance but in later retellings in Shazam! #1 it was due to him being 'pure of heart'. Now whenever Billy utters the words 'Shazam!' he can turn into the hero Captain Marvel who has the the Wisdom of Solomon, Strength of Hercules, Stamina of Atlas, Power of Zeus, Courage of Achilles, and Speed of Mercury. He also gets an adult body and in the alternate future story Kingdom Come we find out that this body is what Billy would look like when he gets older. Now Billy can become a hero seeking advice from Shazam who resides as a spirit in the Rock of Eternity. In a similar sense to Superman Billy in Whiz Comics #3 becomes a journalist, despite being about 12, which allows him to investigate crime which he later fights as Captain Marvel.
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| Marvel Family #1 |
Captain Marvel soon became an immensely popular character dwarfing Superman. For one, Captain Marvel could fly which Superman couldn't do at the time and after a year of being published he got his own movie. By 1944 Captain Marvel comics were selling over 1.3 million an issue and two comics were issued a week. He quickly gained a recurring villain, set to be the antagonist in the new movie, called Doctor Sivana he also made his debut in Whiz Comics #2. A bald headed mad scientist as a villain may sound awfully familiar... Doctor Sivana, not Black Adam, would for a long time be Captain Marvel's main opponent with him even taking over Venus at one time. Meanwhile, the popularity of the comics brought in new characters forming the Marvel Family. The first was 1941's Whiz Comics #25 introducing Captain Marvel Jr. in a truly eccentric comic which typifies everything cheesy and fantastic about Golden Age comics. When Captain Marvel was fighting a superpowered agent of Hitler literally called Captain Nazi the Nazi attacked an old man and his grandson, Freddy Freeman. The old man died but the grandson was rendered unconscious so Billy took the boy to see if Shazam could heal him. Shazam couldn't but revealed that Billy as Captain Marvel could by granting Freddy some of his power. He did and turned Freddy into Captain Marvel Jr. A year later in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 a new character, designed to look like Judy Garland, was introduced who turned out to be Billy's long lost twin sister, (of course!), called Mary. Mary Marvel soon became extremely popular immediately getting her own comic title years before Supergirl was even introduced! Soon enough in Marvel Family #1 the three appeared together smashing the comic book scene.
Legal Troubles
Now time to discuss the tricky part of Captain Marvel - the court battles. The immediate success of Captain Marvel and the many similarities to Superman enraged DC, or as it was then called National Comics. In 1941 National took Fawcett to court and years of litigation meant that it didn't go into court until 1948 in National Comics Publications vs. Fawcett Publications with National arguing that Captain Marvel was infringing on Superman whereas Fawcett argued that although similar it was not infringing. The judge argued that although Captain Marvel was infringing Superman as National had not properly copyrighted several Superman strips it was decided in 1951 that National had abandoned the Superman copyright. National appealed and it seemed to in favour of them this time so Fawcett decided to settle out of court for a reason not to do with the trial. After the end of the war sales of superhero comics plummeted and would not pick up until the start of the 1960s with a new wave of DC heroes and Marvel's rise under Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Despite being extremely popular during the War after their sales were cut in half. Fawcett decided that comics were done for so decided to offer National $400,000 and that they would stop printing Captain Marvel. By 1954 all Captain Marvel titles had ceased printing. The decline of Captain Marvel caused ripples. A British company, L. Miller and Son, had made their money reprinting black-and-white comics of American comics and Captain Marvel was just as popular among the British as he was in America. With Captain Marvel's end they were worried so they decided to make their own comic a bit too heavily influenced by Captain Marvel called Marvelman which ended up ceasing printing in 1963. Marvelman was one of the many comics who inspired a young man called Alan Moore who in 1982 would revive Marvelman in a violent, pessimistic and graphic comic which I highly recommend people read. Containing ideas of superpowered heroes to be feared, and exploration of mythology which would set the stage up for Watchmen. In the 1960s a company called M.F. Enterprises were publishing their own hero called Captain Marvel which upset Marvel who ended up copyrighting 'Marvel' and 'Captain Marvel' so Marvelman had to be renamed Miracleman when it was published in the US. As a twist of fate Marvel bought Miracleman and republished it as Marvelman.
Shazam!
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| Shazam #1 when he returned after twenty years |
During the 1960s superheroes were back and Fawcett wanted to reintroduce Captain Marvel but couldn't due to the earlier agreement with National. Meanwhile, DC's sales were dipping as they went into the 1970s so the two previous enemies made an agreement: DC would license Captain Marvel splitting the profits. In 1973 Shazam #1 brought back Billy Batson in a series of stories being written by Dennis O'Neil with C.C. Beck returning for ten issues before leaving thanks to creative differences. They also had to name the comic Shazam! to avoid copyright infringement with Marvel who at the time was publishing their own comic by the same title. On the front cover they used to have 'The Original Captain Marvel' until this royally infuriated Marvel had issued a cease-and-desist resulting them changing it to say 'The World's Mightiest Mortal' from Shazam! #15. In this comic they revised his origin with a prime example being the reason why Billy was chosen to be Captain Marvel was because he was pure of heart instead of living a hard life. Unfortunately Shazam! never sold well despite it reinvigorating interest in the Marvel Family so DC regularly featured crossovers with Superman and the Justice League. However, it did properly reintroduce one villain who has replaced Doctor Sivana as Captain Marvel's main antagonist: Black Adam.
Black Adam is easily Captain Marvel's most infamous villain with him being a staple in the comics and he is set to be played by Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson in his own movie, and possibly Shazam! as well. Strangely he only appeared in one comic under Fawcett, 1945's The Marvel Family #1. In this it is revealed that Billy is not the first to hold the moniker of Captain Marvel; in Ancient Egypt a man named Teth-Adam had the power until he overthrew the pharaoh to install himself in power. I personally love what he says to the pharaoh as he's overthrowing him: For resisting me, you get a broken neck! Shazam then branded him Black Adam and banished him to the edges of the universe as Adam vowed to return. 5,000 years later he arrives on Earth to kill Shazam where he fights the Marvel Family until being tricked into saying 'Shazam' reverting him to his human form. Doing so causes 5,000 years of ageing to catch up with him reducing him to ash. In the Shazam! comics Black Adam was resurrected by Doctor Sivana and soon he went on to fight the Marvel Family.
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| The fabulous Golden Age Black Adam |
Post-Crisis
In 1985 DC decided to reboot its universe and within a year in Legends #1 Captain Marvel was brought back leading into a revamped origin in 1987 with a four-part series entitled Shazam: The New Beginning. However, DC soon ignored this in 1994's Power of Shazam which updated the comics and really made Black Adam his main villain. In this new origin Billy's parents were archaeologists, his father was called C.C. to homage C.C. Beck, sent to Egypt with Theo Adam for the Sivana Foundation. Theo Adam finds out he is the resurrected but depowered Black Adam so he sacrifices Billy's parents to restore his power and has Mary kidnapped. Meanwhile, like in the original comic Shazam had Billy, now in Fawcett City, taken to him where he is given the power of Captain Marvel. In the pre-Crisis stories Billy had a different personality when he was Captain Marvel but now it was changed so Captain Marvel and Billy had the same personality. Captain Marvel's clashes with Black Adam and them being teammates in the new Justice Society meant that Adam's popularity soon grew. By 1991 DC had stopped leasing Fawcett's characters with them being outright bought by DC which explains the amount of appearances and titles which the Marvel Family had. They would frequently appear in comics including 1996's Kingdom Come. A brief summary of Kingdom Come is that in the future Superman retired as a new breed of violent heroes came about and he returned to put them in their place. I would highly recommend reading it as I cannot do it justice with it dealing with questions of justice, responsibility, gods, men and idol worship. Captain Marvel appears as a foil to Superman near the end and they fight - quite ironic considering their history. Superman is weak against magic so the fight is actually in Marvel's favour.
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| Marvel vs. Superman in Kingdom Come |
In 2005's Infinite Crisis Shazam was killed by the Spectre (the embodiment of God's vengeance) so Billy is chosen to be the new protector of the Rock of Eternity starting from The Trials of Shazam! where he got a new look as well as being known as Marvel. Captain Marvel Jr. formally took over the Captain Marvel moniker becoming Billy's replacement as Mary lost her powers. She would later be turned to evil when Black Adam gave her some of his powers. The Trials of Shazam! was never really popular saw only lasted until 2008 when Billy returned as Captain Marvel where Black Adam even became the guardian of the Rock of Eternity briefly.
New 52
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| The New 52 Shazam |
In 2011 DC rebooted its universe once again in the New 52. After a brief reboot Geoff Johns and Gary Frank properly brought back the character in Justice League and their story seems to have been almost recreated in the trailer for the new movie at certain parts. Here Captain Marvel had been formally renamed as for years he had marketed as Shazam to avoid copyright with Marvel, so it was simple just to have the character be called Shazam. In this update Billy is a bit of a knucklehead who is a cynic after going from foster house to foster house until adopted by the Vasquez family. Here Mary and Freddy have already been adopted and are now his adopted siblings alongside three other children. Angry one day Billy runs away and when catching a subway is transported to the Rock of Eternity where he encounters the Wizard. The Wizard is disappointed that Billy is not entirely good and Billy retorted that 'perfect good' can't exist which convinces the Wizard; he can see that Billy has done good and has the ability to do good so grants him the power of Shazam. As this was happening Doctor Sivana, who now has an eye that can see magic, freed Black Adam who now wanted to strip Billy of his powers in order for him to absorb the powers for himself. As Billy was abusing his powers for self gain, like getting money to buy beer, he was attacked by Adam. Eventually Black Adam kidnapped Billy's adopted family resulting in Billy granting them some power. Black Adam is only defeated when Billy in his mortal form goaded Adam into transforming himself which caused him to rapidly age. Since then Shazam has had some appearances with John Constantine even stealing his powers to defeat a demon at one point. Geoff Johns has announced that he will be writing a new Shazam comic title to be debuted in November 2018.
Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby
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