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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 15, 2021 16:11:43 GMT -5
Shazam! #19 A Reverse-Captain Marvel? Creative Team: Main story-Elliot S! Maggin-writer, Kurt Schaffenberger-artist, Julie Schwartz-editor Mary Marvel-E Nelson Bridwell-writer, Bob Oskner-artist, Julie Schwartz-editor. Synopsis: "Who Stole Billy Batson's Thunder?"- Billy Batson spots a crook, "Beef" Jerky, in the process of making a getaway, after a robbery. he switches with Captain Marvel, who flies after Beef and gets zapped with a ray gun, but Captain Marvel is stronger. He eventually destroys the ray gun and lifts up the getaway car and flies it to the police station. All of this is monitored by someone who looks like he might be related to the Keebler Elves (or Mr Spock.)  The observer is Zazzo, who sees Captain Marvel change back to Billy, then Zazzo dons a pickelhaube helmet...  and then melts the wall of the jail so Beef can escape, to a waiting helicopter. Billy sees the commotion from the station, as the police go roaring off in squad cars and he yells out "Shazam!", but Captain Marvel does not appear....  Instead, Zazzo has been transformed into a larger version of himself, complete with a costume that is the reverse of Captain Marvel's. Billy tries the magic word again and does manage to transform. He flies up and catches the helicopter, with Beef inside, then runs into a floating Zazzo, who explains he supplied the ray gun and the escape, for Beef, because he was bored on his other-dimensional world. He then snatches the helo and drops it over the ocean, necessitating a rescue by Captain Marvel. He returns to the city to find it in complete chaos, as Zazzo has pulled multiple pranks, including balancing cars on streetlamps (with passengers stil inside!) and repainted buildings. Zazzo reveals he stole CM's magic lightning, with his helmet and CM notices he is wearing it and says the magic word. However, Zazzo removes it in an instant, before the lightning strikes, changing CM and not himself. He grabs Billy and clamps a hand over his mouth, then borrows a page from Alexandre Dumas....  Zazzo figures he will be Zazzo Marvel forever. Billy spots Freddy Freeman, but he can't speak to him (no mouth holes), but he swipes papers from his newsstand to get him to change. Freddy cries out "Captain Marvel," and the lightning strikes Zazzo, who is still wearing the helmet. He falls from the sky, but grabs a flagpole, just in time. he loses his grip on the helmet, which Billy catches below. Freddy tries his magic word again and the lightning is drawn to Billy, who turns into Captain Marvel and tears off the iron mask. He brings Zazzo down and delivers some old school discipline to him....  Then, Zazzo's father turns up to claim his naughty son, who is going to get worse, when he gets home. Later, Captain Marvel meets up with Freddy, who tells the story of calling the lightning, but nothing happened and CM says to try it again. Freddy does and Junior finally appears. CM then proceeds to relate the tale of what happened. "Secret of the Smiling Swordsman"- Uncle Dudley puts on his Uncle Marvel costume, preparing for his children's tv show, at Station WHIZ (Putting the P in Professionalism), when he is grabbed from behind. He is confronted by a masked man, who claims to have planted a bomb in the station and will set it off unless uncle Marvel aids him in committing a crime. Uncle Marvel agrees, provided he can broadcast his show tot he children. The masked man agrees and warns "No funny business!"  Mary Batson never misses Uncle Dudley's show and tunes in and finds Uncle Dudley acting strangely, recognizing that he is emphasizing certain words. She writes them down on a pad and realizes he is giving a warning about the masked crook and the bomb. Mary says her magic word and Mary Marvel flies off to the station. She spots the crook forcing Uncle Marvel into his car and drive off. She follows them from above. They come to a stop and the crook tells Uncle Marvel that he wants him to steal the painting, "The Smiling Swordsman," from a museum. Uncle Marvel takes off running and Mary uses the Fleetness of Zephyrus to move at super speed and grab hold of Uncle Marvel, without the crook seeing her. She lifts Uncle Marvel into the air, making the criminal believe he has powers. UM tells MM what he is supposed to steal and they get it and return, with Mary flying Uncle Marvel, while hidden by the painting and UM's cape. She zips off to hide, while the crook looks at the painting. The crook gets in his car and threatens to detonate the bomb, if Uncle Marvel follows. Mary flies under the car and moves along with it to its destination. The crook says he will tell the servants to look around for Marvel costumes, so Mary switches to Mary Batson and figures she can just claim to be lost. However, she is hit over the head with a hammer! Holey Moley! That could cave in her skull! She wakes up, tied to a chair and gagged, as the crook is revealed to be the criminal, The Cavalier...  He waves around his rapier, as a threat and Mary leans in and snags the gag on it, tearing it loose. She says the magic word and Mary Marvel appears to battle the Cavalier.  He breaks the blade of his rapier on her back and she decks him and carries him and the stolen painting off, to hand over to the authorities. Thoughts: this is one of the issues I read when it was new and loved it then and now. Zazzo makes for a nice twist on the Marvel changing and proveds a pretty good enemy for Captain Marvel. The concept is basically a swipe of Mr Mxyzptlk, with Zazzo looking like an uncle of Zan and Jayna, The Wonder Twins, from The Super Friends. The pickelhaube makes for a nice gimmick, as you can see the spike acting as a lightning rod. The iron mask is also a nice touch, as it creates more of an impediment that the standard gag (especially since a cloth tied over the mouth doesn't really work, as this scene from Gilligan's Island demonstrates.... I like the reversed costume, though it doesn't top Black Adam; but, at least Zazzo gets a cape! It almost seems like Maggin started out intending this to be Black Adam (who had pointed ears, but Julie Schwartz nixed the idea and they went the Mxyzptlk route, instead. In fact, it is rather odd that the most memorable enemy of Captain Marvel doesn't reappear until Shazam! #28, other than the reprint of the original Black Adam story, in issue #8. Granted, Black Adam dies at the end of that story; but, that never stopped anyone before! Well, not in comics, anyway. Sadly, Zazzo never makes a reappearance. The Mary Marvel story is great fun and Bridwell and Oskner make a great team for Mary. The stories are playful, but still have a sense of danger and Oskner gives Mary a real dynamic presence, while also making her look like a real teenager. The conceit of Mary using her powers to fake Uncle Marvel's is a nice touch and an old trope from the Mary and Uncle Dudley stories. Being a swashbuckler fan, I have always had a soft spot for the Cavalier, though many Batman fans hated the character. I don't think he is necessarily a great Batman villain; but, he was used well in batman Family in two stories, featuring Batgirl. In the first, he teams with Killer Moth, against Batgirl and Batwoman, Kathy Kane. The second time the villain pair make a bet that the can locate the Batcave first. Batgirl fools Killer Moth, while Robin cons Cavalier. The chivalrous nature of the Cavalier makes for an interesting dynamic with Batgirl and Batwoman, as well as Mary marvel, here. Mary really doesn't need to use violence and mostly just plays with the villain, to make himself look like a fool. It makes her a good role model for young girls, during this period, as she uses her brains to beat the crooks, rather than brawn. That was always a facet of her adventures, vs the boys, who tended to blunder into things, before drawing upon the Wisdom of Solomon. It's also nice to see one of the Marvel's use super speed, as the DC stories rarely called upon it, compared to the Strength of Hercules and the Wisdom of Solomon. Mary draws on the Grace of Selene, the Strength of Hippolyta, the Skill of Ariadne, the Fleetness of Zephyrus, the Beauty of Aurora and the Wisdom of Minerva. Later, Ariadne was swapped with Artemis (Goddess of the Hunt and sister of Apollo) and Aurora with Aphrodite. I think Minerva was a better benefactor than Solomon, especially since he went gaga over the Queen of Sheba. I would assume that the use of the Minerva aspect, rather than Athena, was down to the Roman influence on England, who passed on the mythology to other English speakers, favoring many of the Roman versions over the Greeks. That, plus it was a bit harder to find an M and I doubt they wanted to use Morrigan, from Celtic myth. You could spot the Cavalier coming from the beginning, if you know your swordsmen. "The Smiling Swordsman" is an obvious parody of the painting, "The Laughing Cavalier," which points directly to our guest villain. Even hooded, he is wearing a hat with a feather in it, again suggesting the plumed hat worn by swordsmen of the age of the Cavaliers and Musketeers. A nice, fun little issue. The letters page includes one from Peter Sanderson, future assistant editor and writer at Marvel Comics and comic historian. Next issue is a full length Marvel Family tale.
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Post by Calidore on Aug 15, 2021 21:59:11 GMT -5
Catching up on this thread, I can see about where I started buying this book: #17 & 18 and that LCE with the Jackson Bostwick cover. Big nostalgia rush. #19 doesn't ring a bell, though.
Thanks for the memories!
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 16, 2021 12:53:36 GMT -5
Hey, I just noticed you're making the same error I made for years:
It's "Oksner", not "Oskner". K before S.
When a comics-reading pal of mine started discussing Bob "Oxner" I was too polite to try to correct his pronunciation. Then I checked some actual comics, and sure enough, K before S! I could have sworn I had read the word spelled as I imagined it a hundred times before, but now, every old issue of Adventure Comics featuring Supergirl had "Oksner" in the credits!
The Mandela Effect? Nope, just metathesis, a common occurrence that plagues almost all of us without our realizing it. Some word(s) in our vocabulary, often one we've read but not heard, initializes to an incorrect mental spelling and from then on, until we are directly corrected, it stays at that spelling in our head. It's fascinating to me that the proper spelling doesn't seem to register even when we read the word; we almost never come across the word and notice that it's spelled differently from how we know it to be!
In comics fandom, you'll find plenty of people who think the X-Men artist was John "Bryne", the Elongated Man was Ralph "Dinbey", Wonder Woman's from "Themyscria". In the general public, no matter how many times they see it in print, some people are absolutely certain that "et cetera" is abbreviated "ect." (These same people, I've noticed, tend to think it's pronounced "eck cetera", which jibes better with their perceived abbreviation).
I've been corrected on plenty of 'em myself; the earliest I can remember was when I lost points on a school quiz on national capitals because I was certain the city's name was "Helinski". For years I thought when someone got paid for their work it was "renumeration" (this was corrected when I read an article on the phenomenon--apparently that word is a common one for people to get wrong, as it's one we usually see in print rather than hear spoken, and we tend to associate 'numer' with numbers and hence with amounts of money).
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 16, 2021 21:22:24 GMT -5
Hey, I just noticed you're making the same error I made for years: It's "Oksner", not "Oskner". K before S. When a comics-reading pal of mine started discussing Bob "Oxner" I was too polite to try to correct his pronunciation. Then I checked some actual comics, and sure enough, K before S! I could have sworn I had read the word spelled as I imagined it a hundred times before, but now, every old issue of Adventure Comics featuring Supergirl had "Oksner" in the credits! The Mandela Effect? Nope, just metathesis, a common occurrence that plagues almost all of us without our realizing it. Some word(s) in our vocabulary, often one we've read but not heard, initializes to an incorrect mental spelling and from then on, until we are directly corrected, it stays at that spelling in our head. It's fascinating to me that the proper spelling doesn't seem to register even when we read the word; we almost never come across the word and notice that it's spelled differently from how we know it to be! In comics fandom, you'll find plenty of people who think the X-Men artist was John "Bryne", the Elongated Man was Ralph "Dinbey", Wonder Woman's from "Themyscria". In the general public, no matter how many times they see it in print, some people are absolutely certain that "et cetera" is abbreviated "ect." (These same people, I've noticed, tend to think it's pronounced "eck cetera", which jibes better with their perceived abbreviation). I've been corrected on plenty of 'em myself; the earliest I can remember was when I lost points on a school quiz on national capitals because I was certain the city's name was "Helinski". For years I thought when someone got paid for their work it was "renumeration" (this was corrected when I read an article on the phenomenon--apparently that word is a common one for people to get wrong, as it's one we usually see in print rather than hear spoken, and we tend to associate 'numer' with numbers and hence with amounts of money). Well he should just spell his name like a normal person!  I'm just gonna call him Bob-O, from now on. I have enough problems getting Schaffenberger....can't wait until Don Newton comes onto the series.....his name is easy!  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 16, 2021 21:25:18 GMT -5
ps I thought it was E Nelson Birdwell, for a while. The only reason I haven't done a Moon Knight review thread is that I don't want to have to spell Signkeeiwicks.  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 21, 2021 15:16:06 GMT -5
Shazam! #20 The Marvel Family vs Racially Insensitive Stereotypes, Mythical Creatures and Jetsons Rejects! Creative Team: Elliot S! Maggin-writer, Kurt Schaffenberger-artist, Julie Schwartz-editor Captain Marvel gets the inside cover Twinkie ad...  No idea who drew this; but, it doesn't look like they knew what Aunt Minerva looked like. Synopsis: A woman comes to Station WHIZ (Overflowing with News!) with the incredible tale that she knows who Captain Marvel is! She says he is a neighbor, Maxwell Zodiac, who was struck by lightning, while flying a kite, around the time Captain Marvel first appeared. He disappeared and Miss Bridges (the woman) believes he hides out in 3 spots, indicated on 3 separate maps. Sterling Morris calls in Bill Batson to hear all of this and he relates it to Mary and Freddy. they decide to check out the three spots and say their magic words, then the Marvel Family splits up...  Captain Marvel Jr heads over to eastern Europe and NATO goes on alert, when the Warsaw Pact has a conniption. The map has things marked like a treasure map and Junior follows the directions and comes to a cave, with a fire-breathing dragon, which he proceeds to injure. Junior goes into the cave and finds Mr Zodiac, who is far more concerned with the dragon's well being then the so-called hero...  Mary flies to Japan and lands at a monastery, where she enters without invitation and security tries to eject her; but she acts like a typical rude tourist, acting like she owns the place and pitching a fit when she doesn't get her way...  After beating up the locals, she finds Maxwell Zodiac and flies him out of there. Captain Marvel flies into outer space, to an orbiting satellite, without a JLAer on Monitor Duty. He ignores the No Trespassing sign and the owner takes a pot shot at him was rock salt and laser beams...  The Big Red Cheese rewires a robot to fire on the others and destroys private property, then finds Maxwell Zodiac waiting for him, in a space suit. he flies him back to Earth. The Three Marvels all converge on Station WHIZ (Home of Yellow Journalism!) and discover they have each brought back Maxwell Zodiac and Miss Bridges flips her bonnet.  Zodiac explains that the lightning split him into three beings and each form progressed independently, and then Maxwell reunites his forms into one being. Miss Bridges flees the building screaming about monsters. Captain Marvel and Dr Kilowatt try to assure the general public that Maxwell Zodiac is perfectly normal and harmless; but, the general public is stupid and prone to hysteria and a mob descends on the station....  Mary and Junior hold them off while Captain Marvel spirits Maxwell Zodiac away. Mary and Junior later join them, on a mountainside and Mr Zodiac demonstrates he isn't "normal, as he flies into the air, of his own accord and goes off to find his destiny, in the stars. Thoughts: Charming story, though pretty light on plot. As you can tell by the snark, it kind of assumes kids will believe anything and that it's okay to perpetuate stereotypes. Eastern Europe is packed with unexplored forests, where dragons live; sumo wrestlers guard monasteries, in Japan and no modern buildings exist, etc. You only had to watch a Godzilla movie to know that Japan looked nothing like what we see. Meanwhile, why are there sumo at a monastery? Sumo are athletes (of a sort), who are trained in dojos and compete in amateur and professional bouts, as parts of large stables, with serious prize money in the offering. They do not guard monasteries. Even as a kid I knew that. A letter writer chastised the team for the thin plot of issue 18's Junior story as being thin on plot. That was a short back-up tale; this is a full length feature and it is just as thin. Split up, fight someone, find Zodiac, bring him back. Rinse, repeat, recycle. I generally like Elliot Maggin's writing and his character stuff here is fine; but, the plot needed more development. Otto Binder it ain't! Since this is full length, no back-up features. Not bad; but not great and it seems to embrace an idea that kids need things dumbed down. Let's hope this trend doesn't continue. Meanwhile, next time will be another diversion, as we look at the Secret Origin of Dr Sivana.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 22, 2021 15:53:54 GMT -5
Limited Collectors' Edition C-39, Secret Origins of Super-Villains The back cover should have been all of the characters lying in a pile, after they crashed into each other! Creative Team: Bill Parker-writer, CC Beck-artist As the title says, this is a collection of origin tales of various super-villains, from the top level (Joker, Lex Luthor) to somewhere much lower (Terra-Man). It also includes a nice center two-page spread of (a good portion of) the key enemies of the major heroes.  I would say Flash is over-represented, while Superman is under-represented; but, this is Carmine's regime. Captain Marvel's foes are well represented: Sivana, Aunt Minerva, Mr Atom, King Kull, Ibac, Black Adam. I'm going to skip the other stories; but, the book has Joker's origin, as the Red Hood (Detective Comics #168), Lex Luthor's (Adventure Comics #271), Captain Cold (Showcase #8), Dr Sivana (Whiz Comics #15) and Terra-Man (Superman #249). Terra-Man is definitely the odd man out; but, the story was drawn by Neal Adams, so its inclusion is easily forgiven. So, on with the Secret Origin of Dr Thaddeus Bodog Sivana.....  Synopsis: We start out at an awards show, where Sterling Morris presents an award for Outstanding Radio Work of the Year to his own employee, Billy Batson. Billy's fan club asks for a story, but Billy says he cannot come up with anything new. He walks home through a shady part of town and gets harassed by some local punks....  Billy gives as good as he gets, until Rocco, one of the punk's big "brudder" turns up to muss 'im up. Billy wisely calls out for assistance and Captain Marvel. The Big Red Cheese teaches the bullies a lesson and moves on. The next evening, Billy Batson is bored and decides to ask Beautia (Dr Sivana's previous unwilling assistant) out on a date and switches to Captain Marvel so she doesn't laugh in his face. She agrees and they go to a nice restaurant, which happens to be owned by Rocco di Bota, the "big brudder" of the previous night. he sends a goon to pick a fight. CM decks the goon, then takes Beautia out, while switching to Billy, to blind the hoods. Beautia asks where Captain Marvel went and Billy ignores that and leads her down some kind of hidden passageway (it says so, in the comic), up a ladder, and into a room with a Chinese stereotype that was embarrassing in 1940, let alone 1975. Said stereotype says they are safe, when a knock comes at the door. The stereotype answers and tells them to go away and Rocco and the boys recognizes the Big Boos, Dr Footu Yu and scram. Dr Foo locks the door, then locks an inner door and Billy gets nervous. he asks him to unlock the door to let them leave and Dr Foo responds, "Velly solly." Seriously. Billy tries to call out his magic word, but is drowned out by electronic noise. he tries it again and the same thing happens. Dr Foo explains that the device on the table is a high frequency oscillator which cancels out Billy's magic word, when he speaks it. Billy realizes that Dr Foo has to be Sivana, since only he knows Billy Batson is Captain Marvel! He takes off the "yellow face" disgusie and orders Beautia to hold Billy and he welds the oscillator onto a collar, around Billy's neck. he then forces them to climb into an airplane and they fly to an unnamed Central American country, where Sivana has a secret installation, along with a domed habitat of Venusian Glompers....  Billy and Beautia recognize them, as she was once Queen of Venus. They feed them and Beautia remarks they were friendly to her, but Sivana will unleash their killer instincts upon mankind. Billy tries to escape, in the night, but is spotted and the oscillator prevents him from saying the magic word. He makes a run foor the airstrip and takes off in Sivana's plane, and finds an affectionate glomper along for the ride. However, they haven't escaped, as a giant art deco rocket comes after them. The plane crashes on a mountain and Billy is injured, but the oscillator is smashed. He is able to say the word and Captain Marvel appears. he knocks the rocket out of the sky and gets attacked by a muscle-bound bruiser...  Captain Marvel decks him and their fight sets off a rockslide. The brute is injured and captain marvel carries him to safety. Sivana is also hurt and he and Beautia are carried to safety by the Glompers.Beautia exclaims that Captain marvel has killed them both, though they live. They put the Glompers into a rocket to get them back to Venus. On the trip, Captain marvel patches up Magnificus, the brute and Beautia reveals their secret and Sivana's life story...  Sivana was a brilliant scientist, with ideas to help mankind, but was subject to ridicule and (implied) prejudice. He finally gathers his young daughter and son and takes them into a rocket to Venus, where they tame the wild jungles and Beautia becomes Queen, which is how Captain Marvel met her. Thoughts: Excellent tale, very much in the mode of early inter-planetary science fiction, as a brilliant scientist builds a rocket and flies to another planet and fights to survive in its wilderness. This one turns evil, as he harbors resentment for his treatment by others. He is shown being berated across Europe; and, given the time period, one would suspect that Parker is implying that Sivana is Jewish and some of the ridicule is anti-semitism, which factored into the lives of several scientists and pioneers, including Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. It's also the typical mad scientist routing, "I'll show them; I'll show them all!" The world can't recognize their genius and reward them, so they will demonstrate it and make them pay. Nothing unique here, except for the fact that Beautia turns out to be Sivana's daughter, after previously just being a pawn of Sivana's. Beautia and Magnificus are put into an interesting position, as they aren't villains, but they aren't exactly heroes, either. They reject their father, but, do get pulled into his world, from time to time. Later, Sivana Jr and Georgia Sivana are introduced as antagonists of Captain Marvel Jr and Mary Marvel, respectively and Beautia and Magnificus fade into the background. They are later brought back for the World's finest stories of the Marvel Family. The "yellow face" bit is of the period; but it was racist then and it was racist in 1975, and it is racist now. There is an element of parody, with the name Dr Footu Yu, obviously mocking Dr Fu Manchu, though it's still built around a negative stereotype, without the added level of social commentary. This is a problem in early Fawcett stories, as much as the other companies, including DC. Good luck finding a 1940s comic book company that didn't use stereotyped characters as villains or comic relief. Even after, such things still continued well into the modern era, with other ethnic groups and regional and racial stereotypes. Leaving aside the yellow face and the mad scientist tropes, this is a pretty charming story, which illustrates why Captain Marvel was so popular, right from the get go. It has fun with the premise and nothing is too absurd, so long as the story supports it. Giant Venusian frogs? Make them loveable and we're good. Pint-sized mad scientist out to rule the world? Let him say "Curses!" a lot, have him call his enemy a Big Red Cheese and give him imaginative weapons and let the good times roll! Talking tiger? That's g-r-r-r-r-reat! Evil caterpillar out to rule the world? That's brilliant! Next, back to the modern era.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 23, 2021 11:32:59 GMT -5
Thoughts: Excellent tale, very much in the mode of early inter-planetary science fiction, as a brilliant scientist builds a rocket and flies to another planet and fights to survive in its wilderness. This one turns evil, as he harbors resentment for his treatment by others. He is shown being berated across Europe; and, given the time period, one would suspect that Parker is implying that Sivana is Jewish and some of the ridicule is anti-semitism, which factored into the lives of several scientists and pioneers, including Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. It's also the typical mad scientist routing, "I'll show them; I'll show them all!" The world can't recognize their genius and reward them, so they will demonstrate it and make them pay. Nothing unique here, except for the fact that Beautia turns out to be Sivana's daughter, after previously just being a pawn of Sivana's. Beautia and Magnificus are put into an interesting position, as they aren't villains, but they aren't exactly heroes, either. They reject their father, but, do get pulled into his world, from time to time. Later, Sivana Jr and Georgia Sivana are introduced as antagonists of Captain Marvel Jr and Mary Marvel, respectively and Beautia and Magnificus fade into the background. They are later brought back for the World's finest stories of the Marvel Family.
I knew about this story, but for some reason never knew it was reprinted in here - I'd have owned it otherwise. I always though Sivana's background was interesting and someone ought to have made a full issue story about his adventures as a pioneer on Venus.
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Post by zaku on Aug 28, 2021 8:51:09 GMT -5
By the way, codystarbuck , I think you should add Convergence Shazam to you review list. It explicitly stars the original Earth-S Captain Marvel and I really liked the art!   |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 29, 2021 13:52:42 GMT -5
By the way, codystarbuck , I think you should add Convergence Shazam to you review list. It explicitly stars the original Earth-S Captain Marvel and I really liked the art! We'll see; we've got a long way to go. Now, buckle up your seatbelt and stop tormenting your sister.  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 29, 2021 14:47:45 GMT -5
Shazam! #21 Why is that rat on the left holding his raygun in his left hand (paw?) if his holster is on the right? See, it's details like that that destroy all credibility in your giant rats! Creative Team: Bill Woolfolk-writer, CC Beck-pencils, Pete Costanza-inks; Captain Marvel Adventures #145 Captain Marvel Jr-Woolfolk-writer, Bud Thompson-art; Captain Marvel Jr #106 Yep, reprints. In fact, we will have reprints through issue #24. More or less, Shazam! wasn't setting the world on fire. However, it had a hit Saturday morning tv show. How do you keep the book going, without eating the costs? Reprints! I suspect what ultimately brought back the original stories was Jenette Kahn. She took over around that time frame and one of the first things she did was put an end to reprints, unless there was a good reason for reprinting the story. The Limited Collectors' Editions give way to the All-New Collectors' Editions, as they use the tabloid format for new content. Books that were just coasting on reprints were either shut down or new stories were ordered. Shazam! got the latter because of the tv show. The problem was, the old stories were better with those specific characters. They were classics. The newer crowd struggled to capture the whimsy of the past and make it more modern, like their current product (which was debatable, since Superman and Batman weren't exactly the most modern of comics, even with cosmetic makeovers). We'll get to that, when we arrive at that stage. For now, look forward to some more work from Otto Binder and William Woolfolk, CC Beck and Pete Costanza, Bud Thompson, Jack Binder and a few others. Synopsis: "World of Giant Rats"-Billy Batson is visiting Prof Edgewise, who has built a machine that can break objects down to their "electronic components" and transmit them to the future. he sent a block of wet cement to capture the footprints of future men, but it came back with giant rodent tracks...  Billy changes into Captain Marvel and uses the Rock of Eternity to fly into the future, to investigate and finds a world populated by giant rats! These rats also lay traps for men...  It's a madhouse! A Madhouse! Take you stinking paws off me you damn dirty........ Whoops, wrong future! Captain Marvel saves a man from a trap and smacks around some officer and grunt rats. The man leads TBRC (tasty for giant rats) to a manhole and a hidden lair for a human resistance group. An old man relates how mankind migrated from the Earth to the stars and the people who stayed lived through another ice age, where the rats quickly evolved and took over...  Captain Marvel and a human go to try to grab the leader, Mork-El (this is before Mork & Mindy), but CM has to tone down the human, as he wants to torture and skin the rat. I wonder if his name is Skinner? They go to the palace and are spotted and have to move fast to avoid the atom gun of the guard. Captain marvel flies through a window and gets zapped by a lightning trap, which switches him back to Billy Batson. Billy is brought before Mork-El and finds out that the humans have been spending too much time reading conspiracy theories on social media....  Then, a guard comes in and says the human has escaped and stolen a weapon of mass destruction. Billy changes to Captain marvel and stops the humans from setting it off. he then rounds up the bloodthirsty humans and turns them over to the rats to civilize them. Ooh, new Saturday Morning TV line-up....   Some girl is horning in on Captain Marvel's show....  You know; I'm okay with that! "The City on the Mirage"-Freddy Freeman is vacationing in the Southwest, with his friend, Red O'Riley. Just friends. Who vacation together. Without anyone else. Especially female anyone else. Guess Wertham missed that. They drive across the Mojave Desert, when a geyser erupts and propels their car into the air, where they see a city, in the waters, like something out of a Harryhausen film...  They have guards sicked on them and Freddy changes into Elvis....Captain Marvel Jr, and proceeds to TCB with K-rah-tee! The guy who looks like Christopher Lee zaps Jr and red with some kind of raygun and Red goes down, but not the King. He prepares to hit the dude with a hunka-hunka burning fist, but the guy pleads off and it's all a misunderstanding. He thought they were barbarians, as they haven't seen an outsider in thousands of years, since they disappeared, in the last Ice Age!  Junior explains what has happened, since that Ice Age and the head honcho decides he can continue with his original plans of world conquest....  He traps red and Jr with a magnetic device and heads off to ready the troops. Jr "slides some sand" to get to the control and shut off the machine. He then flies off and finds the war machines and "returns to sender!" he confronts the boss, who tries his ray gun, but Jr clocks him and he falls into the path of his own raygun and is discombobulated. Thoughts: The giant rat story is a nice twist on things, as it turns out the rats are the civilized ones and the humans are the vermin. It also tends to show the rather bestial side of mankind and that civilization hadn't really tamed it, which is pretty obvious from the various wars, wanton destruction and stupidity that man demonstrates, far too often. The story is from 1953, but it shows that Bill Woolfolk (as well as Otto Binder) was a far-reaching thinker. The Junior story is a bit slight, but engaging enough. Not a classic, but an entertaining tale.
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Post by Calidore on Aug 29, 2021 15:19:25 GMT -5
Boy, those Saturday morning schedules bring back memories of my sister and I working out our paths at every season change. My only absolute untouchable was Bugs Bunny. That early block above with Bugs/Scooby Doo/Shazam is about as good as it gets. I have zero memory of Space Nuts and Ghost Busters, though; must have gone to a different channel when those were on.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 29, 2021 16:40:35 GMT -5
Boy, those Saturday morning schedules bring back memories of my sister and I working out our paths at every season change. My only absolute untouchable was Bugs Bunny. That early block above with Bugs/Scooby Doo/Shazam is about as good as it gets. I have zero memory of Space Nuts and Ghost Busters, though; must have gone to a different channel when those were on. Far Out Space Nuts was one of Sid & Marty Krofft's lesser efforts. it featured Bob "Gilligan" Denver and Chuck McCann as a pair of NASA maintenance guys who accidentally launch themselves in a rocket, into space, and meet up with a furry little alien, while having comedic adventures. It made HR Puffnstuff look like Chekov. The "I said lunch, not launch!" line became a gag in MST3K. Ghost Busters is the original, with Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch, as a pair of bumbling detectives, with a gorilla, Tracy, (played by Bob Burns). Storch was Spencer and Tucker was Kong. The names were a gag, as they would be addressed as Spencer, Tracy and Kong. Of course, everyone would assume the gorilla is Kong. This is how Filmation was able to have a cartoon, called Ghostbusters, in 1986. They predated the Ghostbusters movie and had maintained their trademark. The Columbia Pictures animated series called itself Real Ghostbusters, since Filmation held the trademark on the Ghostbusters name, for television. The cartoon characters were supposed to be the sons of the live action characters. They were shown at 11:00 and 11:30 am EST, opposite Uncle croc's Bloc and The Oddball Couple, on ABC, and Return to the Planet of the Apes and Westwind, on NBC. In my house, we watched Return to the Planet of the Apes. Westwind featured Van Williams, with a family, sailing a yacht around the world. i don't recall ever watching it. Uncle Croc was so bad that Fred Silverman refused to buy shows from Filmation, ever again. It featured Charles Nelson Riley as the host of a local cartoon show, with a group of cartoons that were parodies of tv shows (MUSH) or of other types of cartoons (Wacky and Packy). I saw some of that but never thought much of the cartoons and hated the live stuff in between. Never did see more than one MUSH cartoon; it was always Wacky & Packy. We had trouble tuning in our CBS affiliate, which was about 70 miles away, on our tv (until we bought a newer one, with a better antenna). Our neighbors had tv antennas mounted on their houses and got to watch that stuff; but, we saw little or no CBS programs, until the later 70s (except at relatives). I saw a few Shazams and Isis episodes; usually when we were on vacation, at a relatives house (holidays, usually) or when I had a sleepover, at a friend's house. I always found Shazam kind of boring, since Captain Marvel couldn't get into fights. Isis was a little better, though that was due as much to puberty as anything else. That and the fact that Andrea Thomas drove a Volkswagen Thing. Way cooler than a Winnebago. |
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Post by mikelmidnight on Aug 30, 2021 11:30:33 GMT -5
By the way, codystarbuck , I think you should add Convergence Shazam to you review list. It explicitly stars the original Earth-S Captain Marvel and I really liked the art! Part two was a bit of a let-down, but … it has the single best Tawky Tawny line ever uttered. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Sept 4, 2021 19:24:14 GMT -5
Shazam! #22 King Kull using The Big red Cheese for batting practice. Creative Team: Main-Otto Binder-writer, CC Beck, Artist; Captain Marvel Adventures #149 Mary Marvel-Bill Woolfolk-writer, Jack Binder-art; The Marvel Family #19 More reprints. Synopsis: Billy Batson reports from the UN, as they announce a new initiative, the World Help and Aid Mission (WHAM). Billy thinks it is a great idea and switches with Captain Marvel to lend a hand, dealing with world emergencies.  The UN dispatches a reporter of their own, Jack Todd, to cover Captain Marvel's efforts. He first heads to coal country to deal with a fire, inn the mines. Eyewitnesses indicate a madman threw fire bowbs into the mind and CM suspects King Kull. he snatches up an oil pipeline and floods the mine with the oil. jack is convinced that it will feed the fire, but CM points out, correctly, that the massive flood of oils smothered the fire before the oil could be ignited, since a large volume of oxygen was displaced, preventing combustion. They move to India, where gnats are spreading disease and Jack succumbs to the sickness. He mutters something about fleas, and CM identifies a flea that attacks the gnats and sets up a massive hive to breed enough fleas to kill off the gnats. It works and Jack recovers, with the aid of anti-biotics. Nothing is said about the massive population of fleas that now inhabit the area. In Europe, a stream is turning the surrounding land into a bog. Cap removes the people, then gathers up a mountain of earth and drops it on the entire area, covering the stream in new soil. There is more farmable land, as a result and the land stops turning to quicksand. Nothing about the loss of the water supply, though. In the Arctic, reports of an iceberg on fire lead CM to a pit, where Kull started a fire, but robots are putting it out, saying they were created to help. CM switches with Billy to cover the story and Kull ambushes him, revealing that the robots were a set-up. Billy is bound and gagged and a massive block of ice is slowly lowered over him, by the robots....  Billy breathes out warm air, which briefly melts surface ice, which refreezes as it drips, creating an icicle, which Billy uses to tear off his gag and change. CM stops a rocket that Kull launched to poison the atmosphere. Kull gets away, but jack sees to it that CM is rewarded for his heroic efforts.  Mary Marvel-A lazy Triton (species of mer-man, not The Triton, son of Poseidon) is woken up by his wife, who nags at him to get some whales for dinner. He goes off to hide and sleep, near the site of a new tunnel being built. the noise of construction wakes him and he attacks the site...  The tunnel collapses, trapping workers and Mary Marvel flies in to rescue them. She sticks around in case there is more trouble. The Triton is again disturbed by dynamite blasting and uses an old anchor to smash the outer casing of the tunnel. Mary flies out and battles him, but he is strong. then the dude's wife shows up and he is in dutch with her. She drags him off while Mary snickers....  The tunnel is finished and the contractor can fulfill his promise to marry his fiance. Thoughts: The main story is fine, though Captain marvel's solutions read like a comic book version of The House That Jack Built, the progressive rhyme that drags more and more people and animals into the story. Realistically, most of his solutions should create new problems that are just as dangerous. The oil flooding assumes CM can fill the mine fast enough to prevent the right mixture of air and fire to ignite the fuel. That would be hard to control, since we aren't talking about something like Halon or CO2, which would displace oxygen, but could not be ignited. The fleas could potentially carry as much disease as the gnats, which makes it a dubious solution, not to mention it throws the eco-system way out of balance, without a predator to keep the fleas in check. The Mary story is slight, but a nice twist on the henpecked husband trope, as the Triton ears the wrath of his wife, making her nagging poetic justice. The main story mentions "the war," meaning Korea, reminding us tha the new UN tried to use aggressive military force to end conflicts, both in Korea and in The Congo, where UN troops actively fought mercenaries and soldiers of the secessionist Katanga province, following independence from Belgium. Korea was largely a US and UK show, in terms of combat; but, other UN nations provided troops and support. It ended in stalemate. the Congo was a fiasco, as aggressive UN operations led to heavy reprisals, resulting in the Siege of Jadotville, where and Irish unit was cut off and fought off mercenary attacks, including airstrikes, until they ran out of ammo and were forced to surrender. Their release had to be negotiated by the UN. On top of things, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold flew to the Congo to negotiate a cease-fire; but, his plane went down, under mysterious circumstances, over what is now Zambia. Hammarskjold and most on board were killed. Blame for the downing of the plane is spread between the KGB, the CIA (in conjunction with the Belgian mining interests), a mercenary pilot shooting it down to other deeper conspiracy theories. Following the debacle, the UN pulled back from direct military intervention and used peacekeeping forces, to try to protect civilians and keep factions apart, with mixed results. The WHAM initiative sounds more like the work of the International Red Cross, though they don't usually deal with crazed cavemen, trying to destroy humanity. The briefing for the new initiative mentions several other UN programs, many which were a great success, such as UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Health organization. This program sounds like it should accomplish much, until George Michael goes solo.
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