Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery (available in the RSS feed sidebars) mentions that another blog, Trusty Plinko (which is not a fan-site for the Price is Right game) was beginning a series of reviews of old Doctor Who episodes. Of course I’m sold, but while looking at what else Bill D. has to offer, I came across this NPR article (which he linked to) all about Captain Marvel! Not the lame Marvel Comics version; the Fawcett/DC heroes. Bill D. also had his say on the underrated series, and by underrated I mean by DC Comics.
Reprint of Whiz Comics #2, which debuted Captain Marvel in 1940.
The more I read about the classic comics (or see limited scans at sites like Daily_Scans), the more I can’t figure out why DC even tries to fit them into the current DC Universe. Eric Rupe at The Weekly Crisis made a point in his latest Soapbox that with the return of the Multiverse, the Shazam! series could easily be moved back to Earth-5, the pre-Crisis home for the Marvels and other Fawcett Publications characters like Kid Eternity. Instead, Billy is now the new Wizard, Freddie now calls himself “Shazam”, complete with the red Captain Marvel costume, and if you really want to expose yourself to the total character destruction they’ve done to Mary Marvel, be my guest.
I do want to take NPR’s Glen Weldon to task on one matter, however. He takes the opportunity to slam the 70’s Television show from Filmation.
“But it was the ’70s, and such flights of fancy would be soon grounded. It didn’t take long for Cap and company to start getting shoehorned into “relevant and realistic” storylines, egged on by a craptastic Saturday morning lesson-of-the-week television show that decried, among other things, the evils of daredevil stunts and overprotecting the handicapped. (Both separately and in combination, one assumes.)”
Maybe he didn’t like it, but this was my introduction Billy Batson and his super-powered alter ego. I have yet to see a Superman series that both matches up with the mythos and gives Kal-El a decent battle. (Smallville finally gives us the latter in a live-action show for the first time since the movies, but at the expense of the former, which even Superman 4 stayed somewhat close to. Superman Returns had other issues.) Sure, the animated series was closer to the comics, but I was always enthralled with the live action adventures of Captain Marvel as a kid, and that’s what counts. It is what started my love of the hero.
Adventures in the DC Universe featured a kid-friendly look at the main DC titles. How times have changed.
My first Shazam! comic (or the closest to it) was Adventures in the DC Universe #7, which featured the Marvel Family. I really hadn’t seen a Shazam! comic in my youth (and if I did, what little allowance I had for comics usually went to The Transformers anyway), but I had the two TV shows. When I was finally older and had more money, I picked up a VHS box set of the Republic Serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel, which may well be the best serial from the days of old I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched quite a few between sci-fi and super hero tales. Now if I can just get the DVD version which will take less room up on my shelf.
Ah, for the days when heroes were heroes, villains were villians, and comics didn’t take themselves so danged seriously. At least there’s still Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!, the Johnny DC title meant for kids, but frankly is a lot more fun than most of the other stuff DC produces.
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