Words from Today
The first DC character I ever grew to love was Captain Marvel.
I started reading comics in 1992 with the X-Books, led into it by the really quite good cartoon, and so I was a Marvel girl from the age of twelve all the way until I started being very unhappy with what they were doing to my boy Cyclops. In the early aughts, after we made peace with one another, my not-yet brother-in-law handed me a copy of Kingdom Come with a very serious warning/endorsement that it would blow my mind.
It did. It’s also where I first met the Big Red Cheese, and after that, I straight up devoured everything I could get my hands on about him from the local comic book shops. Naturally, a lot of these things weren’t much older than the JLI era, but I did get copies of Legends and the early issues of JLI, amongst other things. And as time wore on and I had more money, I was able to collect some of the 70s Shazam! revival books, which I still own to this day.
It’s only been more recently — for a given definition, since I’m talking about over a decade now — that I’ve been able to really dive into his Golden Age stuff. To me, he will always be Captain Marvel, and to me, I will always best prefer that Golden Age dichotomy between Billy Batson and Cap himself, because it’s so much more interesting to me personally than Billy just becoming a magical grown-up suddenly. If it was only about the power, his own form would be just fine, y’know?
But if it’s about an orphan boy’s dream of what he thinks a hero should be— now that is some good stuff.
Anyway, this review of part of Whiz #50 was written a number of years ago while I was very sick, but I’ll reproduce it here in its entirety. Hope you enjoy it, since I love this story.
Written July 5th, 2021
All right, since I’m in the middle of a flare and have to work manual labor for the next four days despite it, I figured I would make myself – and hopefully other people – laugh by talking about one of my favorite OG Captain Marvel stories. Namely, from Whiz #50, with a cover date of January, 1944, meaning it was probably produced sometime in late 1943.
I want to share it because why not, this is some absurdly charming stuff.
I’ll get more into why it’s one of my favorites as we go, in the form of running commentary. So, full story (with said commentary) under the cut. If you wanna just read the story without my commentary, stick to the pictures. XD
First, let me say that the cover and splash page definitely live up to the story, though the cover’s a bit more sensationalized. But the premise is pretty damn simple: Our intrepid hero and his newsboy alter ego are on vacation. Cap decides to go swimming. It goes hilariously wrong and thus ensues a bit of a madcap adventure, no puns intended.
Second, the fact that Cap and Billy are depicted as essentially different entities makes what Billy does next the ultimate trolling:
Gee, airing out the stolen laundry on the radio? Really? I’ll leave it up to you, gentle reader, whether Billy actually was trolling his own alter-ego for ratings or whether he was just innocently sharing the story while his other-self winced quietly in whatever ether-space he exists in when not front-and-center.
Either way, I love it.
Continuing on…
I get a kick out of the fact that Billy’s monologue is that he’s no dare-devil. One, because that’s so obviously not true in any way – (that kid is awesomely, sometimes recklessly brave on the regular even without Cap) – but two, because the bridge is actually named Dare-Devil Bridge. We aren’t given any reason why this dangerous potential death-trap is there, hanging without so much as a gate or a warning sign or anything, because we don’t need one. It’s there specifically for what happens next.
Which, of course, is Billy calling in Captain Marvel, who does some light complaining about the situation Billy left him in. There’s no bite to it, which I find adorable – Cap actually does get frustrated once or twice in other issues with Billy calling on him for mundane stuff, though he’s never mean about it – but there is a bit of the sense of being put-upon there that’s just– I dunno, cute. It’s something I miss a lot in the various post-crisis takes on the character: That duality, that difference in personality, and the way each of them responds to different situations. Often, they’re on the same page, but notably, sometimes, they aren’t.
Someday, I promise, I need to sit down and write how I think that works between those two without being a truly frightening mental illness manifested, what with them being the same person but not the same person. Because I have so many ideas, and I’ve only had since the early-2000s to percolate them. LOL! But until then, just enjoy this.
Here is another reason why I love the Golden Age Captain Marvel books and why I love this specific story: This is an absolutely normal, mundane thing to do. It’s the human thing to do. These aren’t the actions of some super-serious superdude. These are the actions of a pretty shockingly normal guy doing something mundane. And a whole story is built around that normalcy.
It’s cute. It’s funny. It’s the reader already knowing that he’s getting himself into a situation that he absolutely could have avoided, but also completely understanding how it happened anyway. It’s pretty brilliant writing: I say this as a pretty damned good writer myself.
So much of the reason why, I think, Cap was so endearing as a hero is that humanity. He’s got pretty much god-tier power in the Golden Age, once his powerset is established. He’s utterly invulnerable to all physical harm while powered up. But– he’s human. He knows he’s human. He acts like it, and decides, “You know what? I’m going skinny-dipping.”
He and Billy are both characters it’s so easy to empathize with.
Also, a reminder that the art under Chief Artist C.C. Beck is really, really good. (He had a whole stable of artists to help produce this stuff!) Ignoring registration issues on the printing press, the actual line art is amazingly good; proportion and perspective and consistency.
But anyway–Cap does get to enjoy his swim. But, then, oh no.
I love the idea of a world where the prime hero – and he definitely is in that world – can take off his suit and go swimming, and where someone else is bold enough to steal the damn suit off of him. The first time I read this, I started laughing here. Not at him, but at the situation he’s found himself in. At the idea that some random passer-by saw Captain Marvel’s costume and went yoink!
Another thing I love about this particular story is how much Cap and Billy have to work together, just by necessity. Like– it’s just really good. But anyway, thank everything Billy Batson is on the ball, coming to the rescue.
Sheer bad luck via the weather keeps this story rolling along in hilarious misdirections. Realistically, that uniform probably wouldn’t be all buttoned together (we see Cap take off pieces of it aside the pants in other issues, including socks!), but who cares? The point of the story is that giant bear rug on the floor’s gonna get put to use.
Man, when have you ever seen Superman creeping naked through some stranger’s house wearing nothing but a random polar bear because he went skinny dipping? No wonder these comics sold so well. This next panel is when I start wheezing, though, and pretty much keep wheezing.
“A lady, too! I’ve got to get away from here!”
I’m dying at this point. That’s such a characteristic response, and yet, I think that’s why it’s funny.
Anyway, because this is an excellent story (I mean this without an ounce of irony, too), our dynamic duo stumbles across a plot in play to rob the hotel they’re staying at.
Here’s a big part of why this is such a good tale: Everything fits. Even when it isn’t explained, like Dare-Devil Bridge, it still fits. Why is the tree down? Because there was just a thunder storm, the same one that blew Cap’s suit into the room with the gangsters.
I don’t know if this is Otto Binder’s story, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. It’s a complete story told in relatively few pages that accomplishes everything it’s meant to. (ETA in 2025: It was not, though I can’t remember off the top of my head who was the writer. Still, it’s a brilliantly well-done tale.)
Anyway, using foliage as cover, Cap gets to be heroic—-then Billy gets to get back to the business of trying to stop the robbery of the hotel and get his heroic alter-ego dressed again. Which leads to a rather adorable and funny scene of Billy not only trying to describe what Captain Marvel wears, but what size it would need to be tailored in.
(Cap is supposedly a 44 for a suit coat, we find in some earlier appearance, which would refer to his chest size. So, an XL for shirts and suit-coats. He’s a big guy, but he’s actually not a hulking huge guy. But more on that later.)
I love the fact Billy tries to like– use himself as a model. Maybe in another ten years, kiddo. Billy’s actually pretty buff for like a 12-14 year old, he’s not a scrawny kid at this point, but yeah, no. LOL!
Another thing I also really, really love about this style, though, is that they draw Captain Marvel as being strong, as having a powerful build– but not as a dehydrated body-builder with deep cuts. He’s got human proportions, regardless of his strength; he’s got a human build, not a superhuman one.
C.C. Beck had a lot of things to say about superheroes who were just muscles on top of muscles, all clearly defined, and he didn’t like it. As someone who first got into comics in the early 90s with Jim Lee’s X-Men–
I do get Beck’s point. I not only get it, but I really highly approve of it. He maintained to the end that he drew (and oversaw) the Marvel family to look like high school and college athletes, and I can see that. I think the one person who’s gotten it right in the modern era is Evan “Doc” Shaner, who did Convergence: Shazam! He not only nailed that strong-but-not-hulking build for Cap, but also how young he looked. College-age, in fact.
But anyway, enough digression into art and why I like this better than most modern takes on the character. Also, that’s just a cute set of panels.
I also like that there wasn’t an easy fix there. Cap’s still in his not-birthday suit, and Billy’s still stuck running around trying to solve the issues at hand. Next comes some other really good panels:
-snorts- He’s locked in. Yeah, that’ll hold him.
Anyway, what I really liked here was again that tandem working; Billy can’t punch through a wall, but Cap can. Cap can’t crawl out while he’s au natural – well, he could, but he’d probably rather die first – but Billy’s got no such issue. It’s just fun when you get to see them doing something like that. You have to really think for a minute about the trust each of them must have in their alter-ego.
ANYWAY, we get the rare treat then–
–of Captain Marvel not only yoinking a dude into a dark room, but then stealing his clothes. Except, not his underwear. Because that’s nasty. LOL!
I love that in this series, you do actually get to see him wear other stuff. Go incognito. Get his red suit messed up enough to take it to a dry cleaner’s, wherein he ends up dressed like a musketeer after. Jerry Ordway’s series is, I think, the only other time we see Cap not wearing his famous suit, but it happened enough in the Golden Age that it wasn’t a shock.
Like, I hate to be the one to say this, but I do think DC drops the ball often on just how much you can do with Captain Marvel (or Shazam, depending on timeline, but that’s the wizard’s name to me so mostly I’ll stick with the original name) if you unbend enough to. It’s not just the costume change, or the duality of him and Billy being the same but not, but also his inherent, essential humanity.
But I am digressing again, sorry. XD I just feel strongly enough about these versions of these characters to spend hours writing this.
Anyway, only a single panel later:
And that’s that! Billy Batson has just outed his own alter-ego’s most embarrassing moment to whomever’s listening to WHIZ radio – thank everything podcasts and the internet weren’t available then, ha! – and we get to see a recounting of a very fun story.
Like I said earlier, I love this one for its essential humanity. The hero got himself into this mess, he and Billy got him out of this mess, and stopping the criminals was actually just kind of a lucky stroke thrown in there. But even though Cap got himself into this, the story never treats him like he’s stupid. It never treats him like he’s some kind of idiot. You’re laughing, but– not in a mean way.
I love how human it is. How complete it is. How genuinely funny it is. It’s a thousand times more funny when you genuinely love and respect Captain Marvel and Billy Batson, too.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this dissertation on a skinny-dipping hero. LOL! I enjoyed sharing it with you.
