Shazam! The Marvel Family (1939 - 1954)

I picked up a CD-Rom (and that's how long ago it was) of a bunch of Marvel Family and Captain Marvel, Jr. comics years ago but never really delved into it. An Alter Ego issue devoted to Otto Binder caught my eye at the comic shop, though, and diving into that led to some sporadic Shazam-ing over the past year. Especially the past few months.

As per usual with these Comics Scenic Route posts, this is just a visual tour with superficial commentary. I hope interested parties will seek the rest of the story(ies) elsewhere. The following will not contain any remarks on any Captain Marvel after the demise of the House of Shazam at Fawcett in 1954, nor anything on said demise or its subsequent impact on comics history. And of the stories represented, I follow my usual slipshod approach. 

Do I know how to sell it or what! It's just there's so much to all the above and so many different places to read it online that why even attempt it, is my philosophy. Suffice it to say, though, as was the case with the Weird Fantasy post, students of comics history or simply admirers of the genre that don't have a working or passing knowledge of All Things Shazam will find a world of fascination behind that door whenever you decide to open it.

Until then! Here we are:

1.

MARVEL MYTHOS

Oh no, Tawny Tiger! Can't have that. Luckily for you, the origin is recounted in basically every issue.
 

Did you miss anything? Here it is again - later in the same issue:

I mean, they are making sure you are up to speed, here. Such gracious hosts! All kidding aside, this was perhaps an exaggeration of standard practice of the time but not outlier behavior. Very Luke-and-Obi-Wan/monomyth-y, way before it was cool.

The story expanded to include Captain Marvel, Jr, as well as Mary Marvel. I always liked how she just got a feminized version of Shazam heroines (Captain Marvel, Jr. and all the other Marvel Family guys never had their own personalized versions. That'd have been cool, though.)

Every hero needs that shadowy reflection of his or her self, and Captain Marvel's was Black (née Mighty) Adam:

I realized after the fact that I only had the one panel of him, here, above. I didn't plan it that way and don't mean to slight him. From what I understand his visibility has been pretty high of late. I never read Captain Marvel, growing up, which I suspect is the case of most comics-reading folks my age. We were too young for the Shazam stuff in the 70s and DC never really knew what to do with the character in the 80s. (As always, my knowledge of post-1990 continuities is always kind of fuzzy but more power to them/ best wishes to everyone.) Anyway, whenever I'd come across the character (Black Adam) in a Who's Who or wherever, I was puzzled; who the hell was this guy? Now the Rock's going to play him in a movie. Times change.

Before moving on, I want to do two things: (1) Praise the general art and design of these things. I hope I represented this somewhat in the caps to come, but a lot of these panels are leagues above other Golden Age art I've seen. CC Beck is the main guy to thank, but I put everyone I could find in the Labels. And (2) I intentionally no longer include covers in my comics posts - as with the history stuff, above, it's just too well-represented out there. But I have to make an exception for this one:

Man, that is fantastic. More on this story in a bit. First, since we're here:

2.

WAS ELVIS CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.?

Definitely! (Okay maybe, maybe not.) It has been suggested that Elvis, who loved Captain Marvel comics and Captain Marvel, Jr. in particular, modeled his 60s comeback suits (as well as the lightning bolt motif of his TCB crew) on the Whiz Comics Wunderkind. Grant Morrison suggests this as literal truth in his book Supergods, but it might all be just wishful thinking.

Still: did anyone ever see them in the same place at the same time? Shazam! Uh-huh, uh-huh.

3.

SOME MEMORABLE STORIES

Golden Age stories can be tricky. I like the idea of them more than the reading of them, usually. You'll run into some of that here (how couldn't you, with some 400+ issues of Captain Marvel-related content put out by Fawcett in this period?) but what's remarkable is how readable so much of this still is. Campy, sure - one must make allowances and contextualize, of course - but one must stand in awe of Otto Binder, who wrote so many of these. Not only did he have that same gift for cranking out content that so many of his comics and sci-fi contemporaries had, he had his finger right on the pulse of it.

I often like to make Mt. Rushmores of different genres, i.e. which 4 or 5 people would you put up on a mountainside to represent such-and-such a genre. If I were in a Comics National Park and saw him chiseled up there alongside Gardner Fox and Edmond Hamilton, this would be a sound and sensible start. But who's the fourth? (Or fifth?) I hope someone finishes the line-up in the comments. 

Let's dive in.

CMA 80. (Freud Van Rockabilt)

CMA 100 (although it's a reprint, I think). Let's spend some time with this one.

Seriously, what good is a wizard that would be fooled like this?

Here's where things get interesting:

Seems familiar.

Captain Marvel takes over North Central Positronics an atomic lab to storm the Hub of Eternity.

Great stuff. 

Here's the title page from Captain Marvel Jr 17, the story for the cover mentioned above. I should've screencapped more of this one. See earlier comments about how bad I am at things.

Marvel Family 39.

Marvel Family 2.

If there is one Captain Marvel story that seems to capture everything wacky and wonderful (and perhaps indulgent) about the character and concept, it's The Monster Society of Evil, which also doubles as sincerely wonderful WW2 propaganda. It began being published in 1943 and ran for two years through Captain Marvel Adventures, so you can watch the real-time tide turning in the Allied effort against the Axis as the story progresses. 

I'll just present the screencaps I grabbed from this and return in the next section.

Thousand Year Reich.

(Me checking facebook. Minus the Shazam.)

Nuremberg.

This conceit of villains making lists of ways to beat Captain Marvel will return in a bit. ("Kill Everybody!")

4.

SOME SURREAL STORIES

I wanted to isolate some tales that struck me as particularly wtf-y. Here Captain Marvel wrestles with forces well beyond the tried and true of his era.

Captain Marvel Adventures 43.

So much to say here! I short-circuit. CMA 113.

CMA 119

Whiz Comics 153.

5.

WAR

Captain Marvel's adventures were published while America was at war, first with the Nazis and Axis, then with the godless communists of China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. Like all comic book heroes of the era, Captain Marvel did his bit.

CMA 2.

CMA 144.

CMJ 119. The soldier's reaction cracks me up. Wouldn't you rather see Captain Marvel, Sr.? If only to get the kid off the front lines?

Master Comics 34. ("Captain Nazi.")

Master Comics 43.

I forget which this and the next few are from. One of the Monster Society of Evil stories.

The good Captain even found some time to warn against atomic Armageddon in CMA 66.

6.

LEST WE FORGET

I've painted a rather rosy and forward-looking picture of the old Captain Marvel. It wasn't all fun and games.

This came out around the same time as EC's "Judgment Day" in Weird Fantasy. Quite a difference, eh? Guess which of the two was deemed acceptable to the censors. The past is a different country, Mr. Bond.

I have a feeling any examination of these comics these days would perhaps over-focus on this stuff or to the exclusion of all else. Which really isn't all that omnipresent in the 400+ issues Fawcett put out and is at conspicuous odds with the sensibilities of the Marvel Family themselves. But there it is, in all its dubious, sad, racist glory. I wish it wasn't.

You can't engage with the past - or the present, really - on your own terms; it is what it is/ is what it was. Am I making excuses? Not even the tiniest bit. Just what's the point of raging against the past? It only works as a control mechanism for the present. (Did people not freaking read 1984? I digress.) I just didn't want to ignore it either.

Really makes you appreciate what EC was doing all the more, eh? Back to less scuzzy waters.

7.

RANDOMS

Leftover screencap time! First up, some shots of Chicago, where Captain Marvel ended up an awful lot.

CMA 80.

"Are you addressing me, peasant?" needs to make a comeback as something people say.

CMJ 17

Marvel Family 44

Mary Marvel 15. (What the hell is going on here?)

Whiz Comics 105

Whiz Comics 155

Wow Comics 51

8.

MISSING SECTION

I had planned to screencap Jeff Smith's reinvention of Captain Marvel from a few years back (the 4 part Monster Society of Evil) but I have to say after revisiting it in 2018 I didn't like it too much. I remember really loving it when it came out; in fact, it was probably the first I ever really engaged with the character or Marvel mythos. But revisiting it after taking in both the original MSE as well as all the rest and I've got to say: Jeff Smith really dropped the ball in reintroducing the character and concepts. To consciously invoke the signature storyline of the original era was a bad idea, as well; it falls well short of that mark. 

Some of the art's okay - Jeff Smith's skills as an illustrator are never in question. As a storyteller, though, especially of the MSE / Shazam variety, though, it's a huge miss. I award it no screencaps.

Okay, one screencap.

~

That's all she wrote, folks! Hope you enjoyed.

From the Fawcett Collectors of America (in Alter Ego)

CMA 100