SHAZAM's WORLD'S FINEST CRISIS! (History of ALL Captain Marvels Part 11)

Back in Part 5 we saw how DC licensed the original Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family from the still-extant Fawcett Publications. When last we left our hero, his book had been cancelled right at the start of the "DC Implosion" and he had been relegated to the back of World's Finest, a "DC Dollar" anthology book.

In those pages Don Newton did the art and E. Nelson Bridwell wrote the stories under the editing of Jack C. Harris. Many parts of Marvel Family canon were explored.

It was revealed that the wizard Shazam had been a superhero named "Champion" thousands of years ago, with his own fictional "proto-semitic" pantheon that gave him powers when he spoke the magic word "Vlarem!" (unscramble that to find out where World's Mightiest Mortal got his name). Together, he and Captain Marvel put the Rock of Eternity into its place.

Freddy Freeman found that he was actually the brother of Christopher "Kit" Freeman a.k.a. Kid Eternity, a young hero from Quality Comics who had been acquired by DC and rolled into the Marvel Family's universe. Interestingly, Kid Eternity had been created by Otto Binder, the prolific writer who had written more than half the stories of Marvel Family characters for Fawcett.

Mr. Tawny discovered that the serum that gave him the ability to speak had also slowly transformed him physiologically until he was so human-like, it was difficult to walk like a tiger.

The "power of Zeus," long undefined (except in that he was the one who delivered the transformational lightning), was revealed to be an augmentation of the powers of the all the elders (wisdom, strength, stamina, etc), thus enabling certain abilities that were not strictly the named powers, such as flight and invulnerability.

Even the brocade on the capes of the Marvel family was brought into play, as someone mentioned that "moley" (As in Billy Batson's frequently-used expression "holy moley") was a plant with "little yellow flowers."

Eventually, DC cancelled its DC Dollar Comics line. SHAZAM! stories continued as a backup feature in Adventure Comics for a while, then in April, 1985, DC began their Crisis on Infinite Earths "12-Issue Maxi-Series." The object of this was to "simplify" the DC Universe.

 

Here is a little backstory on the original DC Multiverse:

DC's original cast of superheroes had mostly ceased publication by the 1950's. As we have seen,  in 1956 the Flash was re-invented with a new costume, a new alter ego, and a new "secret origin." He was such a hit that DC decided to reboot its entire superhero line. They would keep some characters largely the same (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman), alter the costumes, powers, origins, and alter egos of others (The Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Red Tornado), create some brand new heroes (Martian Manhunter, Adam Strange, Captain Comet). A couple of heroes who had already existed (Green Arrow and Aquaman) continued to exist largely unchanged with these new and newly-interpreted heroes. This world continued as the main superhero world of which stories were told in DC Comics.

But what happened to the original heroes, including the ones who were not re-booted or re-invented, like Dr. Fate, Hourman, Mr. Terrific, Wildcat, and Johnny Thunder? It turned out that they still existed, along with their pre-reboot comrades, but in an alternate universe existing on a different "vibratory plane." This was discovered by the new Flash (Barry Allen) when he traveled to the world of the original Flash (Jay Garrick). Because the new Flash had discovered the world of the old one, his world was called "Earth-1" and the one with the older heroes was called "Earth-2." This world appeared from time to time in special stories uniting the Justice Society of America (The original DC superhero team) and the Justice League of America (the new superhero team).

It was later revealed that there was an "Earth-3," whose versions of superheroes were really super-villains, Supeman being called "Ultraman," Wonder Woman "Superwoman," and Batman "Owlman," for instance.

When DC acquired the superhero characters of Quality Comics (Uncle Sam, Black Condor, the Ray, Doll Man, Phantom Lady, Human Bomb, etc) they placed them on "Earth-X," a world where the Nazis won World War II.

So when DC revived Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family, they put them on their own world Earth-S (for SHAZAM!).

Our world (in which the writers and artists of DC Comics created all these stories) was even a part  of this "multiverse," known as "Earth Prime."

By 1985, the folks at DC decided that having all all these worlds was confusing to the readers, hence Crisis. The story was a massive, sprawling epic that crossed over into almost every DC comic book. By the time it was all done, all the worlds in the multiverse (including a brand new one on which the recently acquired superheroes from Charlton Comics, Blue Beetle, The Question, Peacemaker, Judo Master, Captain Atom, etc, resided) were merged into one. The fictional history of these characters was re-written. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and most of the characters of Earths 1, X, and S, and the Charlton heroes, began their careers contemporaneously in the present day. The original superheroes of Earth 2 began their careers in the 1930's and '40's, corresponding with their original creations. DC's "Trinity," however (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) began their careers in the modern day, and were retconned to not have existed in the early days, and their origins were re-written with a few tweaks here and there.


So, with this new, combined universe, the Big Red Cheese was given an all-new origin story...

NEXT: The New Beginning!

"Shazam" Convergence review part 2

Because nobody who reads comics can possibly expect anything in one comic book by one company to not affect anything in any other comic book by that company (and maybe other companies as well), when change happens, it happens big. Also, when you make a big change that affects every character in every book that you sell, everyone is going to have a reason to buy the book that month, and possibly other books as well.

This has been a guiding principle of the major companies that produce superhero comics since the 1980's; every few years try to raise the stakes and come up with the GREATEST, MOST AMAZING, REVOLUTIONARY, MIND-BLOWING CHANGE EVER! This week it was "Convergence."

So we got these 52 universes, right? So instead of letting them exist and visiting them occasionally, let's BLOW THEM ALL UP IN A MASSIVE CROSS-OVER BATTLE EPIC!

So DC has revived the heroes and villains of various past titles, storylines, and alternate universes in its history and mashed them together in titles that place them in conflict with each other. In the case of the classic Marvel Family (aka: "The Shazam Family") they get placed in conflict with the world of "Gotham by Gaslight," a late-Victorian version of Batman that has come to include such genres and tropes as Gothic horror, German expressionism, pulp adventure, and steampunk.

The two-part mini-series "Convergence: Shazam," written by Jeff Parker and drawn by Evan "Doc" Shaner, starts on Earth-S, or at least that's what it says inside the front cover of the comic. The world is much like that in the DC "Shazam!" stories between 1972 and 1985, with all the same characters (Billy, Mary, Freddy, Uncle, Mr. Morris, Tawny, etc) and there is plenty of "fan service" in things like brand names and background characters. The villains are classics, (Dr. Sivana, Mr. Atom, King Kull, Ibac), and reference is even made to the suspendium trap and the Marvels' 20-year absence.

There are differences, though. It is implied that Mr. Morris was not in the suspendium trap, while in fact, on Earth-S, he had been.  There was no Fawcett City on Earth-S (unless you count that one issue of "All Star Squadron" in which Roy Thomas first named Billy Batson's hometown), the original home of the Big Red Cheese was always unnamed, but assumed to be New York. But these are nit-picks that only some sadly over-passionate fan would care about or even notice...

The art is remarkable. It appears to be an almost photo-realistic interpretation of the original characters, but with enough detail left out to give the feeling of C.C. Beck's deceptively simple-looking art from the Fawcett days. As such it seems like a logical progression of where the art would be had the series continued under the same management over the decades (a look at recent versions of "Archie" shows a similar evolution, especially in certain "alt-Archies" like the zombie-horror series "Afterlife with Archie."). All the characters maintain their distinguishing characteristics and are instantly recognizable, but the drawings look like they were taken from life, as if they found the perfect actors for each character. This shows both the skill of the current artist and the brilliance of the original, to be able to interpret the cartoony drawings into recognizably realistic people and to create cartoony drawings that could be interpreted so.

The first issue stayed on this world, and the second one moved into the world of gaslight Gotham. But before it did, the first page of issue #2 declared that this world, that of Fawcett City, was Earth-5.

CONTINUITY VIOLATION ALERT!

EARTH-5 IS NOT EARTH-S!

As I mentioned in the first part of this review, It was publicly stated that Earth-5 is not Earth-S. This can be confirmed by looking up Wikipedia and DC Wiki (note the separate listings for Earth-S and Earth-5). A couple of notable but important differences are that in Earth-S Mary Marvel has a red costume, while in Earth-5 her dress is white, and that the "Seven Deadlies" in Shazam's throne room are "Enemies of Man," while on Earth-5 they are "Sins."

Speaking of Mary's costume, in the "Convergence" stories she is wearing a mid-length-skirted, short-sleeved dress in line with her costume in Jerry Ordway's "Power of Shazam" series that is a compromise between the short-skirted dress in which she originally appeared and the full-skirted, puffy-sleeved dress she wore for most of her Fawcett years. In any case, she is not wearing the short-skirted dress in which the Shazam-bolt descended from her neckline and the cape was mysteriously attached with no cord as she did in her later Fawcett years and all through her pre-"Crisis on Infinite Earths" tenure at DC, which is Earth-S, for all intents and purposes. She is also wearing boots, not slippers, as she would have in that period.

When the story moves to Gotham (or, as the promotional blurb would have it, "Shazam meets steampunk"), Shaner's graphic style and the colors by Jordie Belaire effectively convey the Gothic Victorian gloom of the gaslight city. There is fan-service galore, if you know what to look for, all through the story, from Mary Marvel catching a bomb to Killer Crock hurting himself trying to attack Captain Marvel (geek points if you can name the inspirations of those references). The story spends precious little time in that world, however, and almost no time with Batman. It's as if the ostensible co-star of the whole two-issue story was really more of a guest-star, a supporting character, barely more than a cameo.

But the unexpected money-shot for me was one two page spread in which Captain Marvel and Billy Batson spoke to each other in the instant between the transformation.

The hero had been zapped by electrically-produced lightning from gaslight Gotham. Apparently the charge, though not magical, was strong enough to effect the change. In a conversation that must have been going on inside their minds, the two characters, the hero and the boy, recognize the situation and try to figure out what to do about it. This established what I had always believed, and what was clearly intended, for the characters from the beginning: Billy Batson and Captain Marvel are separate characters. They share memories, but they are each distinct personalities. The Shazam/Captain Marvel concept is not "Big" as a superhero, it is a boy who has the ability to transform into an adult superhero by saying a magic word.

This was the high point of the story as a piece of superheroic fantasy for me. But sadly, beyond that, it was pretty much by the numbers. This is unfortunate, as there was so much more that could have been explored with this combination of elements... (to be continued)

"Shazam" Convergence Review, part 1

After having been out of the comic book market for a month and a half due to my trip to the medieval combat world championships (my documentary of the USA Knights is coming soon) so I finally got a chance to catch up on the whole "Convergence" thing happening with DC Comics and the role of the original Captain Marvel in it.

It started, if you will, with the "Multiversity" event, a storyline in which the different universes of the "New 52" were explored, some being developments of "Elseworlds" concepts from years ago, some being brand new interpretations of DC characters and superhero tropes, and one being a new interpretation of the classic hero and his word from Fawcett Comics.

As regular readers of this blog know, the original Captain Marvel was acquired by DC Comics in 1972 and his stories began pretty much where they left off, with an explanation of how the Big Red Cheese, Junior, Mary, the Sivanas, and most of the other back-up characters had been trapped in a vessel of "suspendium" for 20 years. DC also explained that these characters existed on "Earth S," a parallel Earth in which the regular DC characters did not exist. After the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" of 1986, all the alternate universes were combined into one, and some major characters, including the Big Red Cheese, were "rebooted" and given slightly different interpretations.

Then the New 52 hit in 2012, and DC rebooted their entire universe and every character in it. They established that there are 52 alternate universes and implied that there was an "Earth 5" that appeared to be a copy of Earth S (5 = S, get it?).  It was stated publicly, however, that Earth 5 was not Earth S and that we would find out, someday, what it was.

What it was was revealed in the Multiversity one-shot "Thunderworld." This was a fun, entertaining romp written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Cameron Stewart that introduced the world of Earth 5, in which the Marvel Family, with the help of Tawny, Uncle, and the Lieutenant Marvels defended Fawcett City from the Sivana Family and the Monster Society, as Dr. Sivana captured the Rock of Eternity and stole enough suspendium with the help of alternate-universe Sivanas to create an 8th day of the week. It was a brilliant combination of the hokey ficto-science and adventure of the classic Fawcett stories with multi-cosmic and, frankly, disturbing elements of Multiverse.

In "Thunderworld," the re-interpretations of certain classic elements (The Lieutenant Marvels now included Uncle and Tawny and were a uniformed, rocket-packed, sci-fi-weapon-bearing squadron, and Billy used a cell phone with his updated backpack broadcasting equipment) were handled lightly and not out of character with what one might expect from an organic progression of the characters from the 1940's. Dr. Sivana's motivations were consistent with the character, making him the perfect character to begin to explore the evil implications of a multiverse. The conclusion gave us a perfectly satisfactory twist and a closing that was consistent with anything Otto Binder ever wrote. The whole story was applauded by the great majority of fans of the World's Mightiest Mortal, and we all wanted to see more.

So when "Convergence" was announced, we waited with bated breath to see how it would turn out...