From Whiz Comics #112 (June 1949), Fawcett Comics continues to draw a hard line between Billy Batson and Captain Marvel – which are still clearly different people, I was surprised to learn that this did not change until well after Fawcett went under and DC acquired the rights to the character. In fact, it wasn’t […]
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Marvel Family Comics #1 debuts in November 1945, bringing Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel and Uncle Marvel together for the first time, In addition to telling the origin story of each character, it also introduces the Marvel Family’s greatest enemy: Black Adam. 5000 years ago in Egypt, Shazam created the world’s first champion, […]
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Well here we are closing out the tenth year of comic-book-dom and Captain Marvel continues to keep things light in the super-heroics department in Whiz Comics #61 (December 1944). Unlike Superman, his DC counterpart, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel had almost zero regular supporting cast, love interests, recurring villains, backstory, or continuity. The stories always stayed far […]
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In Whiz Comics #50 (December 1943), Thor and Loki make an appearance over in the Ibis the Invincible story. Loki appears to cause mischief and Ibis summons Thor and his hammer Molnir to deal with him.
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A neat story in which Billy Batson is transported 1000 years into the future results in a mixup when he tries to change into Captain Marvel by saying Shazam! I thought it was interesting is the clarification that Captain Marvel seems to be a completely different persona than Billy, and is just “answering” Billy’s call. […]
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More “name-squatting” continues in the Golden Age – we see a character name “Marvel Boy” created by Timely Comics during the hey-day of Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel craze. This is actually the second story featuring this version of Marvel Boy, Martin Burns. As Wikipedia points out, both stories were pretty different and the character never […]
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Fawcett, creates a new Marvel family character: Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. I have to assume that Fawcett was hoping to capitalize on two crazes at once: The Marvel Family and “funny animal” cartoons/comics (like Bugs Bunny). By the end of 1942, members of the Marvel Family graced the covers of no less than 8 different […]
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The Marvel Family expands again in Captain Marvel #18 (November 1942) with the addition of the female version of Captain Marvel Jr: Mary Marvel. Mary was the newly discovered twin sister of Billy Batson. I believe Bulletgirl was the first female version of a superhero (1941), followed one month later by Hawkgirl.
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Freddy Freeman (Captain Marvel Jr) gets his own comic book in October 1942. A nice retelling of his origin story and then more battling World War II foes for Freddy! As far as I can tell, this is the first time a “junior” superhero gets their own solo comic book, beating Superboy by seven years!
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In Whiz Comics #25 (November 1941), Fawcett introduces Captain Marvel Jr, aka Freddy Freeman, a crippled boy who became the second official member of the Marvel Family. It seems like Fawcett began to realize how big of a hit Captain Marvel was starting to become and had plans to spread it around with new characters, […]
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