Shazam! #1



Look at The Big Red & Blue Bully, acting like he is all buddy-buddy with The Big Red Cheese! Someone's red & blue pants are on fire!

Creative Team: Denny O'Neil-writer, Charles Clarence (CC) Beck-artist & letterer, Julie Schwartz-editor. No credit for the colors.

Already we have a problem, as we have the Superman editor handling his rival. That's pretty much like when Vince McMahon bought out World Championship Wrestling and did his "invasion angle," where WCW was made to look like chumps and losers, at every turn. Yeah, that will put butts in seats! Or comics in the grubby little hands of readers. Thank Overstreet for speculators!



Synopsis: On an unnamed city street, young Billy Batson encounters his old friend, Mr Binder (rhymes with cinder)...



Mr B is stunned and says Billy has been missing for 20 years! What up with dat? Billy proceeds to tell us, first reminding us how he became The World's Mightiest Mortal, by following some creepy stranger down to a subway platform and car, to his creepy little cave, with the even creepier Seven Enemies of Man...



Seriously, this is when John Walsh steps in to horrify us!

Instead of adult predators, Billy encounters a crazy old wizard, who tells him to repeat his name and Billy is transformed into Captain Marvel, though he trades off muscles for being nearsighted, since he has to squint all of the time! He also has a strange urge to watch My Three Sons and Double Indemnity. the wizard is crushed by a block of stone hanging on a thread above him (now who left that there?), but, he's alright, now a ghost, who lights up braziers (but has no Dilly Bars or Mister Misties). he gives him a quick lesson in mythology and then sends him out to Do Good!

Back in the present, Billy hears gunshots, says the magic word and apprehends a couple of robbers, after smashing their car and bouncing their bullets off his chest (what happens to the ricochets, anyway?). They stole electronic parts for some criminal mastermind and El Gran Queso Rojo has a pretty good idea who their boss is. Spectators comment about Captain Marvel not changing a bit since he was last seen, 20 years before and we get another flashback, to fill in the gaps.

Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Elvis...er, Captain Marvel Junior are being honored by the mayor, when they are nabbed by a spaceship....



...which is piloted by the world's Maddest Scientist and the World's Brattiest Brood, Dr Thaddeus Bodog Sivana (Bodog?), TBS Jr and Georgina Ladybirddog (why not?) Sivana. He encases them in an orb of Ssupendium, keeping them in suspended animation, for eternity. Taken with them was the crowd of citizens, including Billy's boss at Station WHIZ, Sterling MorrisJunior celebrates a bit too much and slaps pop on the back, causing him to veer off course, right into the Suspendium, trapping the Sivanas with the Marvels. Dumb@$$!

So, for 20 years, they orbited the sun, with the Sivana rocket sticking out of the orb, and captain Marvel's head sticking through the portal of the rocket control cabin. slowly, the sun's heat melted the Suspendium, until The Big Red Chees (hereafter TBRC) woke up, said the magic word, and released everybody!



...including the crowd, with Sterling Morris, Beautia Sivana, uncle Dudley and Mr Tawky Tawny. None of them have any memory of what happened, since only seconds past for them (subjectively).

Mary and Elvis....Junior, hunt for the Sivanas in space, but TBRC plays a hunch and heads for an old Sivana hideout, in the mountains. Sure enough, the World's Runtiest JERK and his brats are there, plotting to rule the world, when TBRC comes crashing through the roof and smashes their latest invention and whisks them off to prison, to a chorus of "Curse you"s. No word on Mary or Junior. We are then teased with a return of Mr Mind!

Wait, he was executed!

A text piece from E Nelson Bridwell gives us a rundown of the past and identifies the people in the crowd, when they wake up: Uncle Dudley, Sterling Morris, Billy's secretary Joan Jameson (cousin of J Jonah, no doubt), Billy's girlfriend Cissie Sommerly, Billy's landlords Ma & Pa Porter, Beautia Sivana, Mr Tawky Tawny and Prof Edgewise, a friend of Freddy freeman, who lives in the same boarding house.

This is followed by a reprint of Captain Marvel Adventures #55, from 1946, by Otto Binder & Pete Costanza.



Billy Batson is catching some rays in the park, watching people litter, when he spots an old man gathering tin foil and string to try to sell for a few pennies. The man picks up some string and starts winding it on a ball, when it keeps coming, from nowhere. Billy knows that isn't possible and looks at it, but doesn't realize that it crosses a dimensional barrier, into Zoozland, to the king's throneroom. It's attached to the Royal Rug (as in carpet, not toupee), which is unravelling.



The king goes to stop it and calls for his guards to help pull. They nearly yank the old man through, until Billy uses the magic word to change and keep him back. The king sends through a bomb (the round kind, wit a fuse....probably an Acme M-23), which the longjohnned one takes into air to detonate harmlessly.

TBRC tells the old man to cut the string loose, to avoid further trouble, while he gets help from a scientist, Dr Grenn. The old man's penknife breaks on the string and they are pulling from the other side, so he quickly wraps it around a tree, to anchor it. Captain Marvel consults with Dr Grenn, who goes to see the phenomena


They return and find the string anchored and the old man says he tied a hook onto it and is doing some fishing (I'd use a spinner, for interdimensional fishing). he hooks a vase and the King is peeved. While Dr Grenn examines the vase, the old man gets yanked across the barrier and TBRC changes into Billy Batson to follow, since Captain Marvel is too broadshouldered to follow (it's a medium size dimensional gate). Billy is halfway through when he gets bonked on the head by a guard and wakes up bound and gagged (of course). The king orders Billy and the old man's tongues to be burnt out (man, I thought Sharia Law was tough!), but that requires lowering Billy's gag, which allows him to speak the magic word (Please!) and change into Fred MacMurray and bust some heads...



He shoves the old man back through, transforms to Billy to pass himself through the barrier and throws the string back to Zoozland, while mocking Dr Grenn's theory that the people of Zoozland had two heads, 5 arms and green hair and then recaps the adventure in his radio broadcast.

Thoughts: Well, Denny is no Otto Binder (or even Earl Binder): but, he does a pretty darn decent return for Captain Marvel, borrowing a page from Stan & Jack and putting the Marvels and the Sivanas (and the supporting cast) on ice for 20 years. He then brings Captain Marvel back in contact to foil their plans and all is right in the world. It's not exactly on the same level as the epic Monster Society of Evil serial; but, it'll do the job. Meanwhile, the reprint starts a trend of the reprint stories from Fawcett showing up the lesser imaginations at DC. Don't get me wrong, Denny gets pretty imaginative; but, he didn't have unravelling rugs feeding string across interdimensional barriers, thereby creative a cosmic tug of war, leading to cross-dimensional invasions and wrestling matches, before shutting down the pipeline! Heck, we don't even learn exactly what the Sivanas were up to, as they never identify the purpose of the electronics they had stolen, apart from the generic ruling the world scenario. Mary and Junior didn't even get to get their licks in. Still, it's enough to prime the pump.

The art from CC Beck isn't quite the classic of old, though it's still pretty darn good and he keeps it all simple. For the most part, this is kept pretty basic, for younger children, compared to what was going on in the Superman comics. it's pretty much in keeping with what they would do in the Super Friends comic, which would follow, in a bit. That's fine and it tries for whimsical, but, as the reprint shows, whimsy isn't Denny's forte. At least he didn't send Captain Marvel off on a journey to discover America, with Spy Smasher and the wizard, Shazam!

We are teased at the end with a return of Mr Mind, who was executed via the electric chair, at the end of the Monster Society of Evil serial, in Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures. It will be interesting to see how they get him out of that! See, death has no meaning in comics!

The reprint also shows the time honored tradition of the Marvels to get knocked out and tied up, in their mortal forms, always ending up gagged, even if other hostages aren't. The Marvel Family Adventures would do William Marston proud, as they rivalled Wonder Woman for bondage drama, even if they weren't quite as kinky. Alan Moore poked fun at it (well, fun might be s stretch) as such images are part of the fantasy programming fed by Dr Gargunza, in secret, to Miraclewoman, in the Miracleman series. He also intended it to be a central feature in his Twilight proposal (which neither involved sparkly vampire stalkers nor ELO music), for Billy Batson, as he is described as visiting dominatrixes to get his kicks. On a similar line (as Grant Morrison would probably gleefully point out), Robert Mayer's Superfolks includes a Captain Marvel pastiche, Captain Mantra, who ends up captured with his sister, Mary Mantra and efforts to free themselves have unintended consequences, in the form of the Demoniac, a superpowered crazed monster, who Mood Indigo must stop. Thankfully, this series is a bit more innocent than that and keeps it to normal Nancy Drew and Little Orphan Annie levels. They do give Mary Marvel a sexier makeover, though, shortening the hemline of her skirt a few inches, trading her boots for ballet flats and aging her a bit. Could have been worse, given what the later DC regime did to her.

"Not very good" is pretty subjective and you have to remember this was aimed at younger children than the average superhero comic of the 70s. That said, the reprints of Fawcett stories were way better than a lot of the originals, from DC writers, until E Nelson Bridwell takes over the writing. CC Beck wasn't a fan of the scripts he got and bailed after 10 issues. Realistically, if it hadn't been for the Filmation live action Saturday morning show, the comic probably wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. Still, there is a sense of fun to the series that I always found refreshing, especially these days. One of the problems DC had, throughout their tenure of Captain Marvel stories is that they tried to make him more into a classic DC hero; but, he didn't lend himself well to that. The more you make him like Superman, the less interesting he is. Fawcett's stories were like fairy tales, with superheroes. They had a sense of fun and humor to them that made them memorable, yet still had plenty of action. It is no surprise that after DC hamstrung Fawcett, they snapped up some of their creative talent to liven up Superman, since they had been kicking his hinder for a while. Otto Binder wrote a lot of Superman material, introducing similar elements that appeared in the Captain Marvel stories. Kurt Schaffenberger came over to draw for DC, including the Lois Lane comic and some Superboy and Jimmy Olsen material. Thankfully, he would also be tapped to return to the Marvel Family, after CC Beck's departure (along with Bob Oskner).

Believe me, I will probably be poking fun at some of the weaker stories, like one in issue 10, with sentient alien vegetables! However, that issue was the first comic I got to pick for myself and it also includes a decent story with Aunt Minerva and a pretty good one with Mary Marvel. The best issues were Fawcett stories, which is why they aren't included in the Showcase Presents volume or other reprints. DC was only licensing the characters and Fawcett owned the stories. When DC finally purchased the characters, they did not purchase the original stories, which is part of why we never got that Monster society of Evil reprint that DC solicited.

I haven't read a lot of Fawcett Marvel stories apart from what DC reprinted in the 70s, but, except for the people who actually read Capt. Marvel in the Golden Age, I don;t think it was something 70s fans wanted. After years of trying to convince people that "comic books weren't just for kids," whimsy was the last thing they wanted in a superhero book.

I don;t think DC got it right until the Bridwell/Newton stories in World's Finest.

While I would agree that most 70s fans weren't interested in a whimsical Captain Marvel, I think the intended audience of young kids were fine with that. The problem was that they didn't have the people who knew how to do it, other than Beck and he worked with scripters who understood where the line was drawn. E Nelson Bridwell was a massive fan (if memory serves he edited Shazam From the 40s to the 70s, the reprint volume of classic material) and was the guy to handle this, from the start, as he would have been more in sync with Beck. He clicked well with Don Newton, who was also a huge fan of the character, right down to appearing as TBRC at some conventions. I'll be getting into some ideas he proposed, when we get there.

I was the right age, when this came out and I loved the costume, which is why I picked issue #10, at a drugstore, when my mom let me choose one, as we picked up a prescription for my bronchitis. The costume is a classic and giving him a hoody or a bunch of metal crap, like a fifth-rate rapper, is a travesty. I did like that Jerry Ordway reinstituted the military tunic look....



The basic style of it was inspired by European military uniforms, particularly those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which inspired the look of everyone in The Prisoner of Zenda, which was a massive hit, in 1937, with Ronald Coleman and David Niven (and Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Raymond Massey).



The tunic would be double breasted, buttoning on the right; though the style of the Hussars and other regiments, in the Napoleonic Wars, was buttoning down the center, with decorative buttons on the sides and intricate braiding. The Hussars popularized the addition of a jacket, draped over the shoulder, called a pelise, which was secured across the chest by a braided cord. That evolved into short capes, performing the same function, as we see on Captain Marvel, with his cape, usually draped over one shoulder, rather than hanging down the back.



Republic kept this in mind when they created a costume for Tom Tyler, in The Adventures of Captain Marvel (probably the single greatest adventure serial of all). Fawcett didn't stay with the tunic and switched to more of a shirt, but kept the sleeve braiding. He was the one heroic "captain" who actually looked like a captain (though the sleeve braiding suggests he was Colonel Marvel)!

While Marvel may have paid Myron Fass to give up the trademark, I always found it interesting that Marvel hesitated to actually use it. On the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES cover above, there is no trademark (TM) indicator on the "Captain Marvel" logo, only on the "Marvel Super-heroes" logo. When Mar-Vell was immediately promoted to his own series with the next installment, the trademark was attached to the phrase "Marvel's Space-born Super-hero!", which, according to the indicia, was part of the formal title of the comic: 





I assume they were acting cautiously until they confirmed that Fawcett's trademark had expired.
I was 13 when this came out, and I'd devoured the Big Red Cheese chapter of All In Color For A Dime over and over, after multiple check-outs from the Memphis Public Library, so I was primed and ready and very enthusiastic to grab this off the stands. I remember creating my own animated version of the origin with my 8mm movie camera and hand-drawn cut-outs. Looking back, the most striking characteristic of the story was how its visual clarity and direct, relatively simple story-telling made the entire thing so memorable. Almost 50 years later, not having looked at the comic in at least 30 years, I can remember almost every beat, and visualize every page. I can't do that with some random Spider-Man issue of the era--there's no way I can recall a specific page of JJJ and Robby bickering in the Bugle offices from AS-M #95, but I can clearly picture Mr. Morris interacting with Billy in Shazam #1. 
My interest did wane quickly after several issues that were too juvenile to keep up with my teenhood, but I was quite happy to part with my dimes there at the start of the run. 

My intention is to also hit Captain Marvel's guest appearances, as well, though I don't really intend to cover his entire tenure in Justice League or all 6 issues of Legends, individually. I will likely just summarize the run. So, there will be some Superman vs Shazam, the JLA/JSA/Squadron of Justice crossover, the DC Comics Presents appearances and so forth.

Back in the early 90s, when I was seriously working on my drawing skills, I drew a poster for the cover of a fake cover, Marvel Superhero Rip-Off Wars, with the two Captains duking it out. The corner box featured an image of the Lev Gleason Daredevil throttling Matt Murdock. I still have a few items from the portfolio I assembled for my Kubert School application; I'll have to see if I still have it. I do have my sketch of Captain Marvel, by Joe Staton, which I will have to scan and post, at some point. Staton would have been a great artist for the series.

It happened well before 2011.  Roy Thomas' "Shazam: The New Beginning" was a new level of Hell.