The History of ALL the Captain Marvels (short version)

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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

CAROL DANVERS/CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE REVEALS! Part 2

Some of the things mentioned in this post can be found in these items:
     
Just a quick reminder, this is Part 2 of a blog post based on the following:

First, EW hits us with a brief but juicy cover story

But even more interesting is this: ten photos from the movie

And ScreenRant listed all the "reveals."


In my previous post I talked about how the current Entertainment Weekly article about Brie Larsen and Marvel's upcoming Captain Marvel has revealed, and not revealed, certain key details about Carol Danvers' costume and Jude Law's character.

I don't need to go over every detail of the movie that is revealed by the article and pictures, but I do find certain things particularly interesting....

3. Ben Mendelsohn's role
Pretty much all the initial speculation about the role to be played by Ben Mendelsohn was that he would play Yon-Rogg, Mar-Vell's initial adversary in Marvel Comics. This article, however, reveals that he will be playing a Skrull villain named Talos who disguises himself (through the physical morphing ability shared by all Skrulls) as a supervisory S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. EW released an interveiw with the actor on September 7th in which he waxed enthusiastic about the movie and his delight in playing villainous roles. He also explained why the Skrulls speak Australian. It's amusing. Go read it. I'll wait.

But for those of you who stuck around, I will continue.

I thought Mendelsohn would have made a good choice of Yon-Rogg. Not only does he have a lean, angular, middle-aged face that is within acceptable esthetic parameters of the character as drawn by at least two artists (even if not so much as drawn by two others, and you can see pictures of him here), he has already played a similar role.

I am not too familiar with Mendelsohn's body of work, but I have seen Star Wars: Rogue One more than once. In it Ben plays an imperial fleet officer with a cold heart, an ulterior motive, and a mean streak that can be self destructive when he does not get his way. Sound familiar? Well, if you read the first year or three of Marvel's Captain Marvel starting in 1967 it would. That is pretty much describes Yon-Rogg to a T.

But now it is revealed that he will not be Yon-Rogg, and all the click-baiters who bit on that are going to have to eat their digital hats. Besides, the plot is going to be different that Carol Danvers' origin in the comics, but more on that later.

4. Lashana Lynch's role
A while back I wrote a list of things that ought to be in Marvel's Captain Marvel movie on one of those write-your-own-article quasi-clickbait sites (I have forgotten the name of it and can't find a link to it, dammit!). In it I said that one of those things should be something relating to Monica Rambeau.

For those of you unfamiliar with Ms. Rambeau, she was the black, female Captain Marvel. After Mar-Vell died in 1982 graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel, Marvel Comics needed a new character to keep the "Captain Marvel" trademark alive. Being as the name is not gender-specific, and there weren't many black character around, a black female character was created.

She was originally a New Orleans Harbor Patrol officer facing the "glass ceiling" at her job. An explosion of inter-dimensional energy (of course) gave her the ability to transform into electro-magnetic energy ie: light. She got the name because someone had been calling her "Mon Capitan" (though she was a lieutenant) and after she survived the explosion, a Mexican security guard who had both heard this and witnessed the explosion passed into unconsciousness mumbling "El Capitan es un maravilla..."

She wound up being a strong, smart, courageous, and resourceful superhero, leading the Avengers through many challenging conflicts. In many ways I consider her a better "feminist role model" than Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers. She carried the mantle of Captain Marvel from 1982-1994.

It would be a crying shame if Marvel did not acknowledge this history and at least do some fan service here, and it looks like they are doing it. One of these ten pictures is Lashana Lynch in the cockpit of a jet fighter plane with her name and "handle" clearly visible. It is Maria "Photon" Rambeau.

"Photon" was the name that Rambeau picked for herself after giving "Captain Marvel" up to Genis-Vell, Mar-Vell's cloned son. This movie is said to be set in the 1990's. If we assume this Maria Rambeau is in her 20's, she would be in her 40's today. It is quite possible that there is a 20-something Monica Rambeau just waiting to make her appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe! It is therefore not too far-fetched to think that  Lahsana Lynch may be playing the mother of another Captain Marvel!

I had more things to say about this article, but the news is starting to get away from, as I have had limited InterWeb time these past few weeks. The Trailer has finally been released and you betchum that I am gonna talk about it!

CAROL DANVERS/CAPTAIN MARVEL MOVIE REVEALS in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY! (real news, part 1)

Work referenced in this post can be found here...

      

Once again, we interrupt the "Blog History of the many Captain Marvels" to cover some big Captain Marvel news that just dropped.

On September 4-5, there were some kernels of hints that there would be something major regarding Marvel's Captain Marvel (see how I did that? Kernel, major, captain?) released. Many people speculated that, after DC put out their SHAZAM! trailer, then for a Captain Marvel thing from Marvel we would see a big, glorious, exciting Captain Marvel trailer. And we all woke up the next day to find out that this big, glorious, exciting trailer...

...was NOT released! There was so much disappointment on the Interwebs that I could make a whole "clickbait roundup"(TM) about it. But I would rather not waste my valuable writing time on that.

Instead, let's talk about what was released:

First, EW hits us with a brief but juicy cover story

But even more interesting is this: ten photos from the movie

And ScreenRant listed all the "reveals."

I am so certain that the clickbait network has been working overtime on this. ScreenRant alone has over a half-dozen articles about the movie pop up just since the EW reveal, and I am not going to spend my time logging them all. Instead, here are my thoughts:

1. THE COSTUME
From the moment the movie was announced and "casting rumors" started flying fan art was showing interpretations of the current Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel outfit in faked pictures of potential actresses like Katie Sackoff, Emily Blunt,  and Ronda Rousey. Once Brie Larsen was announced, there were bunches of pictures of her in versions of the suit, some of which got repeated over and over in article and post after clickbait article and post whenever there was an announcement about the movie.

 That suit, in the comics, is blue and red. When the first set pictures of Brie Larsen in costume came out, she was wearing a suit of black and green. The location and design of the colors were pretty close to what we see in the comics (black for blue, green for red), but speculation abounded as to why this was what we were seeing.

"It's going to be colored in post!" was one cry. "That's the green of a greenscreen!" Others with more knowledge of the comics pointed out that Captain Mar-Vell, Marvel Comics' first Captain Marvel and the one through whom Carol Danvers got her powers, originally had a white and green suit with a similar color distribution. this may have been a tribute to that, some said. At least one person pointed out that the uniform of S.W.O.R.D., an international anti-alien threat defense organization, uses black, white, and green.

The truth is out now. This is the uniform of "Starforce," a Kree strike team, of which Carol Danvers is a leading member, as is the character played by Jude Law (more on that later). But Danvers will also be seen in a blue and red version of the costume. This may have something to do with something that happens in the story (more on that later, also). In any event, the green on the shoulders, gloves, boots, and belt are in keeping with Roy Thomas' color scheme of Gene Colan's original design. We may see a "battle helmet" also, if Samuel L. Jackson's T-shirt is to be believed.

It does seem, however, that they are dispensing with the rank-specific colors and insignia as established in the comics.

2. JUDE LAW'S CHARACTER
Well, everyone from IMDB on down was convinced that Jude Law would be playing Captain Mar-Vell/Walter Lawson. I even wrote a blog post about this. It turns  out that, according to this EW exclusive, what we know is that he will be a commander, and he and Carol Danvers will be working together in the Kree Starforce. The term "mentor" has been bandied about to describe his relationship with Danvers ever since the original "in talks with..." announcements were made regarding Law's casting in the movie. We see pictures of him both in what I presume is a Kree battlesuit or something (the black and green suit we have seen on Brie Larsen) and in a more casual, short-sleeved affair. We also see him with short black hair and his characteristic, pronounced, widow's peak.

In the comics, Mar-Vell did not work with Carol Danvers much after she became the superhero Ms. Marvel, and Danvers never, ever worked for the Kree. Mar-Vell started with white hair, which turned blonde later (when he gained "cosmic awareness"). His rank in the Kree military in the original Marvel Comics was "captain," not "commander. All these things are different from what we are seeing in the movie so far.

However...

We have been told that Carol Danvers' origin as Captain Marvel will be different from the comics (more on that later). Furthermore, in Marvel's "Ultimates" universe, the corresponding character to Mar-Vell - whose name is spelled Mahr Vehl - has black hair, and his rank in the Kree military is "Pluskommander," which he describes as equivalent to a captain. In addition, his human disguise/alter ego is named Phillip Lawson.

The Ultimates universe has been used as source for parts of the Marvel Cinematic Universe already, most notably, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury). Bizarrely, Mahr Vehl/Philip Lawson was the Captain Marvel that appeared in the animated series Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, while Carol Danvers became Ms. Marvel with the 1970's red & blue costume and scarf, and Phyla-Vell (Mar-Vell's cloned daughter from the main Marvel universe, whose origin is tied in with the destruction and re-creation of the universe with the help of Genis-Vell, Mar-Vell's post-mortem cloned son) even makes an appearance, wearing quantum bands (I don't have time to explain all that).

So it is not impossible that Jude Law is portraying Mahr Vehl rather than Mar-Vell. Of course, we don't see any pictures of him disguised as an Earth person, so we don't know if Walter or Philip Lawson will be making an appearance.

Another theory about Jude Law's character is that he will be playing Colonel Yon-Rogg. This is an interesting idea.

Yon-Rogg was Captain Mar-Vell's superior. He was jealous of Mar-Vell's standing as a loyal, reliable soldier who had a great future ahead of him, and despised his kind-heartedness. He was also in  love with Medic Una, Mar-Vell's girlfriend (who does not yet seem to be appearing in this movie). So he sent Mar-Vell alone on the  highly dangerous mission of spying on humanity to determine if they should be wiped out. He would repeatedly put perils in front of Mar-Vell that he thought would either make the captain look bad or kill him, and hated him even more every time Mar-Vell came out smelling like a rose.

In the end Yon-Rogg's jealousy made him self-destructive. He destroyed his career and nearly killed himself in his single-mind pursuit of Mar-Vell's destruction. The climax of his pursuit was the explosion of the Kree psyche-magnitron machine which led to Carol Danvers getting superpowers (that emerged eight years later, real-time when she became Ms. Marvel. In a recent Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) comic he resurfaced and nearly succeeded in capturing the Earth to give it to the Kree Empire, but by this time the Kree had no more interest in Earth, and besides, Yon-Rogg's authorization had long since expired. He was cut off by the Kree and defeated by Danvers/Marvel and her superhero friends.

Yon-Rogg had been drawn several different ways by several different artists. Sometimes he had brown hair, sometimes black, and Gil Kane even gave him a little villain's mustache! Sometimes he had a widow's peak. This all makes Jude Law look  like he might be a fit for that role. Though -Rogg and Danvers  only interacted once in the comics, since we are already breaking away from the comic continuity with Danvers being part of Starforce, why can't Yon-Rogg be the commander that eventually turns against her?

  So is the hair the over/under on which character Jude Law is playing? Remember, there has been some "blackening " of characters in superhero movies and TV shows lately. Aquaman and the Flash, you may recall, each have black hair in the latest movies, but in the comics were notably, and vibrantly, blonde! Could this be the latest example of this dark trend?

There is a lot more to talk about of what Entertainment Weekly has shared with us. What do you think of what's been mentioned so far?

TO BE CONTINUED...

All characters and images are copyright their respective copyright holders.

The True History of "SHAZAM!" Mar-Vell, and ALL the Captain Marvels! (Part 4 of several)

When last we left our hero-of-a-certain-name, poor sales had taken its toll, and the publishing frequency of MF Enterprises' Captain Marvel was declining rapidly.

What happened next is not altogether clear. Between Stan Lee and Roy Thomas I have heard or read at least three stories about the creation of Marvel Comics' first Captain Marvel.

The first one I read was in Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics by Les Daniels, from 1991. In it, Stan said "I thought it would be terrible if someone else had the name when we were Marvel Comics. After extended legal and business negotiations, we got ourselves the rights to the name, but DC ended up with the old character. I thought we'd better do a book, so I wrote one about an alien from another planet."

Well, Stan is a great storyteller, but is not always the final authority on what actually happened. In this case, DC wound up with the "old character" through a business deal that had nothing to do with the legal action between Marvel and MF Enterprises. We will cover the legal action and the business deal soon.

In Alter Ego magazine and in the introduction to the first Marvel Masterworks edition of reprints of Marvel Comics' first Captain Marvel, Roy Thomas states that it was Martin Goodman, publisher of Marvel Comics, who noticed the MF Enterprises Captain Marvel and decided Marvel ought to protect its trademark and create its own, and handed the assignment to Stan.

Recently Roy Thomas has said to me that he remembered Stan talking at a college and saying that there was a TV deal offered to Marvel for a superhero from outer space named Captain Marvel if Marvel would create the hero. The author Tom Wells, in American Comic Book Chronicles: 1965-69 from TwoMorrows Publishing, repeats this, adding that it was an animation studio's project. I will fill out the details of that story elsewhere.

Whichever is true, or whichever parts of each of those stories are true, on the cover of Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (December, 1967) was a mysterious  new "super-hero": a white-and-green clad figure by the name of... Captain Marvel.

A few months previously, the Kree, a race with a sprawling, militaristic, intergalactic empire, had first been referenced in the pages of Fantastic Four #65 (August 1967). They had been to earth long ago and planted secret bases and giant robots called "sentries" all over. The F.F. had discovered and defeated a sentry, so this Captain Marvel's first story was about an expedition was sent to determine if the people of Earth were a threat and should be destroyed.

The eponymic hero of this story was Mar-Vell, a captain in the Kree military (get it?). He was the expedition member selected by Colonel Yon-Rogg, to go to the planet to investigate. Yon-Rogg was  was jealous of Mar-Vell and had designs on his lady love, Medic Una, and thus went out of his way to put Mar-Vell in positions of danger, while Una spent a lot of time weeping over this and calling out Yon-Rogg for his duplicity.

At this point it is hard to describe the character of Mar-Vell without lapsing into synopsis because he changed...a lot.

First he was sent to Earth on his solo mission and checked into a small rural hotel as "C. Marvel." Then Yon-Rogg tried to zap him with a laser from orbit but hit a small plane instead, killing a rocket scientist named Dr. Walter Lawson. Mar-Vell took the dead man's identity (they looked alike) and reported to work at a US missile base known as "The Cape" (later revealed to be Cape Kennedy/Canaveral, although initially the landscape was drawn as a rocky, mountainous, desert region).

Then he met Carol Danvers (the future Ms. Marvel/Binary/Warbird/Captain Marvel. We'll get to all that later), head of security at The Cape, who had been suspicious of Dr. Lawson before Mar-Vell showed up. Then robots and monsters attacked the Cape on a regular basis, Mar-Vell kept fighting them off, rescuing Carol Danvers often in the process. Danvers remained suspicious of Lawson, fell for Mar-Vell, while Yon-Rogg plotted against him and made sure Medic Una was aware of every time Danvers made goo-goo eyes at him...and when they kissed.

To cut to the chase, Mar-Vell was used as a pawn in Kree ethnic politics (the blue-skins were pure, the "pinks," like Mar-Vell, were mixed with other races) and got new powers as a result (including space flight and the ability to cast illusions); Una died from a stray laser blast in a battle between the Kree and their enemy, the alien race known as the Aakon; the late Walter Lawson turned out to be a real enigma that was never solved; Mar-Vell wound up acting like a villain on Earth and had to leave, taking the body of Una and burying her on an asteroid; and when all was said and done, the Supreme Intelligence of the Kree (I'll explain that elsewhere) decided to punish Mar-Vell for disloyal deeds he had done by declaring that he would never rise above the rank of captain, but honored his bravery by letting him keep his new powers and granting him a new uniform.

Unfortunately, within moments of getting that new uniform, his powers somehow sucked him into the Negative Zone...and the readers had to buy the next issue to find out what ground-breaking, galaxy-shattering change Roy Thomas and Gil Kane would bring to Mar-Vel that would re-define his character forever! (Hint: It wasn't Snapper Carr)

Very early on, however, Myron Fass, head of MF Enterprises, decided to sue Marvel Comics. The Wall Street Journal is my primary source for this info, and here it is...

To sum up: Fass sued Marvel for trademark infringement, being as he had published a "Captain Marvel" comic first. Martin Goodman had offered Fass $6,000 for his hero character earlier, but Fass had refused. Marvel's defense was simply that their trademark on "Marvel" included all usages of it, including as a superhero name. The article was written at the start of the lawsuit, so it doesn't state the outcome, but at least two sources have stated that it was settled with Marvel paying Fass a few thousand dollars (far fewer thousands than Fawcett had paid DC to settle their suit).


Next: The Magic is Back!

First Official Look at Brie Larsen as Captain Marvel! (licensed notebooks from Insight Editions)

Yes, I am delaying the continuation of the history of the Captain Marvel here for ONE MORE POST because I wanted to get this news in before it got too stale!

Last week the FIRST OFFICIAL IMAGE of Brie Larsen as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel was released, and it is in the form of a notebook. THAT'S RIGHT, A NOTEBOOK.



Apparently, Insight Editions has licensed a couple of images and put them on the covers of two notebooks that will be available in April of 2019.

Now, the click-bait Interwebs have, of course clogged up the newsstream, but I don't have time for one of my infamous "clickbait roundups" here. So I just selected the post that seemed to have the most info, the most pictures, and the most vivacious "voice." Feel free to visit it for all sorts of cool words and pictures!

https://www.quirkybyte.com/blog/2018/08/captain-marvel-merchandise-new-look-brie-larson/

And here is the Tweet that many folks are sharing about it: https://twitter.com/CaptMarvelNews/status/1033887549041909760

I have always felt that notebooks were a sort of quickie, cheapie job on the licensing. You have 84 (or whatever) lined pages and the only thing about it that is about the licensed property is the picture on the cover! The only thing cheaper than that is a folder! But look! At least the notebook has paper!

However, it can be used to write things about the property (in this case, Marvel Comics' current Captain Marvel). You can use it to log the clickbait articles that post the same pictures over and over again from the same tweet or review the fan-made trailers nor critique the writers and commenters on their lack of actual knowledge of the histories of these character. So no doubt every member of the Carol Corps will want at least one of each!

Of course we all do this on the Interwebs ourselves (like I am doing now) but by keeping it on paper, it is quite possible that it will last longer than all this electronic information that is going to go POOF! when the EMP hits or the servers shut down when the last drop of fossil fuel is consumed and the final solar panel shatters.

This image does reveal, at least that, yes, the costume will be blue and red, not (or at least not always) black and green, as the set photos have shown us. It also shows us that there will be some sort of energy/power in her hands, and that we cannot yet confirm whether she will ever have the short hair that she has recently had in the comics.

So there it is folks! Enjoy! I am sure there will be more on the way!

NEXT: Finally we find out about Mar-Vell, the second alien Captain Marvel!