(Almost) EVERY CAPTAIN MARVEL RANKED (by someone else)!

CBR (ComicBookResource) has pulled out all the stops this time. With the SHAZAM! and Captain Marvel movies in post-production and news items coming out every day, they posted an article that "ranks" 20 different Captain Marvels.

https://www.cbr.com/every-captain-marvel-ranked/

This list is interesting for several reasons.

1. They combine all versions of the original Captain Marvel into one.
This enables these characters not to load up the list of course, but it also, then, counts the original Fawcett version (where the hero and the boy, Billy Batson, have different personalities) with the "New Beginning" version (where they have the same enthusiastic, youthful personality) with Jerry Ordway's "Power of SHAZAM!" version (in which Billy, as the hero for the first time, got all upset that he was made old and attacked the Old Wizard). I consider there to be enough differences between these and the other versions of the hero that DC has created by the name "Captain Marvel" that they should be considered separately in "rankings" like this. But then, there are space limitations, so CBR had to make some cuts somewhere, I'm sure.

2. They pull some really obscure Captain Marvels out that even I have not heard of.
I had apparently missed the "Age of Ultron" Marvel crossover event in 2013 and did not know that Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp) was Captain Marvel in an alternate timeline. I don't follow the Fantastic Four, generally, so I was not aware that in the alternate future of "Fantastic Four: The End" a character named Ayesha was Captain Marvel. Marvel's Mangaverse is a foreign animal to me, so their Captain Marvel (who was Marvin Elwood, the son of Mar-Vell and Carol Danvers) was equally foreign (and where the heck did they get the name "Marvin Elwood?").

3. They acknowledge some of the lesser-seen Captain Marvels of which I was at least aware.
The Amalgam Captain Marvel combining Marvel and DC CMs only appeared in a few pages of Amalgam comics. Teddy ("Hulkling") Altman, son of Mar-Vell and a Skrull princess, was a Captain Marvel in a future timeline. "The Captain" of Nextwave (not their leader, but a superpowered guy who went by that name) said, in one panel, that he had tried the name "Captain Marvel." That these brief appearances did not escape CBR's notice impresses me.

4. They missed a few.
In "Power of Shazam," Jerry Ordway wrote a story in which Dr. Sivana created an alternate timeline in which Billy Batson's parents were not killed. Thus, Billy and Mary never became Captain Marvels, but their mom and dad each did. I won't spoil it for you but there was some quality emotional drama. It was also the first appearance of a female "SHAZAM!" Captain Marvel in a white dress/costume. This white outfit became Mary's costume when the timeline went back to normal with not a comment made. This enabled the three lead members of the Marvel Family to be red, white, and blue.

In the big, epic, trilogy of 12-issue limited series' Earth X/Universe X/Paradise X, Captain Mar-Vell appeared both as a small child and as dead, and the leader of an army of dead Kree warriors. I consider these to be different characters, being as it is a different timeline or something.

5. They give Monica Rambeau some respect.
Marvel's second Captain Marvel (and the only one of them that has no connection to Mar-Vell) is listed as #4, after the Billy Batson, Carol Danvers, and Mar-Vell. In my opinion, she was a better "feminist superhero" than Carol Danvers' Ms. Marvel, because she was smart, professional, and did not need to have either her race or gender reflected in her name. There is nothing wrong with being proud or making a statement of one's race or gender, but it should be an optional thing, not one forced upon a character to highlight that aspect of them. She became leader of the avengers and did not have to go through any symbolic schizophrenic split personality drama. She never got her own title except for two one-shots in the early 1990's, and after she was dropped as leader of the Avengers she was barely ever seen, except in a niche supporting role.

Here is a part of a lecture I give regularly in which I talk about Monica Rambeau:

All things considered, the ranking is not very much beyond what I would have given. What do you think?

And if you are not confused yet, here is a broad history of MY 20 Captain Marvels...

What do you think? How would you rank the Captain Marvels? Post YOUR top 20 below!

Is Lashana Lynch playing Monica Rambeau in Marvel's "Captain Marvel"? (Clickbait roundup)

I was going to write a big, thoughtful post about this, and even created this image to illustrate it:

And started building the "clickbait roundup":


Geek Tyrant
ComicBookMovie
Deadline
ComicBook dot Com
BleedingCool

I even found this video...

 ...But other things got in my way, and the news has moved on. To sum up:

One black actress has pulled out of Marvel's "Captain Marvel" movie, and another taken her place. There has been a lot of race-changing between comics and movies, but with a black female Captain Marvel having been in the comics, and considering the ways that superhero movies these days pay a lot of fan service, having a black woman in a Captain Marvel movie by Marvel is a pretty dead giveaway that Monica Rambeau is going to be in this movie.

The rest of this post would have been about how I first saw Minica Rambeau on the cover o that isue of The Amazing Spider-Man in a magazinse shop on 1st ave & 57th St, but rejected it becaus she was not my Captain Marvel, but how when I came to read all her adventures with the Avengers in research for this project, came to realize that she was an awesome character. She was brave, realistic, and actually studied up on all the Avengers' villains so she could battle them efectively. In many ways she was a better "feminist role model" than Carol Danvers' Ms.Marvel when she first appeared.

It's a shame that Marvel had to bring back Captain America to the Avengers at her expense, and that she never had a regular series of her own.

I will just close with this video which, for the record, tells the story of the Death of Mar-Vel and the coming of Monica Rambeau, including some things that made her unique...

Shazam! Movie Update: The Hero Will Be...

John Cena and Joshua Sasse are front-runners for the role of Captain Marvel in the "Shazam!" movie! Billy Batson's character description is out! A script has been written and the plot synopsis is out!

Yes, folks, that is what the clickbait media are saying, and I have just done my service to my click-count by putting all the keywords in the first paragraph.

So let's start with the big news first: The hero's name. Back in 2007, DC pretty much gave up the fight of having a superhero with a name that could not be put on the cover of the book. The trouble (as regular readers of this blog and viewers of the associated YouTube channel and members and followers of the associated Yahoo and Facebook groups and Facebook page know) is that when DC licensed the original Captain Marvel from Fawcett Publications, Marvel Comics had trademarked the name "Captain Marvel," so DC decided to title the comic book for this character "SHAZAM!" (all caps, with the exclamation point). Shazam has since been used as the trademark for all merchandise, properties, and productions surrounding and involving this character. It is therefore understandable that people who would never read the book, watch the TV show, or play the video game would never know that the hero's name was really Captain Marvel.

So as part of a company-wide crossover event, Captain Marvel underwent a transformation in which he became a sort of "guardian of magic" character on the Rock of Eternity with the title "Lord Marvel," and his role on Earth was taken over by the former Captain Marvel, Jr, Freddy Freeman. He had recently lost his powers, however, and to gain them back he had to undergo a series of trials chronicled in the 12-part series "The Tirials of Shazam." At the end of that series , Freddy emerged in the classic red suit with the superhero name that matched the acronym of the source of his powers, Solomon, Hercules, Apollo (who replaced Atlas after he was killed), Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury; SHAZAM!

Dan Didio himself confided to me how relieved he was that at last they have a hero whose name is the same as the title.

That turned out to be temporary, however. The old wizard named Shazam, whom everyone thought was dead, returned and took his name back, and Freddy was now the new Captain Marvel.

But before anything else could happen it was 2012, and CD came out with the New 52, reinventing all their characters, some more than others. In the case of Captain Marvel, his powers changed, his origin changed, his costume changed, and his name was now "Shazam."

Of course conspiracy theorists, semi-fans, and other folks who have not had the good fortune of growing up with this character and having researched the legal history and ins-and-outs of the trademark and copyright and other issues going on, started assuming things like it was now illegal to call Captain Marvel Captain Marvel, or that Marvel Comics had sued, or any number of other reasons why the change happened. So the next thing you know, there were YouTube videos proclaiming to tell the "History of Shazam" and talking about the character as if he used to have the name "Captain Marvel."

Just to make things more confusing, the universe of the "New 52" turned out to be part of a multiverse of 52 universes, one of which (Earth-5) was the home of the original Captain Marvel.

Then, in 2014, Dwayne (the Rock) Johnson broke the news that the Shazam! movie project was up and running again (you can read back through my previous posts to follow the history of its first incarnation from 2003 - 2009). There was a resurgence of interest in the character, with a concurrent surge in YouTube videos and clickbait articles about him, along with the usual casting rumors and speculation. With each of those videos and articles was, either in the content or in the comments (usually both) something not 100% accurate about the history of the character and his ownership and where the rights lay regarding the character's name and its use.

One thing was never made clear, though, either by accident, design, or legal obligation: What would the name of the hero if this new movie be? Most reports of the movie would use the New 52 character's name, as it was the same as the the title of the movie and besides, either the writers never knew the name as anything different, or they assumed that the name had been changed for good. Illustrations representing the character would be of both the New 52's "Shazam" and the classically-based Captain Marvel. Moreover, since there had been several reboots of the character since 1986, much of the material available was of these reboots, and not the original character. This made for some interesting mish-mashes from those who did not know their history.

So as people would be saying "He will always be Captain Marvel to me!" and "Get over it, it's illegal for DC to use that name!" and so on, I would chime in, pointing out that the studio had not yet said whether the hero would be the New 52 version,named "Shazam," or based on the original, and named "Captain Marvel."

Well, if the words released by thathashtagshow are to be believed as genuine, it looks like they have decided. Below are the "plot synopsis" for the movie and casting notice for Billy Batson:

"Based on the DC Comics character “Shazam!” Billy Batson becomes Captain Marvel, the world’s mightiest mortal, when he says the magic word “Shazam! The name is an acronym for six gods and heroes of the ancient world as well as their attributes. The wisdom of Solomon, strength of Hercules, stamina of Atlas, power of Zeus, courage of Achilles and speed of Mercury."

"Male, 12-15 years old. A teenager who becomes Captain Marvel, the world’s mightiest mortal. Granted access to incredible powers by the wizard Shazam, he speaks the wizard’s name and is struck by a lightning bolt that gives him the powers of the gods."

If that  isn't enough evidence, the director, David F. Sandberg, has been posting a picture each day in his Instagram page, and here is the latest...

Not a "New 52" to be seen! Nor a "New Beginning," a "Power of..." a "Magic of..." or even a "With One Magic Word..."! Just classic, Fawcett Captain Marvel comics, a couple of action figures of the classic Cap, a tiger, a worm, and a bunch of cans of Coke Zero. And a picture of the King of Sweden. In a Viking helmet.

There is a nifty in-depth analysis of the picture by Mark Siefert at BleedingCool.

Whatever else this says, it does not say "New 52." It says CAPTAIN MARVEL!

Next: About those casting rumors, plot details, and possible connections to "Flashpoint"...

Marvel's Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers Movie Gets Directoral Team! (Real news rouindup! Minimal clickbait!)

This is it! Real news! No more speculation! Not a rumor! Not speculation! Not a fictional story! Actual news, and both the legit and clickbait press are all over it!

The news is that Marvel Studio's Captain Marvel has found its director! It is actually going to be a directorial team, that of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, known for their work on such films as 2006’s Half Nelson, starring Ryan Gosling, 2008's Sugar, starring Algenis Perez solo, 2011’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, with Zach Galifianakis, and 2015’s Mississippi Grind, starring Ryan Reynolds (note how by including the dates and stars you can draw more search-engine attention). I have not seen any of these movies, not really even heard of them. I guess I have to see a few of these movies to form an educated opinion about their style.

Ashley Rodriguez of Quartz Media has given the most detailed analysis of the duo's previous work, and certainly is the most supportive and optimistic about the potential of their work in this movie. Silas Lesnick of ComingSoon gave the most specific description of why their previous work made them good candidates for this job. Michael Cavena of the Chicago Tribune pointed out they they had worked with superhero movie actors before, including Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool, Green Lantern) and Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Returns) in Mississippi Grind. They failed to mention Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Winter Soldier), in Half Nelson, but Kat Stubing, writing for Outer Places, did not.

Stubing also pointed out that other non-superhero/action/sci-fi/etc directors have done superhero movies, specifically the Russo Brothers (the TV series Arrested Development) on two Captain America movies. There is no argument that those were successful, both creatively, commercially, and as "superhero movies."

One thing I have noticed, though, is that bringing in a non-superhero/fantasy/adventure director into the superhero genre has its risks. Ang Lee, who made a big splash when after directing such art house fare as Eat Drink Man Woman he introduced the arthouse crowd to kung fu flicks with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, crafted a slow-paced (if visually interesting) treatsie on child abuse called The Hulk. So far, this is the only Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that has not spawned a direct sequel. Kenneth Brannagh, who made his career doing Shakespeare on film, seemed like an inspired choice for Thor, but despite certain thematic similarities to Shakespeare's multi-play saga of Prince Hal/Henry V, and the comic book tradition of the thunder god speaking in "Shakespearean English," this effort did not quite match the power and intensity of his Henry V, and he did not return for  the sequel.

On the other hand, an artist to trying a new genre in their medium has a tendency to attract attention.

The first "breaker" of the story of the director announcement appears to have been Variety, as most of the first wave of clickbait basically re-hash the facts in Variety's article. The better ones put a few opinions in and flesh out the background of the new directors and the history of the project.

Hollywood Reporter and WhereToWatch, for instance, included the info that among those considered were Lesli Linka Glatter (Homeland), Lorene Scafaria (The Meddler), Niki Caro (Whale Rider, The Zookeeper’s Wife), Lucia Aniello (Rough Night), Sam Taylor-Johnson (F.ifty Shades of Grey),  Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) and Jennifer Yuh (Kung Fu Panda 2). They did not mention Angelina Jolie, proving either a: That she had been an unsubstantiated rumor all along or b: They were not trying to draw her fans in with clickbait.  But James Whitbrook of Gizmodo did.

THe Hundustan Times actually posted trailers for two of the team's previous movies, Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind.

This writer on Makers went a little overboard, I think, with the hyperbole on the excitement over the high degree of estrogen involved in this film, judging by the Tweets she posted. 

Then some follow-up news happened (to be continued)...

Other web pages announcing this news include...
WJLA
Channel24
UPI
Hollywood Reporter
Celebrity Insider
Syfy Wire
geek.com
whatculture.com
The Kansas City Star 
Twinfinite
Style Celebrity News
Zimbio 
FilmIonic
Consequences of Sound
New Delhi Times
The Christian Post
Manila Bulletin
SciFiWorld (Espanol)


PS: To make sue the search engines find this when looking for this movie, the writers are Meg LeFauve and Nicole Perlman, Captain Marvel is being played by Brie Larsen, and Kevin Feige is the chief of Marvel Studios.

RUMOR ALERT! Post on Reddit, Dwayne Johnson Interview Lead to Inferences that "Shazam!" Movie is Cancelled, Black Adam will be in "Man of Steel 2," More.

Sometimes setting a Google Alert pays off.

It seems to have started with a post on Reddit, one that was denied on Twitter, but built upon by an interview on MTV and now the future of the Shazam! hero and related characters in the movies appears to be some thing like this:

Black Adam, played by Dwayne Johnson, is definitely going to appear in movies.

Black Adam will probably have his own stand-alone movie.

Black Adam might face Superman in a movie.

Black Adam might face Superman in "Man of Steel 2."

The "Shazam!" movie might be "off the table," but might still happen, depending on how you interpret the anonymous sources and Dwayne Johnson's interviews.

Captain Marvel or Shazam (whichever version of the hero they decide to use) might or might not appear in anything currently scheduled.

Billy Batson might appear as an "Easter Egg" in something.

As a fan of the Big Red Cheese, I have been hoping for not just a Captain Marvel movie, but a GOOD Captain Marvel movie since one was first announced back in 2003. However, from what little I have read of the scripts that have been written, seen what has been done with the character in the comics, and what I have experienced of what happens to superheroes in movies, it is likely that the concept of the character will be used as a jumping-off point rather than the material of the character be adapted into a good movie.

If that is the case, I won't mind if Black Adam gets all the press and screen time. But maybe, just maybe, someone will figure out a way to handle the character as he deserves. Something like the purity of Captain America with the sense of fun of Ant Man and the youthful enthusiasm of the latest Spider-Man. I know those are all Marvel characters, but it would be a breath of fresh air to bring that sort of stuff into the DC Cinematic Universe.

One thing is pretty much certain: If and when he does come to the big screen, Billy Bsatson/Captain Marvel will be a boy who transforms  into a grown-up superhero, but keeps his own mind. That has been the standard interpretation since Roy Thomas wrote "Shazam! A New Beginning" in 1986, and it has stuck. I liked the original concept, that the boy and the hero were two distinct personalities with shared memories, but that is just too confusing for today's audiences.


Here are other websites spreading the news/rumors/clickbait:
MoviePilot
MovieWeb
ScreenRant
Cosmic Book News
Xania News
Rincon-Celebnews

Black Adam movie starring Dwayne Johnson announced! (Actual news!)

Well, it looks like the clickbait press has stumbled on some actual news regarding a Captain Marvel-related movie!

As we all know, "Shazam!" is scheduled for an April 5th, 2019 release, and will star Dwayne Johnson (the pro wrestler known as "The Rock") as Black Adam, who has been the most powerful super-villain in the DC universe, and whose origin is tied in with that of the original Captain Marvel.

That's pretty much all we know about this movie. No directors or other actors have been attached to this movie. IMDB reports that Henry Gayden is writing "Shazam!" (the latest in a long line of writers that have been attached to the project since 2003), but no story details have been reliably linked, and no writers for the new Black Adam movie have been named.

A few weeks ago this picture of Johnson and Superman actor Henry Cavill popped up on Cavill's Instagram with a hashtag #DCworldscollide. Since word had been out that Black Adam may appear in a Justice League movie before "Shazam!", it led to speculation that Superman and Black Adam would fight in an upcoming movie.

Johnson had been tweeting about important meetings with movie execs with similarly enticing hashtags, but this news of a Black Adam movie is a big deal, and not a little unexpected.

This would be the first comic book superhero movie headlined by a "bad guy." Of course, Black Adam was somewhat morally ambiguous during much of his run from "Power of Shazam" through the end of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, post-Zero Hour universe. This has carried over somewhat in DC's New 52, though with far less subtlety and complexity. It would also be the first time The Rock has been a bad guy on screen, not just in the ring.

There have been at least five versions of the character so far. There was the original, from Fawcett, revived by DC in the 1970's who was unambiguously a bad guy, then the one that appeared in Roy Thomas' "Shazam! A New Beginning," also a bad guy. The one that Jerry Ordway created for "Power of Shazam!" spent time on both sides of the good guy-bad guy divide, which side he was on often depending on your point of view. In the youth-oriented "Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam" Adam was an emo kid, the kind of villain whose main motivation is revenge. Now the New 52 has maintained that "point-of-view villainy" (the kind where if it were 5000 years ago in Egypt you might think hm a hero, but now he is just mean and sadistic).

Which of these versions of the character the movies will present is unclear, though the "PoS" version is the most currently famous. However, Johnson has talked about how the character is so interesting because he used to be a slave. It is only the New 52 version that had been a slave. It was interesting when Johnson said this because the New 52 was still very new at the time.

In all likelihood, the movie version will be its own animal, with bits adapted from New 52 and PoS. Johnson has talked about bringing "fun" back into the DC universe. This seems kind of odd to attach to Black Adam, as the character was part of arguably the darkest moments in DC comics, history, such as when he murdered an entire country in revenge for the death of his wife.

It's obviously too son for them to say when this now picture will be released, or even if it will come out before or after "Shazam!" some reports are calling it a "spinoff," others that the "Shazam!" movie will now be in two parts. But in any event, it shows that a strong character, with a popular actor to play him, can lead to drastic changes in a movie studio's plan.

Here is your abbreviated (because I don't have time for more) "clickbait roundup":

The Hollywood Reporter (I think on this website it actually counts as "news.")
Variety 
IGN
Screen Rant 
Den of Geek
Rotten Tomatoes
TheMarvelIncBlog (I posted a lengthy comment on this one)
Uproxx
RealityTVWorld
Deadline Hollywood 
Inverse

Brie Larsen/Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel Movie Will Be an Origin Story, Says Kevin Feige

Out of all the excitement at New York Comic Con this past week, there was a bit of Captain Marvel news. It seems that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has said two things:

1) "Captain Marvel" will be an origin story (as revealed in an interview with Cinema Blend)
2) Captain Marvel will be the most powerful hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

You can read all the various announcements and clickbait from the links below. Here is what is important about this news:

When the first modern superhero movie, "Superman: The Movie," came out in 1978, it began with the origin of Superman. When "Batman" came out in 1989, it included the heroe's origin. Almost every successive Batman movie included something about his origin. The Captain America, Punisher, and Fantastic Four movies of the late 1980's through the 1990's all included their origins. Each of the Spider-Man franchises on TV and theaters since the 1970's began with origin stories. Even independent and lesser-known heroes characters like Darkman and The Mask told origin stories.

Frankly, it gets a little boring. For a long time my favorite superhero movie was "Batman Returns" because it was the only one that did not replay the freakin' origin of Batman!

Now, however, that the Superhero movies of the New Millennium have proven the profitability of the genre, and one after another character is given their own movie series, creators are free to move beyond the origin stories and get right down to the adventure. This has made the movies much less repetitive and more watchable.

So now that it has been announced, in a throwaway sentence fragment as part of a larger conversation, that "...Captain Marvel is certainly an origin story from the start," We will all collectively hope that the movie will be more than a re-hash of the familiar superhero tropes, different only in the names and places.

One indication that this might be the case is that screenwriter Nicole Perlman has revealed that they would not be sticking with the origin of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel that is in the comics.

I am wary of what this may mean. The reasoning behind whatever changes they make has been announced to be because it is felt that the origin of this Captain Marvel is too similar to Green Lantern (here is how Time reported it). To wit: and alien comes to Earth and gives a human his powers when he dies. That is an over-simplification of what happened in the case of Marvel Comics' Captain MArvel, and it seems pretty disingenuous. Mar-Vell (Marvel's first Captain Marvel) operated on Earth for years before Danvers got her powers, he did not die until years later, and Danvers was not involved in the story of his death at all (I will have to ask Jim Starlin about why that is, but I suspect it was simply because he simply did not think of it). More recently, Mar-Vell was brought back to life in the "Avengers vs. X-Men" storyline, and died saving the universe, after which Danvers was inspired to take on his name and legacy.

But regardless of whether you think the Mar-Vell-Danvers origin story is too much like the Abin Sur-Hal Jordan origin story, the fact is that Mar-Vell is the original Marvel Comics Captain Marvel. He was a good character, subject to many conflicts and challenges, and hit a new level or awesomeness when he became the "protector of the Universe" with the Cosmic Awareness granted him by Eon. He was also the first hero to face Thanos and defeat him when he was on the threshold of victory, conquering the universe and giving it to his love, Death. It would be a shame if, in their interest to create a new origin story, that they leave him out of it.

So much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both seen and announces as to be seen, is built upon element that first appeared as part of Mar-Vell's stories or were significantly involved with Mar-Vell. This includes Ronan the Accuser and the entire Kree race, Thanos, Drax the Destroyer, Eon, evena tiny Easter egg reference to "Richard Jones." I, for one, will be very disappointed if Mar-Vell does not show up in there somewhere.

As far as the "most powerful character" thing goes, remember that in Marvel Comics' "House of M" storyline, Carol Danvers was "Captain Marvel, the world's greatest hero" (this was still some years before the became Captain Marvel for the present). Recently ishe has displayed great strength, speed, and invulnerability, in addition ot her power-absorption and projection. IT is not too far a stretch to have her trading blows with Thor and the Hulk as they have been presented so far. It will give the MCU a woman of equivalent power levels as the big boys, and that is always good for broadening the market base.

We still have over two years to go before his movie comes out, and a director has not yet been chosen. But at least it's nice to see that Ms. Larsen is getting into the role...

(from her Twitter post with the text "LARSON INDUSTRIES R&D DEPT.")

And here are the website articles and postings I bothered to find:
Cinema Blend
Comic Book Movie
The Daily Dot
Flickreel
Press Trust of India
Collider
Business Standard
We Got This Covered
Joblo
Info-Europa
The Stopru

comicbook.com

Brie Larsen will play Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel

Brie Larsen tweeted this picture, announcing to the world that she is Captain Marvel.

At the beginning of June, Variety reported (and other websites like Entertainment Weekly picked up on it) that Oscar-winning actress Brie Larsen was "in talks" about playing Carol Danvers, AKA Marvel Comics' Captain Marvel.

Yesterday, at San Diego Comic Con, the official announcement was made. Here is a smattering of websites on which it was reported, as of right now (look at the time stamp on this post).

NBC News
Time
Time
CNN
CNET
CBC News
Entertainment Weekly
SlashFilm 
Glamour
Vanity Fair
Huffington Post
USA Today
The Guardian 
Cinema Blend
Mashable
Cray News
Screen Crush
ComingSoon
WeGotThisCovered
Particle News
Inquisitr
Women and Hollywood
2 Hours
Refinery29
OnlineNews8
Virals Online1

One fascinating, but not unexpected, thing about this list is the high-profile, female-targeted websites (Glamour, Vanity Fair, etc). This will be the first major company, female-led superhero movie ever. Other female superheroes like Wonder Woman have been on TV, female characters from smaller companies like Barb Wire have had their movies, and Halle Berry's Catwoman was technically a "villain," had a movie, but in this new wave of high-profile, mega-blockbuster, critically acclaimed superhero movies, no females have been the headliner. This is the first.

This has been such a big deal that the clickbait mill has been working overtime on the casiting. Names like Emily Blunt, Katherine Winnick, Katie Sackoff, Natalie Dormer, Rebecca Ferguson, Ronda Rousey, etc, have appeared in headlines designed to make it sound like it was "news" that someone thought they would be right for the role. Some, like Rousey, were vocal in campaigning for the role, but some of these women even embarrassingly had to admit that not only were they unfamiliar with the character, but had never been contacted by anyone about it!

Many of the articles have given capsulized descriptions of the character, but  suppose the needs and resources of the medium have led them to leave out a few details. I think it is notable to mention that thought this Captain Marvel will be the first female lead of a Marvel movie, Carol Danvers is not the first female Captain Marvel.

The first female superhero named Captain Marvel was Marvel Comics' Monica Rambeau in 1982. She was also the first black Captain Marvel and one of the few black female superheroes. DC came next with Jerry Ordway's version of Mary Batson, who, in the "Power of Shazam" series in the 1990's, transformed into a female Captain Marvel. She was not known as "Mary Marvel" until after the series ended. At the beginning of the 2000's, Marvel came back with Phyla-Vell, the cloned sister from a newly-created replacement universe (don't ask) of the then-current Marvel Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell. She was Captain Marvel for a while.

Danvers herself has been Captain Marvel before, in the "House of M" storyline in which the Scarlet Witch had changed reality. That experience kicked of her new Ms. Marvel series, which built up her character until she took on the Mantle of Captain Marvel after the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline.

I am going to be open-mindedly optimistic about this casting decision. Marvel has not gone too terribly wrong yet in their Avengers-related movies (I am not thinking of any of the recent "Fantastic Four" movies), so there is no reason to expect them to have done so now.

On a related note, I would say that with every new news report and mention of Marvel's Captain Marvel movie, my confidence that DC's "Shazam" movie will include a character named "Captain Marvel" gets lower and lower. So far not a single use of the classic name has passed my eyes in anything from DC about the movie that has been announced to be released in 2019. This further makes me think that the hero of that movie will be based on the "New 52" superhero named Shazam. I can't help but think that such a movie would have an uphill battle with regards to being something that would be...well...good. I have nightmarish visions of overblown, confusing mash-ups of concepts, characters, and storylines from DC Comics mixed with things that would be completely made up for the movie.

I really hope that is not the case.


Videos regarding the Brie Larsen announcement:

These videos are all of the "announcement," which was actually a surprise addition to the Marvel movie panel at San Diego Comic Con. Pretty much all these videos seem to be from the video camera-phones of people in the audience.

...and a bit of pre-announcement clickbait video...

 

If 

If you want to see more reports and reactions to the news that Brie Larsen was "in talks" back in June, go here, or just search for "Brie Larsen Captain Marvel"

Why all the casting reports, rumors, and speculation about Marvel's Captain Marvel movie are BS

When I worked in the insurance industry, I looked up everything I could on the Interwebs about the Affordable Care Act (at the time I even wrote a parable about insurance that a comic book fan would understand. It's called "The Comic Book Reader's Protection Act"). Through this research I found out a lot about the ACA, aka "Obamacare." But I found out even more about people's opinions about the ACA, and I figured out a lot about how the Internet works.

Step 1: Find a news item about something.
Step 2: Make up an exciting, incindiary headline, in the form of a question if possible.
Step 3: Use enough keywords, search engine optimization, and clickbait techniques to get people to go to the page.

Such has been the techniques used to flood Google Alert settings of "Captain Marvel" with reports of everyone from Natalie Dormer to Emily Blunt to Natasha Richardson to Katheryn Winnick to Charlize Theron to Rhonda Rousy as being someone who may play Carol Danvers in the movie scheduled for release in 2018, regardless of the fact that THE SCRIPT ISN'T EVEN WRITTEN YET! (But then again, Dwayne Johnson has officially announced that he is going to play Black Adam in the2019 movie, so what do I know?)

Well, finally, president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige and producer Jeremy Lachtman have come out and explained why there have been no official announcements about who will play, or is even being considered to play, the lead role in Marvel's first female-led superhero movie ("Elektra" doesn't count because it was not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and she was really more of an anti-hero, anyway).

I will let you read this, which appears to be the first article on the subject, by DCMarvelFreshman on ComicBookMovie dot com yourself, and I simply am TOO DAMN BUSY to do a click-bait roundup on the inevitable flood of websites, blogs, videos, etc that will inevitably follow.

Carol Danvers to appear in "Avengers: Infiity War"? Clickbait speculation

Based on both confirmed and unconfirmed reports and creative speculation, the idea is now kicking around the Interwebs that Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel will be appearing in one of the upcoming "Avengers: Infinity Wars" movies before her own eponymous film.

I first stumbled upon this concept in this post by Athena Parnada on YouthHealthMag (gotta love Google Alerts for finding it). what a Youth Health on-line magazine is doing chating about internet rumors about superhero films I do;t know, but the post provided links to a bunch of other articles and posts, including what seems to be the origin/source of this concept, this post by Eleanor Tremeer on MoviePilot.

To sum up, it has been confirmed by the people who made such decisions that 1) Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel was, at one point, going to appear in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," but then was written out, and 2) that she is not going to appear in the next "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie. with rumors and reports running rampant that several major characters are going to be killed in the Infinity Wars, this would make room for a character like Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel to fill in the void.

Personally, as I posted in my first article in MoviePilot, I think that it would be very nice if somehow Captain Mar-Vell, Marvel's first Captain Marvel, the Kree warrior/cosmic space hippie, were to be involved with Carol's storyline and origin. It was his heroic example of courage, decency, and self-sacrifice that inspired Carol to be the superhero she is; his mission to Earth, battle with Colonel Yon-Rogg, and DNA that gave her the powers to become Ms. Marvel; and his battle with Thanos that put the villain on the map. To have Carol, Thanos, Ronan, the Kree, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and the Cosmic Cube all in the same Cinematic Universe and not have the one character that tied them all together in the comics appear in the movies just seems like a waste of a great character.

What do you think?

Rebecca Ferguson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers?

 (This nifty picture was posted as part of an article by ScreenCrush.com)

I feel dirty for even doing this, but...there is a new "hot rumor" making the rounds of the clickbait. sites. It is that Rebecca Ferguson is "at the top of Marvel's list" to play Captain Marvel in the 018 movie they have scheduled.

This rumor comes to us courtesy Umberto Gonzalez on HeroicallyHollywood.com, a website of which I have never heard. He claims to have heard this from a reliab el source, but does not seem to have even bothered to try to contact the actress herself or the studio itself.

the story is dutifully reported by ScreenCrush, Moviepilot, and BleedingCool (which makes repeated references to getting "the salt shaker out"), and there will no doubt be more before the night is out.

It seems that these websites use this as an excuse to post pix of the actress, the character, and review the actress' career. None of them seem to have bothered to contact the actress or the studio either.

Am I being jaded and cynical by thinking that this rumor will wind up holding as much water as any and all of the previous ones, which to say, as much as basketball net?

And why do I feel dirty? Because just to keep up my Captain Marvel scholar cred and public profile, I have to waste time posting this with all the appropriate keywords ASAP.

What Does The Rock Know About Black Adam?

(The above image is linked from Muscle & Fitness' article announcing Dwayne Johnson's role as Black Adam in the upcoming "Shazam!" movie.)

Now this is interesting. In this interview, Dwayne Johnson reveals that he has been involved with the character of Black Adam and preparing for the role for “eight years.” That places the beginning of his relationship with the character right about the time that there were rumors circulating about him playing the hero of DC's movie about the character marketed under the trademark “Shazam!”, the original Captain Marvel.

What with the "Shazam!" movie announced to be released on April 5, 2019 (and there being a surprisingly well-informed and insightful article from Comic Book Resources), this seems like as good a time as ever the very briefly recap the history of this actor and this franchise.

Remember, there were lots of rumors going around back in those heady days of the mid '00's, as the whole superhero-movie thing was starting to heat up. "Shazam!" was being talked about as early as 2003, and was still a going concern as the decade progressed. No fewer than three scripts were written or being worked on by folks such as William Goldman and John August and at least two different directors were attached to the project, Peter Segal being the latest. Jake Gyllenhaal was at one time rumored to be playing the hero, but that proved to be a hoax. Brandon Molale promoted himself for the role very heavily at the time, there was even a MySpace (remember MySpace?) page and a fan club pushing for it.

Back in '07 MTV Movie Blogs ran a poll. Rumors were flying that Dwayne Johnson, then more popularly known as the pro wrestler “The Rock,” would be playing Captain Marvel. Johnson even came forth and said that people were talking to him about being in the upcoming “Shazam!” movie (this was before the “New 52” reboot in which the hero trademarked under the label “Shazam!” now actually goes by that name). A lot of people, however thought that he would be even better as Black Adam, the evil version of the World's Mightiest Mortal from the Middle East 5,000 years ago who had become the toughest bad guy in the DC universe). Some said this for racial reasons (the Big Red Cheese has always been depicted as Caucasian, and Johnson is a black-Samoan mix), and some just would rather see him as the Bad Guy. Johnson has played a villainous Middle-Eastern monarch before (as the Scorpion King in “The Mummy Returns”), so why not?

So Johnson and MTV Blogs put the question to the fans: who would you rather see Johnson as: Captain Marvel or Black Adam? (http://www.mtv.com/news/1570423/the-rocks-role-in-shazam-should-he-be-good-or-evil-you-decide/ http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/09/24/weigh-in-who-should-the-rock-play-in-shazam/) The answer was overwhelming: Black Adam, by 86% of the vote.

So Johnson humbly and good naturedly accepted the fans' verdict, admitted that he did not know much about the character, and said he would be happy to talk with the filmmakers about playing the role (http://www.mtv.com/news/1573336/the-rock-put-his-shazam-role-to-a-vote-and-the-results-are-evil/ http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/09/24/weigh-in-who-should-the-rock-play-in-shazam/). In the succeeding months, dedicated fans of the World's Mightiest Mortal were watching every move by Johnson and Peter Segal to see if they could get a hint of what the movie, and Johnson's performance and chemistry with Segal, would be like. Segal's “Get Smart” got particular attention, being as it was a comedy/action movie involving both of these people.

Interestingly, Michael Uslan, the producer of the Shazam! Project and longtime fan of the hero, told me that he had not heard about this. So either Johnson was making it up about talking to people about this, someone wasn't telling Uslan what was going on, or Uslan had a reason to keep some things on the downlow.

But by 2010 news and activity about the project had slowed down, and by the time of this interview (http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/01/12/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-on-shazam-status-and-black-adam/, and this report of it http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/markcassidycbm/news/?a=13722) it was pretty much dead.

In late 2014, however, Johnson started dropping hints that he would be in a superhero movie. By this time the “clickbait” phenomena was in full swing, and every psuedo-news website and geek-fanboy blogger with pretensions to journalistic credibility and the need for hit counts ran with the story, despite the dearth of information about the project and sometimes embarrassing lack of knowledge of the character (this alleged “investigation” from Entertainment Weekly, for instance, gets remarkable mileage out of speculation and groundless “insight.” And their conclusion turned out to be incorrect. http://www.ew.com/article/2014/08/19/dwayne-johnson-shazam-rock-black-adam).

Dwayne Johnson speaks authoritatively about the character and about superhero mythology these days. He refers to BA as an “anti-hero” who used to be a slave and at one point says that superheroes are usually “born into” greatness. This reveals a shallow surfaceness of his research. The bit about BA having been a slave is very recent in the development of his character, and there are plenty of famous superheroes who were not “born in to greatness” (Superman and Wonder Woman were, for sure, but Spider-Man, Captain America, and the original Captain Marvel himself, for instance, were not). Kudos to Johnson, however, for at least trying to give the impression of comic book super-characters as being something worth taking seriously.

Johnson is also very conscientiously maintaining the party line about the name of the hero. I have yet to hear him utter the name “Captain Marvel” in his interviews since he started with the hints and intimations in 2014. While he did say “Captain Marvel” in interviews back in 2007, he is showing himself a team player and professional spokesperson by staying up to date with the marketing of the hero of the Shazam franchise.