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Post by String on Aug 8, 2018 17:21:36 GMT -5
Having Captain Marvel (Shazam) as a member of the JSA is such an inspired idea because it just makes more sense given their historical perspectives.
Yes, I said that.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 9, 2018 5:24:21 GMT -5
He might be a better fit than Superman, given that fact that Superman is only 29.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 9, 2018 5:49:18 GMT -5
He might be a better fit than Superman, given that fact that Superman is only 29. But... but... Isn’t Captain Marvel, like, twelve?
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 9, 2018 7:58:05 GMT -5
Having Captain Marvel (Shazam) as a member of the JSA is such an inspired idea because it just makes more sense given their historical perspectives. Yes, I said that. Agreed.
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Post by comicsandwho on Aug 9, 2018 10:58:26 GMT -5
He might be a better fit than Superman, given that fact that Superman is only 29. But... but... Isn’t Captain Marvel, like, twelve? In badly-written stories, yes. When written properly, he isn't Tom Hanks from 'Big'.
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Post by Duragizer on Aug 9, 2018 13:00:52 GMT -5
You mean the Supergirl who was not Superman's cousin but rather an extraxdimensional artificial construct modelled on Lana Lang who was then welcomed by the Kents only to fuse with a dead girl whose identity she adopted just in time to be possessed by an angel of fire? How could anyone want to read anything else than that??? I haven't read Peter David's Supergirl (yet), but I've read a good amount of pre-Linda Danvers stories featuring the Matrix character, and so I can say I do like the character. Thing is, I like her as her own character, not as Supergirl.
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 9, 2018 22:31:32 GMT -5
Given the fact that from an historical perspective DC was doing everything in its power to force Captain Marvel out of comics (until they swooped in to retrieve the carcass) they don't deserve the character at all.
There. I said it. (again, I think)
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Post by tarkintino on Aug 10, 2018 1:54:13 GMT -5
Given the fact that from an historical perspective DC was doing everything in its power to force Captain Marvel out of comics (until they swooped in to retrieve the carcass) they don't deserve the character at all. There. I said it. (again, I think) DC won the battle and deserve the spoils of said battle. Besides, considering how superhero comics died off in its Golden Age, Captain Marvel would have met a similar end arguably never returning, or if in the wrong hands, suffered a short run in a period (1960s) where no one would know what to do with his type of character. By the time he fell into DC's capable hands, the character was given not only a new life with comics (in the darker, adult Bronze Age of all eras) eventually making him a natural fit in the DC universe (which still had room for a lighter character) but introduced him to a larger audience with Filmation's popular 1974-77 live action TV series. I seriously doubt any other publisher would have handled and integrated the character so successfully.
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Post by Icctrombone on Aug 10, 2018 5:53:58 GMT -5
I never liked the Captain Marvel Shazam character but what is the best way to treat the adult hero? Is he a grown up Billy Batson or is he a different man with different personality traits?
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Post by Cei-U! on Aug 10, 2018 8:06:37 GMT -5
Given the fact that from an historical perspective DC was doing everything in its power to force Captain Marvel out of comics (until they swooped in to retrieve the carcass) they don't deserve the character at all. There. I said it. (again, I think) DC won the battle and deserve the spoils of said battle. Besides, considering how superhero comics died off in its Golden Age, Captain Marvel would have met a similar end arguably never returning, or if in the wrong hands, suffered a short run in a period (1960s) where no one would know what to do with his type of character. That's not remotely accurate. The Marvel Family comics were still making money, still selling better than the Superman titles, right up to the day Fawcett pulled the plug on their comics line. They just weren't profitable enough to offset the cost of continuing to fight DC. Donenfeld and Liebowitz won, not on the merits of their legal case, but through attrition: National had deeper pockets than Fawcett (thanks to the revenue generated by the Superman TV show, radio series, syndicated strip, and all the merchandising that went with them) and could afford to keep their competition tied up in court indefinitely.
Moreover, had they survived long enough, the Marvel Family comics would've have had no problem adapting to the Comics Code as they were already kid-friendly. Fawcett probably would've remained a major player in the industry and without Otto Binder, DC wouldn't have had Supergirl, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Krypto, Kandor, Bizarro, or any of the other concepts Binder contributed to shore up a boring, dying franchise kept alive by its ties to other media.
Cei-U! I summon the historical perspective!
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 10, 2018 11:43:03 GMT -5
Given the fact that from an historical perspective DC was doing everything in its power to force Captain Marvel out of comics (until they swooped in to retrieve the carcass) they don't deserve the character at all. There. I said it. (again, I think) DC won the battle and deserve the spoils of said battle. Besides, considering how superhero comics died off in its Golden Age, Captain Marvel would have met a similar end arguably never returning, or if in the wrong hands, suffered a short run in a period (1960s) where no one would know what to do with his type of character. By the time he fell into DC's capable hands, the character was given not only a new life with comics (in the darker, adult Bronze Age of all eras) eventually making him a natural fit in the DC universe (which still had room for a lighter character) but introduced him to a larger audience with Filmation's popular 1974-77 live action TV series. I seriously doubt any other publisher would have handled and integrated the character so successfully. Saying that "DC won the battle and deserve the spoils" is a pretty barbaric way of looking at things. "We beat you up fair and square so we get your property" isn't much of a catchphrase even when spoken in a court of law. As far as Captain Marvel being on his last legs and unlikely to survive the 1960s and beyond, would you theoretically have made the same argument if Superman had stopped publication in 1953 and been absorbed into the Fawcett line down the road? As Cei-U! noted, Captain Marvel was outselling Superman when the titles ended so it seems odd to me that the weaker selling of the two lines should be the one better suited to survive the coming decades. It's sort of like a skinny guy being scheduled to box a beefy guy, having the skinny guy's lawyers cancel the match, and then saying "Lucky for Mr Beefy over there that my lawyers cancelled the match so I didn't have to beat him senseless". Not knowing what to do with Captain Marvel's "type of character" is what attributed to a lot of his success. This wasn't a character copying fads blindly, this was a character setting trends and creating formulas others attempted to emulate but couldn't get right. If Superman succeeded throughout the Silver Age because he took a lot from Otto Binder's playbook (again, as Cei-U! pointed out) then Otto Binder could have used those same ideas for Captain Marvel and enjoyed similar success. As DC's lacklustre Captain Marvel output has shown since they acquired the property - they've never had a good handle on what made the guy work. Sure their "Captain Marvel is just a big dumb kid who often doesn't know what he's doing" hasn't really gone anywhere, but that's because DC doesn't understand the basics of the character and not due to any failings of the Fawcett original. Yes, without Superman, there would never have been Captain Marvel, but once the character was up and running, it was Captain Marvel that was determining what readers of a particular generation enjoyed. They were the ones who put animals into superhero costumes, they were the ones who gave us superhero families, they were the ones who did tongue in cheek adventures - if Superman benefited from this sort of stuff during the 1950's and 60's (and aside from its treatment of Lois Lane, I LOVE Silver Age Superman) the guy doing that stuff in the 1940's would have managed just fine.
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Post by The Captain on Aug 10, 2018 12:03:17 GMT -5
DC won the battle and deserve the spoils of said battle. Besides, considering how superhero comics died off in its Golden Age, Captain Marvel would have met a similar end arguably never returning, or if in the wrong hands, suffered a short run in a period (1960s) where no one would know what to do with his type of character. That's not remotely accurate. The Marvel Family comics were still making money, still selling better than the Superman titles, right up to the day Fawcett pulled the plug on their comics line. They just weren't profitable enough to offset the cost of continuing to fight DC. Donenfeld and Liebowitz won, not on the merits of their legal case, but through attrition: National had deeper pockets than Fawcett (thanks to the revenue generated by the Superman TV show, radio series, syndicated strip, and all the merchandising that went with them) and could afford to keep their competition tied up in court indefinitely.
Moreover, had they survived long enough, the Marvel Family comics would've have had no problem adapting to the Comics Code as they were already kid-friendly. Fawcett probably would've remained a major player in the industry and without Otto Binder, DC wouldn't have had Supergirl, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Krypto, Kandor, Bizarro, or any of the other concepts Binder contributed to shore up a boring, dying franchise kept alive by its ties to other media.
Cei-U! I summon the historical perspective!
This is why you are an absolute treasure and blessing to this community. I have absolutely zero background on Golden Age Superman, Captain Marvel, Otto Binder, or the Fawcett-DC situation, and in the span of just the two paragraphs you wrote, I understand enough about it to keep up with the conversation.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 10, 2018 12:27:34 GMT -5
The other thing to keep in mind is that Fawcett was also an independent newsstand distributor. One of the things that helped DC weather any storm of changing public tastes was that they were distributing their own product to the newsstands and had a strong system in place. Fawcett was similarly placed. They folded their comics division because the Marvel Family was the bulk of their comic sales and the likes of Lash Larue and Nyoka weren't going to be worth the trouble. But they were still distributing magazines and importantly Gold Medal Books, arguably the most important line of early paperbacks. Fawcett was strong enough both as a publisher and distributor that they purchased Popular Library from Perfect Films/Cadence (who owned Marvel at the time) in 1970.
Fawcett could have kept publishing comics. It was a business decision to sell off their remaining line to Charlton rather than keeping them and trying to expand the line with new creations. The general view in 1953 was that comics were a dying medium and I'm sure the decision was based on that view.
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Post by MDG on Aug 10, 2018 13:05:42 GMT -5
They distributed Dennis the Menace comics into the 60s.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2018 13:32:57 GMT -5
The Ultimate "What If?" story:
What If Fawcett had continued to publish Captain Marvel?
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