CAPTAIN AMALGAM! Part 16 of the Blog History of ALL the Captain Marvels! (Contest inside!)

Before we get too far away from the 20th century, there is one short-lived Captain Marvel and several related characters we should mention for the intriguing possibilities of these characters as well as the groundbreaking means by which they were created.

By 1995, the comic book boom had pretty much busted. The excitement engendered by the birth of Image and Valiant Comics, the Death of Superman, and the reveal of the new Batman after Bane broke Bruce Wayne's back had run its course. Sales were dropping, comic book shops were closing, and independent companies were dying off.

Marvel Comics itself, having been acquired by Ronald O. Perelman in 1989, went public that same year, spent hundreds of millions of dollars under Perelmen buying up or into companies that produced toys, stickers, trading cards, and other comic books, and a distribution company, and by 1995 found themselves under mountains of debt.

Since the success of Marvel's Contest of Champions, and Secret Wars, and DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, company-wide crossover events had become the go-to attempted circulation boosters for both Marvel and DC. Furthermore, comics fandom was always a-chatter with theories and speculation on what would happen if superheroes from the two big rival companies were ever to meet.

With this no doubt in mind, DC and Marvel got together and launched DC Versus Marvel, a crossover between both companies! In this 1996 4-issue miniseries, (with one "#0" free preview giveaway issue), fights were staged between comparable characters of the two companies.. This included Superman vs. The Hulk, Batman vs. Captain America, Aquaman vs. the Sub-Mariner, Wonder Woman vs. Storm, and Captain Marvel vs. Thor. (Marvel Comics' Captain Marvel, still technically Monica Rambeau, only appeared n one panel, and Genis-Vell, the all-but-official inheritor of the title whose comic had recently been cancelled did not appear at all).

There was an extra gimmick to this series, though, that did engender greater reader interest, and that was that for the matches between the bigger names of each company, the winners would be decided by reader vote! For better or worse, however, Captain Marvel vs. Thor was not one of those matches.

   

I suppose this was as logical a matchup as one could imagine. Both of them being of godly power and with a lightning and thunder theme. And though they threw in a one-panel gag that acknowledged how one character was a rip-off of the other, DC's Snapper Carr and Marvel's Rick Jones razzed each other.

 

Here is a blow-by-blow breakdown of the Captain Marvel-Thor fight.

The fight was won by Thor in a conclusion some Captain Marvel fans felt unsatisfying. But that was not the last appearance of a Captain Marvel in the DC-Marvel co-production.

The story that contained these battles was extended to bring the two universes, Marvel's and DC's, together in an amalgam not just of the worlds, but of the characters and the companies. Superman and Captain America became "Super Soldier," Batman and Wolverine became "Dark Claw," Wonder Woman and Storm became "Wonder Woman," but looked like Storm in a mashup of her and Wonder Woman's costume, and Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel became..."Captain Marvel."

   

The conceit of the concept was that it was a line of comics called "Amalgam Comics," and that these "amalgamated" heroes had been around all along, in place of the ones with which we were familiar. There were backstories and publishing histories of each character with made-up titles of comics combining titles of existing comics. Captain Marvel fit into this paradigm easily.

Though only seen briefly in two published comic books and a few trading cards, he had a secret identity and backstory. His alter ego was young Billy Mar-Vell, who upon saying the alien word "Kree!" would "super-scientifically" transform into Captain Marvel, with a white suit, green gloves, boots, briefs, and yoke, and green lightning bolt logo on chest. He had powers of super-strength, super-speed, invulnerability, and flight.

As he was only one of a bunch of heroes in "Judgement League: Avengers," he didn't get much to say or do, but he did express disdain and distrust of aliens and "metamutants." This disappointed me, as all other Captain Marvels had actively fought against prejudice in some form or another.

The fictional history of this character included him first appearing in "Whiz Marvels #1,"  being a founding member of the "Judgement League: Avengers" and present in the "Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour" (a crossover epic that was never really published, but key story points were related in a series of trading cards. the title referenced Marvel's Secret Wars, DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, the series of Infinity War-related stories from Marvel, and DC's Zero Hour) when "American Girl"  (a pastiche of Ms. Marvel and Supergirl named "Carol Barnes," a combination of Carol Danvers and Bucky Barnes) sacrificed herself to save the universe. 

     

For her part, "American Girl" was a successor to "Super Soldier," the living legend of WWII, and his fellow hero, "American Belle" (herself a pastiche of Marvel's Miss America and DC's Liberty Belle).

And speaking of Carol Danvers, a character by that name was the alter-ego of Amalgam's "Huntress," a former US secret agent super-spy with a crossbow (an amalgam of DC's Huntress and Marvel's Hawkeye, along with elements of Carol Danvers' Marvel Comics history) who filled a sort of "Batwoman" role to Dark Claw.

 

Rick Jones was not left out of this. He appeared in an amalgam with his DC counterpart/inspiration, "Snapper" Carr, as Snapper Jones, a.k.a. "Bismouth," a member of "Magneto's Magnetic Men" who appeared in an eponymous comic. He was super villain, an  amalgam of Tin, a member of DC's Metal Men, and Toad, a member of Marvel's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Apparently, he was created by Magneto, killed, revived, gained sentience, told to live a human life, and became a street musician.

   

(Incidentally a Steve "Snapper" Jones was a star basketball player in the American Basketball Association who became a popular broadcast announcer)

   

Another miniseries involving the Amalgams came out in 1997, titled Unlimited Access. In it, the character of "Access," a normal Earth Human who wound up with the power to amalgamate characters from the DC and Marvel universes, created more of these amalgams, only some of them with less apparent relevance between the component characters.

The Captain Marvel-related character here was "Captain America, Jr," (appearing in Unlimited Access #4) whose alter ego, Freddy Rogers, could transform into his hero by shouting "Uncle Sam!" His powers appeared to be based on characteristics of United States presidents, including the strategy of Eisenhower and the trickery of Nixon. He only appeared in this one issue.

  

Since this, fans have created a myriad of mashups of superheroes, including several involving one or another or several Captain Marvels. Marvel itself, in NextWave: Agents of H.A.T.E. created a mashup of Monica Rambeau and Mar-Vell that was brilliant in its execution.

But I feel that the Amalgam missed an opportunity here. The original Captain Marvel is one of the all-time great superheroes. He managed to capture an audience at just the right time that wanted to see a hero exactly like him and outsold Superman. His paradigm, the mortal, particularly a child, who could transform by magic into a hero, was the template for many other superheroes, both seriously within the industry and as a trope in everything from advertising to satire.

Furthermore, Marvel's first Captain Marvel was a hero with depth and dimension. He had an uneasy history of persecution and struggle. He even died! Combining this backstory with the sunny, optimistic, eternally-young Billy Batson-Captain Marvel would have been a fascinating challenge.

Amalgamating Billy Batson and Rick Jones would have been interesting. Billy Batson was a radio and TV reporter, Rick Jones a musician. Billy had a youthful fan club, Rick had his "Teen Brigade." Rick Jones was the sidekick of several superheroes over the years. I might have been interesting to have that his backstory be of a young journalism student with musical talent who winds up sickicking for several superheroes before meeting the old wizard Perhaps the boy's experience as a sidekick, his journalistic integrity, and his musical soul would have been a factor the wizard considered in selecting him to be his new champion. And now, as a superhero, it is that experience which informs him in how to use his powers to fight crime, evil and injustice.

Here is where the contest comes in, folks! Design and draw the above mashup of Billy Batson with rick Jones and Captain Marvel with Captain Mar-Vell and post it in the comments below. We will then have a contest where readers an vote on their favorites. The winner will receive a free copy of my three-pamphlet series "Captain Marvel Culture."! :)

On top of all this, there was the cosmic power thing. Mar-Vell gained "cosmic awareness" from the entity Eon, granting him the ability to be universally omniscient. He was aware of all things in the universe. The wizard Shazam resided in the Rock of Eternity, at the nexus of all universes, and from there knew all things. Perhaps some bizarre partnership or mashup-of these two mentor-like figures who granted powers to their heroic proteges could have been explored in this series!

And finally, the big red elephant in the room: Both companies had Captain Marvels, but the original one could not have his name in the title, even though three other companies had plastered that name all over their covers! It would have been a fine and fitting tribute to the legacy of Parker, Beck,  Binder, Schaffenberger, Lee, Colan, Thomas, Kane, Starlin, Gruenwald, Milgrom, Broderick, et al, a symbol of camaraderie between the two companies, and simply, ridiculously appropriate for Amalgam Comics to publish a Captain Marvel comic book.

And with regards to Monica Rambeau, perhaps she could have amalgamated with the light-based DC superhero The Ray to become "Lightray" or something...

Next for the DC Marvels: Society, Leagues, and crises, crises, crises!

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

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

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)...