I had thought to write about the Black Lightning tv series this afternoon but yet again, I'm postponing that post for lightning of another frequency. I saw the Shazam! movie on Saturday night, in 3D no less, at the Moray Playhouse.
Having missed the reboot of the Thomas and Kane Captain Mar-Vell, as a child, I was lucky enough to have been able to buy the first issue of DC's Shazam in the early 70s. I had no idea, of course, about the legal battle which led to the Big Red Cheese's demise and ignominy. Being a very young fan of Kirby's Fourth World, I was aware of the child-friendly whimsy of the title but the Super-Spectacular boom made me more familiar with the Golden Age Captain Marvel canon: Black Adam, the Sivana Family, the Lieutenant Marvels, etc.
However, the revisionist, grim-and-gritty movement that began in the 80s with The Dark Knight Returns has ensured variable commercial success for CM. How would the new film fare, arriving just after Captain Carol Marvel's cinematic debut?
The answer seems to be, very well. Shazam! is derived from the New 52 version by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank ( which launched a regular series at the end of last year) and blends two antagonists, Sivana and Black Adam. I may have been softened up by the elegiac Endgame trailer but I was touched by the abandonment of Billy Batson and its counterpoint, the rejection of Thaddeus Sivana by his father (How unlucky is it to be the son of Lionel Luthor and Jason Woodrue?!)
Billy's foster family was charming, including Jack Dylan Grazer's Freddy, whose teenage sarcasm struck me as very believable in a 15-year-old. The final battle with Sivana feels rather long, since it has to introduce the new Marvel Family. I was disappointed that Mary Marvel was short-changed- once one of the most successful heroines of the Golden Age and Supergirl's forerunnner- but on the other hand, we did get crocodile men. I was also delighted by the buzzing voice of Mr. Mind in the post- credits scene. Asher Angel and Zachary Levi were engaging performers but the production company will have to act fast to make a sequel before the teenage leads grow up much more.
For my money, this was the most entertaining super-hero movie since Spider-verse. If DC have caught, er, lightning in a bottle here, maybe yet another Batman movie should be shelved for 60s Marvel parody, Metamorpho, the Element Man.
As I said, "Captain Sparklefingers" has never been a hot property for DC. In the revisionist wake of "Comics Aren't Just For Kids Anymore", Roy Thomas stripped away much of the whimsy in his mid-80s flop miniseries Shazam The New Beginning. John Byrne's CM project also came to nothing but
Jerry Ordway's gorgeous, retro Power of Shazam flourished in the 90s for four years.
I have a soft spot for Jeff Smith's Monster Society of Evil -
and although Mike Kunkel's Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam was a little too "Wimpy Kid" for me, I was amused to see an almost-homage to that series in the closing titles of the movie.
Grant Morrison's Multiversity and the Convergence events presented lovable versions of the characters more recently:
and of course, I can recommend the Poverty Row serial,The Adventures of Captain Marvel.It actually came about because the rights to Superman went to the Fleischer Brothers, who made the legendary cartoons.
I have meant to post about the 1948 Superman serial since I watched it at Christmas. It pits the Metropolis Marvel ( a cheerful, dynamic Kirk Alyn) against the slinky Spider Lady, a domino-masked criminal mastermind who is after a destructive ray weapon. Although the serial is repetitive and lacks spectacle, as a product of its time and circumstances, the animated super-feats are charming and it's unusual to see a villainess in the Superman saga.
Coming up (probably): Black Lightning vs. the 100
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