DC Comics Previews New Modern Versions Of Two Classic Heroes
So today DC Entertainment has given us a sneak peek at the all new looks for two of their most well known characters that have been missing in action since the whole “New 52” reboot hit back in August. And there’s a whole lot of lightning to be had.
First is up is Captain Marvel…er, I should say Shazam. In a story that ran today in the New York Post, writer Geoff Johns revealed the look of the new Shazam, set to debut as a back up feature in Justice League starting with issue #7, with art by Gary Frank. According to Johns, “We changed his name [to Shazam from Captain Marvel] for a lot of reasons, one of them is that Shazam is the word most associated with the character, so we just felt it made sense — a lot of people already thought that was his name, anyway. His place in the world will be far more rooted in fantasy and magic than it ever was before.”
Created in 1939 for Fawcett Comics, the original Captain Marvel was kid news reporter Billy Batson, who when saying the magic word Shazam, would transform into the adult hero Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was so popular in fact, he started to infringe on Superman’s comic book sales, and even outsold Supes for a while. DC of course, was having none of that, so they sued publisher Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement and spent the next decade in court. Captain Marvel was no more a knock off of Superman than dozens of other characters, but since he was selling so well he was seen as a threat to Superman’s popularity. Eventually Fawcett Comics gave up the fight, and stopped publishing Captain Marvel comics altogether in 1953.
Ironically, twenty years later DC Comics bought the rights to the character they once sought to destroy. Despite intermittent attempts at launching a new Captain Marvel series (which, due to rival Marvel Comics, could never actually be called Captain Marvel, hence the title Shazam! on almost every comic series featuring the character since 1973) DC has never had much luck re-launching the character on a permanent basis. He always seemed a relic of a simpler time, even more so than Superman. It should be noted that Captain Marvel had much more success out of comics during this time than in them, as there was a live action tv series called Shazam! That ran for three seasons in the 70’s, and an early 80’s Saturday morning cartoon as well. Due to the popularity of both of these versions, casual fans refer to Captain Marvel far more as “Shazam” than his actual name, which is what probably prompted DC to just say “fuck it” and call him that from now on. Besides, why give free publicity to #1 rival Marvel Comics?
The second DC character to get a massive overhaul is the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick. Set to star as a member of the Justice Society of America in the upcoming comic Earth-2, this new version of the original speedster is clearly younger, and would therefore seemingly have no ties to World War II. In an interview with Newsarama today, Earth-2 writer James Robinson stated that the new Earth-2 JSA will have been active as heroes for the same amount of time as the regular DC Earth—meaning about five years or so.
The JSA heroes have been Grandpas in spandex for my entire life, so I’ll admit to being curious about them presented as younger heroes for the first time since the 40’s. Still, I’ll miss a version of the DC Universe that has a history spanning more than a few short years. I like the notion of a DC Universe with a hero history spanning decades… why does everything that is old have to be negative? But I suppose a version of that could still exist out there; there are still fifty or so Earths we have yet to see. Time will tell.
