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Showing posts with label genis-vell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genis-vell. Show all posts

Thursday, August 1, 2019

GENIS, PHYLA, AND MONICA: Marvels in the New Century (Part 15 of the blog history of ALL Captain Marvels)

As the first decade of the New Century ground forward, Marvel Comics found itself with several Captain Marvels and a seeming lack of ability to make any of them "stick."

The most game, and outrageous, attempt, was Peter David's version of Genis-Vell. To catch us up on his status at the time, here is the "splash page" from an issue of that era...

Genis-Vell, as written by Peter David, had gone mad from his constant "cosmic awareness." He also had omnipotent power. This made him a self-described "mad god." He killed himself to end it all, but it didn't stick. He wound up convincing Entropy, (one of the Cosmic Entities of the Universe), to kill his brother Eternity, thus ending the universe. The only survivors were Entropy, Epiphany, Genis-Vell, and Rick Jones. The resultant nothingness was boring, so Rick and Genis convinced Entropy to remake the universe exactly as he knew it, and Entropy became the new Eternity.

    

This was actually the origin of Marvel's next Captain Marvel. Try to stay with me on this...

In this new universe, things were ever so slightly different. Genis-Vell was not quite as insane as he was in the original universe. However, the Genis that had existed in the past of this new universe that was just created (complete with a past and everything, so the experience for Genis and Rick Jones was rather like picking up a familiar book and opening it in the middle) was replaced by the Genis that had existed in the original universe (the titular character in this eponymous comic book).

Also in this new universe, Genis-Vell's mother Elysius, who had died in the original universe, was alive here, was aware of the Universal Recreation, and did not like the new Genis-Vell. So she cloned Mar-Vell again, this time into a female named Phyla-Vell, artificially aged her  (as she had Genis-Vell), gave her nega-bands, and made sure she had her father's cosmic awareness. She was to replace Genis-Vell as "The New Captain Marvel."
 
  

The obligatory conflict ensued, and when the dust settled, Genis-Vell claimed that he was no longer insane and would work to improve himself and make the universe a better place. Was this the truth, or was he now just going to hold his insanity closer to the vest? Only time would tell.

Or would it? Genis and Rick went on to have a few more adventures, one that proved to make him the most tragic superhero ever. It was a time-travel story that led to him deciding to kill his baby son in his crib to  prevent him from growing up to be a super-powered evil galactic emperor. This story confirmed that he would marry and have at least one child with the reformed super-villain, Songbird.

  

The series was cancelled with the following issue, in a finale that revealed that Rick Jones actually knew that he was in a comic book. In that final issue, it was also revealed that Phyla was a lesbian and she hooked up with the psychic superhero Moondragon, daughter of Drax the Destroyer.
 
Expediency, one of the "Friendless," personifications of aspects of the universe, informs Genis-Vell of the end of his series.

Matthew Younker wrote a great little article about Genis-Vell's insanity for PopOptique.

Genis-Vell then joined the team of reformed super-villains known at the New Thunderbolts (in their self-titled series), of which Songbird was a member. He was killed by the team's giant, Atlas, in a manipulated rage over a her, then came back to life with a new power set and took on a new name, "Photon."
   

This last part pissed off Monica Rambeau (again), but in a discussion over beers, she decided to call herself "Pulsar."

Genis eventually proved to be an unstable element in the space-time continuum and was torn into pieces and sent to the far corners of space and time by Baron Zemo. He has not been seen since, despite not yet having married Songbird.

 

Phyla, meanwhile, spent a brief time as a Captain Marvel, but then gained the quantum bands of  Quasar, Defender (not "protector") of the Universe, and took on that mantle. She served with the Guardians of the Galaxy and went through more drama (at one point, Moondragon actually became a real, space-faring dragon, and the two became the hottest cross-species lesbian superhero couple in comics). She was involved in several company-wide crossover events with the Guardians. Eventually she changed her name to "Martyr," and ultimately got killed. Twice.
  
Phyla-Vell getting killed by Magus, the future, evil version of Adam Warlock.

Meanwhile, in 2006-7 Monica reappeared as the leader of a new, satirical superhero team, NextWave, Agents of H.A.T.E., in their eponymous, possibly-not-in-canon 12-issue limited series.
   

In the course of their (mis)adventures, the team faced the satirical character Forbush-Man. When exposed to his "Forbush-Vision," she faced herself as a mash-up with Mar-Vell and the Ultimates Mahr Vehl with just a touch of SHAZAM! and Superman...

In 2009, she appeared in a mini-series titled Marvel Divas, a sort of Sex and the City take on the friendship between several female superheroes in New York City.
      


Then, in 2013-2014 she became the field leader of the Mighty Avengers, a new version of Marvel's premiere superhero team, this time led by Luke Cage, Power Man, and notable for having not one member who was not female or a person of color for a time.
  

More about Monica Rambeau, and how she teamed up with Carol Danvers, to come!

There is a nice "pull list" of Monica Rambeau at the ScyFy Wire.

Part 16: CAPTAIN AMALGAM!
Part 15: GENIS, PHYLA, AND MONICA: Marvels for the New Century!
Part 14: Power of SHAZAM!
Part 13: The Legacy of Mar-Vell!
Part 12: The New Beginning for SHAZAM!
Part 11: SHAZAM's World's Finest Crisis!

Part 10: The Marvelous Miracleman!
Part 9: Miracleman! The Marvelous Revival of the British Captain Marvel Rip-Off!
Part 8: Marvelman!
Part 7: Death and Energy!
Part 6: Whatever Happened to Carol Danvers?

Part 5: The DC Revival!
Part 4: Marvel's first Marvel!
Part 3. I Gotta SPLIT! XAM!
Part 2.  The Silver Influence
Part 1. The First Marvel and the World's Mightiest Lawsuit



Sunday, June 2, 2019

The Legacy of Mar-Vell! (Part 13 of the Blog History of ALL Captain Marvels!)

When last we left the heroic name of Captain Marvel it was being used by Monica Rambeau in Marvel Comics and Roy Thomas' re-interpretation of the World's Mightiest Mortal in DC Comics. But all things (good, bad, and indifferent) must change or die, and in the early 1990's, that's what happened.

Monica Rambeau, last we saw, had lost her powers and nearly died in an incident on the ocean. She lost her status as leader of the Avengers (mentally manipulated by Dr. Druid), but recovered and with her recovery, developed a set of powers subtly different from what she'd had before.

However, she was no longer a regular member of the Avengers, so her fans did not have a regular place to see her. She was kept on the team's "reserve" roster, and often helped  them on adventures cosmic in scope and scale. In such cases her ability to fly at light speed helped.

There were two eponymous "one-shot" issues at the beginning of the next decade in which she was featured. One of them was about racial prejudice, making it the first time that the fact the the hero was black was ever a plot point.


Then came the collector's boom and Image Comics.

Here's the short version:

 Marvel Comics began the policy of always listing the staff that created a comic book in the 1960's. Fans started following artists and writers and buying comics because their favorites were involved. In time, certain artists became so popular that collectors were buying prodigious quantities of comics. By this time also, the mainstream had heard that old comics were worth a lot of money, so many people began buying comics as an investment. At the same time as all this, some of these artists did not like the fact that characters that they had created were the property of the company for which they were working. A consortium of these artists left Marvel Comics and formed their own company, Image Comics, which became incredibly popular. Demand for these comics both because of the popularity of the artists and as an investment, inflated the market and comic book shops were opening up all over the place.


The next thing you knew, new comic book companies were starting and comic book shops, trying to keep up with demand for anything new and "collectible," stocked their shelves with everything. In response, Marvel and DC flooded the market with new titles and had big "events" to maintain their market share and relevance.

So here is the relevance of all this to Captain Marvel:

One of the big "events," was in the summer of 1993, when Marvel decided to introduce a brand new character in the "Annual" issue of every single non-reprint title they had. The only one of these characters that managed to have his own series for any length of time was Marvel's next Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell. He was not called Captain Marvel at first. He was called "Legacy" and first appeared in Silver Surfer Annual #6.

He later appeared in another issue of Silver Surfer, and in 1994 was featured in the Cosmic Powers miniseries (in which he tried to kill Nitro, the villain who killed his father).
 

He got his own series titled Captain Marvel in 1995, but it was cancelled after only six of a planned 12 issues, before the story in it was even finished. He still went by the name "Legacy," but Rick Jones had him on his talk show and insisted in calling him "Captain Marvel," There was an implication that Monica Rambeau was not pleased by this, but they only showed her from behind, in shadow, and referred to her as a caller to the show named "M. Rambeau."
     This issue of the character's second series completes the story that was not finished when his first series was cancelled.

The cancellation of the series may have been a result of the collapse of the speculator's market after the 1993 Death of Superman saga at DC (of which more will be spoke in the next chapter) was literally the incident that had people buying comics like they were going out of style. The issue in which Superman died sold out completely on its first day, and there were reports of it being sold as high as $75 in on particular county in Pennsylvania. People continued to buy the following issues that introduced four new potential Supermen, and even when he returned, collectors still clamored for copies. But many of these people did not read the comics and cared not for the characters, stories, or art. In time, some of these collectors would try to sell the comics, only to find that everyone already had them, so no one wanted them.


             

Thus did the bottom fall out of the market. Titles were cancelled. Comic companies shut down. Marvel, who had gone public a few years before, declared bankruptcy. Many comic book shops closed. To hang on to what market was left, both Marvel and DC attempted to create company-wide "events" to drive sales.

It was during this period of collapse that in Avengers Unplugged #5, Monica and Genis had an adventure together, battling the Collector (who, of course, had fought Mar-Vell in years past). In the end, Monica declared that Genis was living up to his father's legacy and should take the mantle of Captain Marvel. She would then call herself "Photon!"
  

Genis appeared in a couple of other mini-series, most notably Avengers Forever (12 issues, Nov 1998- Nov 1999). In that story, it was a version of himself from the near future who appeared. He was married to the reformed super villain-turned-superhero Songbird. By then end of the story he also became attached to Rick Jones in the same atom-switching arrangement with the nega-bands that his father had had, swapping places between Earth and the Negative Zone (which was later revealed to really be the Microverse, the home of the Micronauts).
 

That series was also significant in Captain Marvel history for a sequence in which alternate-universe/history Avengers, both good and bad, fought each other, revealing several Captain Marvels and their variants.

In 1999, Genis got his own series again. Written mostly by Peter David the through-line was Rick and Genis having an uneasy relationship as Rick tried to teach him how to adapt to Earth culture and Genis trying to be a superhero. Genis' look had changed at the end of Avengers Forever into the new look he bore in this series.
            
 
The balance of this dynamic was altered when Genis realized that he was omnipotent, but unlike Mar-Vell, he could neither turn his "cosmic awareness" off, nor did he have the maturity to handle it.

The title carried on with very good stories and art, but was not a top-tier seller. In a big "event" move. Marvel released three new titles, and re-started this Captain Marvel with a new "First Issue." A challenge was made that the title with the best sales would continue and the others would be cancelled. Captain Marvel won handily. However, each issue would show both the number it was from the new "first issue," and the original "first issue."
 
Let us now take a break from this Captain Marvel and look at what was happening over at at DC (POWERFUL STUFF)...

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

The History of ALL the Captain Marvels (short version)

This article is being updated constantly to keep up as things change. Please bookmark it and refer back for updates.
Please comment below and tell us which is your favorite Captain Marvel, and  "Follow" this blog for more history and insight regarding the many Captain Marvels!

So long as we are taking a break from the serial chapter play of the history of all the Captain Marvels to catch up with the movie news, here is a "short version" of the history that you can link to or copy-paste whenever Someone is Wrong on the Internet.

For those of you who prefer your history in video form, here is basically all the information you will get if you read this post:

If you prefer reading words than hearing them, please continue below:

*NOTE: This brief history does not include one-panel or one-issue Captain Marvels, like The Captain, or that other genetically-altered Skrull, alternate-reality or alternate-timeline Captain Marvels, like CC and Marilyn Batson, Teddy Altman, and Janet Van Dyne, the Amalgam Captain Marvel, any of the various variants named Captain Thunder, or spoofs and rip-offs like Marvelman/Miracleman, Captain Marbles, Prime, and Mighty Man.*

1.1 The Original Captain Marvel - Billy Batson (Fawcett)
During the Superhero boom that began with Superman in 1938, Fawcett Publications, a large, successful, and diverse magazine publishing house, decided to get into the comic book racket with a Superman-like superhero. Writer Bill Parker and artist C.C. Beck created the original Captain Marvel. His alter ego was a young orphan boy, Billy Batson, who was granted the power by an ancient wizard to transform into a mighty hero by speaking his name, SHAZAM! He first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 in December of 1939 (Why #2? That's another story).

         
This hero soon had an extended family that included Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel Jr, Mary Batson/Mary Marvel, Uncle Dudley/Uncle Marvel, the Three Lieutenant Marvels, Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, and various supporting characters and villains. Billy Batson became a radio reporter, and would call upon Captain Marvel when his adventures required someone with his power.

One important detail of this bicameral character was that Billy Batson and Captain Marvel were separate personalities, separate consciousness, with a shared memory. Captain Marvel was an adult, and Billy Batson was a boy. Remembering this is important.

1.2 The DC-Fawcett Lawsuit
The hero was so much like Superman (he was super strong, super fast, invulnerable, could jump great distances, etc), and was so popular (even being the first comic book superhero with a movie serial, The Adventures of Captain Marvel), that the publishers of Superman (who will be referred to in this article as DC Comics, though they went by different names over the years) sued Fawcett for copyright infringement.

The court initially found that character similarities and differences were irrelevant to copyright infringement, but did find that certain Captain Marvel material had been copied from certain Superman material. However, a bunch of Superman newspaper strips had been printed without the correct copyright notice. This was ruled abandonment of copyright, and Fawcett could do what it wanted!

DC appealed, and Judge Learned Hand found that the improper copyrights were not evidence of intent to abandon copyright, and since Fawcett did copy some material, there was ground for DC to seek damages.

But rather than go through litigation over every instance of alleged copying, Fawcett made the business-wise decision to settle (it was now 1953  and superhero comics had been in decline for some time). They paid DC $400,000 and agreed never to print Captain Marvel comics again, and continued to successfully publish magazines, paperbacks, and other things for decades.


2.1 The Second Captain Marvel - Roger Winkle (MF Enterprises)
Time went by and while Fawcett continued to hold the copyright on their Captain Marvel material, any trademark on the name "Captain Marvel" expired. In 1966, with a superhero revival led by Marvel Comics (A comics company that had only recently taken that name and had nothing to do with Captain Marvel) going on, schlockmeister publisher Myron Fass released a new comic book titled Captain Marvel with a superhero "based on a character created by Carl Burgos" (the creator of the original human torch). The company that published this comic was called MF Enterprises.

  

This new hero was an alien android from another planet, sent to Earth on the cusp of a nuclear holocaust to prevent such a thing from happening to Earth. He wore a red suit and had the power to separate his body parts by crying "SPLIT!" He would pull himself together by saying "XAM!" He took on the alter ego of Roger Winkle, mild-mannered college professor, and his best friend was a boy named Billy Baxton (yes, Baxton).

This Captain Marvel appeared in exactly six issues in 1966-67, but was far from the last to appear. Marvel Comics came out with their first Captain Marvel later in 1967.

3.1 The Third Captain Marvel - Mar-Vell/Dr. Walter Lawson/Rick Jones (Marvel Comics)
This new hero came about either as a reaction to Myron Fass or because of a TV show pitch by an animation company (or a little of both). Whatever the reason, Stan Lee and Gene Colan created Mar-Vell, a captain of the alien Kree military, sent to Earth to determine if the human race should be wiped out or not. But he was a sensitive soul and chose to protect Earth instead.

     

His initial alter-ego was that of Dr. Walter Lawson, mild-mannered rocket scientist at a "secret missile base" (later revealed to be Cape Canaveral), and wound up having a Clark Kent/Lois Lane/Superman relationship with the head of security there, one Carol Danvers (remember that name).

Many plot twists, shark-jumps, and series reschedulings failed to make him a top-tier superhero in Marvel's pantheon. Most notably, he dropped the Walter Lawson persona and became linked with Rick Jones (the kid who was Hulk's best friend). They would swap places between Earth and the Negative Zone by banging a pair of golden wristbands - called "nega-bands" - together. Later, a cosmic entity named "Eon" would transform him from an indomitable warrior to a cosmic space hippie with "cosmic awareness."
       

And, oh yeah, he was the superhero that got Thanos over (if you'll pardon the pro wrestling parlance).

3.2 the MF Enterprises - Marvel Comics Lawsuit
Myron Fass sued Marvel for trademark infringement of his Captain Marvel, but it was settled with Marvel paying Fass a few thousand dollars and securing the trademark for themselves.

 

1.3 The Revival of the Original (DC)
Meanwhile, in 1972, either Jack Kirby suggested that DC revive a bunch of old superheroes, including the original Captain Marvel (Billy Batson//SHAZAM!), or publisher Carmine Infantino thought of it himself because he loved the character. Either way, DC licensed the hero and his extended family, friends, and villains from the still-extant Fawcett Publications. They revived him in a new series. However...

(PAY ATTENTION! THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS ENTIRE HISTORY!)

...Marvel Comics now held the trademark. This meant that DC could not make the title of the comic Captain Marvel. DC tried to "pull a fast one" by making the title long and involved:

With One Magic Word...
SHAZAM!
...The Original Captain Marvel!

          



DC got away with that for about a year, but Marvel sent a cease-and-desist letter, so DC changed the title to...

With One Magic Word...
SHAZAM!
...The World's Mightiest Mortal!

...SHAZAM! for short (all caps, with the exclamation point). This "one magic word" was the title used in subscription lists, action figures, toy cars, T-shirts, Underoos, View-Master slides, even the Saturday morning TV show. Some people started to think that "SHAZAM!" was the name of the hero.

3.3 Carol Danvers development
Meanwhile, over at Marvel, Carol Danvers first appeared as the superheroine Ms. Marvel in 1977.
      

3.4 The Death of Captain Marvel - Mar-Vell
Eventually, Marvel killed off Mar-Vell in 1982 in their first "graphic novel," The Death of Captain Marvel.
    

4.1 The Fourth Captain Marvel - Monica Rambeau (Marvel Comics)
So Marvel needed a new character to maintain the trademark, so they created a black female harbor patrol officer in New Orleans named Monica Rambeau. Through an accident involving extra-dimensional radiation, she absorbed the ability to transform into electromagnetic energy (light, infra-red, ultra-violet, X-rays, etc).
     

She became leader of the Avengers and continued in that role for the next few years.

5.1 The 5th Captain Marvel - Billy Batson: The New Beginning (DC)
In 1986 DC brought forth the largest company-wide crossover event up 'till then, the Crisis on Infinite Earths. DC had been creating new "universes" for different generations of their superheros and for superheroes from different companies that they had acquired or licensed. DC decided to combine all these universes into one, rebooting many of their characters. Billy Batson/Captain Marvel was one of them, and his new version was slightly different: Instead of Billy and Captain Marvel having different minds but shared memories, Captain Marvel was Billy's mind in a grown-up's body. This interpretation has stuck to this day through several other re-inventions. He was officially introduced in a four-issue miniseries written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Tom Mandrake, SHAZAM! A New Beginning. There were plans for an ongoing series, but DC dropped the ball, and the hero only appeared in back-up stories and guest appearances and as part of the Justice League.

  

6.1 The Sixth Captain Marvel - Genis-Vell/Rick Jones (Marvel Comics)
Meanwhile, over at Marvel, Mar-Vell's bereaved lover, Elysius, cloned him and artificially aged him with implanted memories and a pair of nega-bands so he would be able to face those who would threaten him. Genis-Vell was thus introduced, calling himself "Legacy."
  

In time he became friends with Rick Jones and took on the mantle of "Captain Marvel," pissing off Monica Rambeau. After a shared adventure with Genis-Vell, Monica ceded the title to him and changed her superhero name to "Photon."

7.0 The Seventh Captain Marvel - Billy Batson: The Power of SHAZAM! (DC)
Meanwhile, back over at DC, Jerry Ordway was given the reigns of the SHAZAM! franchise, and re-booted Captain Marvel in the Power of SHAZAM! series.

        


In this series, Fawcett City was established as the home of the Big Red Cheese, Captain Marvel had Billy Batson's mind, and the origin and backstory of Shazam and the Marvel Family was tied into some elements from the Movie serial from 1941.



8.1 The Eighth Captain Marvel - Mary Batson/Bromfield (DC)
Also, Mary Batson transformed into a grown-up hero when she said the word, but was never called "Mary Marvel" in the series, instead she was a Captain Marvel. She was sometimes referred to a "The Lady Captain Marvel. Outside the series, however, the Mary Marvel name was used and stuck.

6.2 Genis-Vell Cracks Up
As time progressed over at Marvel, Genis-Vell became linked with Rick Jones through the same body-switching, nega-band thing as Mar-Vell had, except the "other place" was the Microverse, not the Negative Zone. Peter David took over writing the character and, since Genis had inherited his father's cosmic awareness but not his maturity and experience, he went mad.
      

9.1 The Ninth Captain Marvel - Phyla-Vell (Marvel Comics)
In the course of his madness, Genis-Vell helped the consciousness of Entropy destroy and then re-create the universe (long story). In this newly-created universe, Elysius had also created a daughter to replace him when he went mad. Her name was Phyla, and she became the next Captain Marvel for a while.

10.1 The Tenth Captain Marvel - Billy Batson: The Monster Society of Evil/The Magic of Shazam (DC)
Somewhere in there (2007) DC gave Jeff Smith license to do his version of Billy Batson/Captain Marvel, which wound up being the miniseries SHAZAM! The Monster Society of Evil. In this version, the Captain Marvel who appeared when Billy said his magic word was initially a different person from Billy, but their consciousnesses and personalities merged by the end of the series.
 

DC's youth-targeted line, Johnny DC, then launched the title Billy Batson and the Magic of SHAZAM! This was ostensibly a follow-up to Jeff Smith's story, but with some minor differences. It lasted a couple of years.

 
       

7.2 Lord Marvel and the new Shazam
And back in the mainstream DC universe, Captain Marvel had moved up to take over the job of the old wizard Shazam (who had given Billy Batson the power to become Captain Marvel, remember?). taking the new title of "Lord Marvel," and Freddy Freeman, the orphan boy who had gained from that same wizard the power to become Captain Marvel Jr, had lost his powers. So Freddy was put through the Trials of Shazam (12-issue limited series) in which he gained back his powers,  one by one, until he took over as the new Captain Marvel. But because DC Comics was tired of having a hero whose name they could not put in the title, Freddy's new superhero name was "Shazam."

  

11.1 The Eleventh Captain Marvel - Freddy Freeman (DC)
This lasted but a little while, and then his name was changed to Captain Marvel.

12.1 The Twelfth Captain Marvel - Pluskommander Geheneris Hala'son Mahr Vehl (Marvel Ultimates)
Marvel Comics, , meanwhile, had started a new line of its superheros, using the same names and basic concepts, but telling stories as if they had started their careers in present day, rather than continuing stories that had begun in the 1860's. They called this the "Ultimates" universe.

First appearing in this Ultimates line in Ultimate Secret #1 (May, 2005), Dr. Philip Lawson was a Kree in disguise who helped work on a new space rocket for S.H.I.E.L.D. When it was sabotaged, he revealed himself as Pluskommander Geneheris Halason Mahr Vell. This was the Captain Marvel of the Ultimates universe. He participated in a few adventures, and his "Philip Lawson" persona tried to be cute and funny but really turned out to be snarky and obnoxious. In his alien form he looked quasi-fish-like.
       

12.2 Carol Danvers update
Carol Danvers was there also, as a security chief at the rocket base and a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative.

13.1 The Thirteenth Captain Marvel - Rick Jones (Marvel Ultimates)
Eventually, The Ultimates Universe Mahr Vehl was killed by Galactus, but before he died, he gave his Kree battlesuit to Rick Jones. Rick then called himself Captain Marvel. He has not been seen much.


14.1 The Fourteenth Captain Marvel - Khn'nr (Marvel Comics)
In 2006, in Marvel Comics, the first Civil War epic cross-over storyline hit, and Mar-vell appeared, apparently traveling through time from the past, before he died. The following Secret Invasion epic cross-over storyline, in which the Skrull Invasion of Earth climaxed, revealed that this "Mar-Vell" was really Khn'nr, a Skrull genetically altered to believe he was Captain Mar-Vell. But they had gone too far, and he would not go back to being a Skrull, even after the truth was revealed to him.

He died fighting Skrulls in space and fell to Earth. He landed in the arms of...

15.1 The Fifteenth Captain Marvel - Noh-Var
...Noh-Var, a Kree from an alternate dimension who had crashed to Earth. He was known as Marvel Boy from time to time and was a member of the Young Avengers for a while. After the Secret Invasion ended, an new team of Avengers was created (the original team had been disgraced and Norman Osborn, AKA the super-villain Green Goblin, was a the hero of the war). This team was made up mostly of villains, morally ambiguous powered characters, and a couple of heroes who were a little confused. One of them was Noh-Var, and Osborn recruited him to stand in as this new team's "Captain Marvel."

In time, Noh-Var became disillusioned with the group, and split. He changed his hero name to "The Protector," redesigned his suit, and was a member of a re-assembled Avengers team briefly.

He has since gone back to "Marvel Boy" as a member of the Young Avengers, and is much happier.
Then came 2012.

16.1 The New 52 Shazam (not named Captain Marvel)
DC Comics gave its entire line a reboot, calling it "The New 52." They reinvented all of their characters (to varying degrees) and re-started their stories from the beginning. The original Captain Marvel was re-imagined as a hero named "Shazam" with a redesigned costume and additional powers, including being able to shoot lightning out of his fingers when he said his magic word ("Shazam!" of course). Billy Batson was a problem-child foster kid, in and out of foster homes for years. He finally got adopted by a family with 5 other kids, and after Billy gained his power to change into Shazam by saying the word, it was discovered that if they all said the word together they would become individualized versions of Shazam as well. This version of SHAZAM! is what the movie by that title is about.
 

1.4 The Original is Back...I Think (DC)
A couple of years later, DC revealed that this universe was actually part of a "multiverse" of 52 universes. On one of them ("Earth-5") live the original Captain Marvel and the Marvel family.
 



17.1 The Sixteenth Captain Marvel - Carol Danvers
Meanwhile, over at Marvel, the big, epic cross-over storyline event was Avengers vs. X-Men. In it, Mar-Vell came back to life, then died saving the universe again. After this, Captain America encouraged Carol Danvers (remember her?) to take of the mantle of Captain Marvel herself. She did so, changing her costume to something less skin-baring and evoking her Air Force past. This is the character that Marvel's Captain Marvel movie is about.
          

18.1 In the Movies...
So today, DC has its character "Shazam" (Billy Batson), who has a movie coming out in 2019, and has not been seen in print much in the past few years, While Marvel Comics has its character named "Captain Marvel" (Carol Danvers), whose movie is also coming out next year, and has been positioned as one of the top-tier heroes in its pantheon.


           

I hope this helps. For further details of each of these characters and their social and historical relevance, please feel free to browse this blog, visit the Captain Marvel Culture YouTube channel, and watch out for the forthcoming book Captain Marvel Culture by Zorikh Lequidre