With Captain Marvel Shazam all set to make his live-action debut on the big screens this week, I figured this would be a good time to look back on his previous animated appearances. Shazam had a pretty good career as far as animation goes - from his humble debut in the early 80s on The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!, briefly passing through the DCAU and anything else in-between, until today when he's part of on-going shows like Young Justice or the DC Universe Original Animated Movies line.
This retrospective will try to run through each of his more notable appearances, as well as occasionally focus on his supporting cast of characters - either the rest of the Shazam Family, or his enemies. Just for fun, some alternate versions of these characters will also be included, when necessary. Also note that I will switch from calling him either Captain Marvel or Shazam occasionally. It might get confusing at times, but I think people reading this will be able to understand what I am talking about. While these articles may not be as detailed or well-written as some of my previous retrospectives (due to various reasons, including but not limited to time constraints), I hope you will still enjoy reading through them. And keep in mind these are just my opinions. Feel free to share your own thoughts, comments or even point out any possible errors in my write-ups below! Updates will be posted weekly, if everything goes well. I must admit I am a little behind on this, as I have not yet finished writing this retrospective at the moment, so there might be a break after a few articles. Most of the images seen in this thread are courtesy of The World's Finest.
Captain Marvel made his debut in 1939, and was created by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker. He first appeared in the pages of Whiz Comics #2, published by Fawcett Comics. His publication history is kind of interesting, as the company was sued by DC Comics for copyright infringement, because of the similarities between Captain Marvel and a certain Superman character that was also appearing in comics at the time. By 1972, DC Comics purchased the rights to Captain Marvel (as well as a bunch of other Fawcett titles) and resumed publishing his stories, now also set within the same DC Universe as most of their other titles. In another fun turn of events, the characters' name was changed by DC in 2011, when they relaunched his comic series. He's now known as Shazam, to avoid confusion with the character(s) Marvel Comics owns.
As for the character's fictional background, well basically he's a kid - Billy Batson - who is granted superhuman powers by an old Wizard. He can access these powers by saying the magic word "SHAZAM", which is an acronym of the six gods he gets his powers from. These usually are listed as being the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury (but some variations might have occurred throughout the years). Despite having the body of an adult, Billy is still just a kid and as such he usually tries having fun while being a hero. He learns lessons from most of his adventures and does develop into a better person, slowly but surely.
His supporting cast includes his family - his sister, Mary Batson who also becomes Mary Marvel with a similar set-up as Billy, or his friend Freddy Freeman, a.k.a. Captain Marvel Jr. (who notably remains a teenager when transformed). Other note worthy characters would include the Wizard Shazam, who granted them these powers, Uncle Dudley (who does not actually have any powers) or Tawky Tawny (a talking tiger, a pretty normal concept as far as comics go). In more recent times, other characters were included, such as Billy's foster siblings, with whom he shares his powers.
After Billy Batson made a quick cameo in an episode of Superman: The Animated Series ("Obsession", from 1998) Captain Marvel made his proper debut in modern animation in 2005, during Justice League Unlimited. This series was a sequel to the Justice League cartoon that aired on the Cartoon Network. Unlimited lasted for 3 seasons, and originally ran between 2004 and 2006. It featured a lot of new characters, the majority of them brought from the DC Comics Universe, no matter how well known or obscure they were. Admittedly, not all of them received the same amount of screen-time, or development. Captain Marvel himself only appeared in one episode, aptly titled "Clash", which aired during the show's second season. At this point in the series, the characters were all caught up in the middle of the Cadmus story-arc which had quite a few sub-plots running at the same time. I will try not to dwell too much on all of the elements of the arc, since they're not really the focus of a thread dedicated to Captain Marvel, but some stuff has to be mentioned to better explain the setting of Captain Marvel's debut. Notably, Lex Luthor was running for President, much to the annoyance of Superman. As such, the Man of Steel was kind of easily ticked off by just about anything, and as luck would have it, the arrival of the cheery Captain Marvel only bugged him some more.
Captain Marvel is presented pretty well in this episode. He's excited to be part of the Justice League. He tries seeing the good in everyone - including Luthor. This leads to his first clash with Superman, who doesn't trust Luthor (and who could blame him). It all culminates in a big fight between Captain Marvel and Superman, in the newly constructed Lexor City. Having the city empty at the time was a decent enough excuse to have the two heroes engage in a fight of these proportions, seeing as much destruction ensued. The fight has some pretty cool choreography. Captain Marvel uses a trick similar to the one from the Kingdom Come comic to fight Superman with a lightning bolt attack, but as in the comic, Superman still manages to come out on top.
All this helped Luthor advance his master plan (which I will try not to spoil, though I presume most reading this have already watched the series), with the world seeing how dangerous and destructive Superman can be, and all due to a misunderstanding. This also makes Captain Marvel question his role as a hero, or rather as a member of the League, as he doesn't believe any of them still act as heroes. He quits the team, after a pretty cool and dramatic speech. He used to idolize these heroes, he wanted to be like them and stand for something. But now, thanks to some meddling from the bad guys, the heroes themselves do their jobs in rather questionable ways, and Captain Marvel doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. It is kind of weird having all this from his first appearance, I think it would have left an even bigger impact if we saw him before all this and knew more about him. They still manage to get the point across, though. Likewise, it would have been nice if we saw more of the character later on, if his opinions would have changed after the story-arc ended or something along those lines. Sadly, this was Captain Marvel's only appearance during the DCAU. It was still pretty awesome overall, even if it was mostly only a confrontation between him and Superman. I still found it more entertaining than other such set-ups, where two heroes have to fight each other because of a misunderstanding, from various other projects over the years.
Other cool Captain Marvel related tidbits in the episode include Billy attending C.C. Binder Elementary School, or a scene reminiscent of an old Fleischer Superman animated short, only with Billy taking Clark Kent's place. There's also a pretty amusing bit when Batman and Superman discuss the new member to the team, with Batman admitting most of the heroes like Captain Marvel because he's "sunny". Shane Haboucha voiced Billy here, while Captain Marvel's voice was provided by Jerry O'Connell, who would go on to voice other DC Comics super-heroes in various other projects over the years, including the Atom or more recently, Superman himself. I thought they were both good choices for this episode.
It is a little tricky to review this story alone, without touching any of the other plot elements that were featured in past episodes, or how things would play out by the end of the season. I think the episode still stands well on its own, in regards to Captain Marvel's introduction and portrayal, as well as offering a decent enough set-up for his fight with Superman. But as the ending hints, Luthor's plan was just getting started. Kind of an ominous way to leave things off in this retrospective, but this is where this article ends, and the next parts will focus on other incarnations of both Billy Batson and Captain Marvel. There is a lot more to cover, and thankfully, not all of his appearances included a fight with Superman.
Next: Billy Batson: The Brave and the Bold!
This retrospective will try to run through each of his more notable appearances, as well as occasionally focus on his supporting cast of characters - either the rest of the Shazam Family, or his enemies. Just for fun, some alternate versions of these characters will also be included, when necessary. Also note that I will switch from calling him either Captain Marvel or Shazam occasionally. It might get confusing at times, but I think people reading this will be able to understand what I am talking about. While these articles may not be as detailed or well-written as some of my previous retrospectives (due to various reasons, including but not limited to time constraints), I hope you will still enjoy reading through them. And keep in mind these are just my opinions. Feel free to share your own thoughts, comments or even point out any possible errors in my write-ups below! Updates will be posted weekly, if everything goes well. I must admit I am a little behind on this, as I have not yet finished writing this retrospective at the moment, so there might be a break after a few articles. Most of the images seen in this thread are courtesy of The World's Finest.
Captain Marvel made his debut in 1939, and was created by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker. He first appeared in the pages of Whiz Comics #2, published by Fawcett Comics. His publication history is kind of interesting, as the company was sued by DC Comics for copyright infringement, because of the similarities between Captain Marvel and a certain Superman character that was also appearing in comics at the time. By 1972, DC Comics purchased the rights to Captain Marvel (as well as a bunch of other Fawcett titles) and resumed publishing his stories, now also set within the same DC Universe as most of their other titles. In another fun turn of events, the characters' name was changed by DC in 2011, when they relaunched his comic series. He's now known as Shazam, to avoid confusion with the character(s) Marvel Comics owns.
As for the character's fictional background, well basically he's a kid - Billy Batson - who is granted superhuman powers by an old Wizard. He can access these powers by saying the magic word "SHAZAM", which is an acronym of the six gods he gets his powers from. These usually are listed as being the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury (but some variations might have occurred throughout the years). Despite having the body of an adult, Billy is still just a kid and as such he usually tries having fun while being a hero. He learns lessons from most of his adventures and does develop into a better person, slowly but surely.
His supporting cast includes his family - his sister, Mary Batson who also becomes Mary Marvel with a similar set-up as Billy, or his friend Freddy Freeman, a.k.a. Captain Marvel Jr. (who notably remains a teenager when transformed). Other note worthy characters would include the Wizard Shazam, who granted them these powers, Uncle Dudley (who does not actually have any powers) or Tawky Tawny (a talking tiger, a pretty normal concept as far as comics go). In more recent times, other characters were included, such as Billy's foster siblings, with whom he shares his powers.
After Billy Batson made a quick cameo in an episode of Superman: The Animated Series ("Obsession", from 1998) Captain Marvel made his proper debut in modern animation in 2005, during Justice League Unlimited. This series was a sequel to the Justice League cartoon that aired on the Cartoon Network. Unlimited lasted for 3 seasons, and originally ran between 2004 and 2006. It featured a lot of new characters, the majority of them brought from the DC Comics Universe, no matter how well known or obscure they were. Admittedly, not all of them received the same amount of screen-time, or development. Captain Marvel himself only appeared in one episode, aptly titled "Clash", which aired during the show's second season. At this point in the series, the characters were all caught up in the middle of the Cadmus story-arc which had quite a few sub-plots running at the same time. I will try not to dwell too much on all of the elements of the arc, since they're not really the focus of a thread dedicated to Captain Marvel, but some stuff has to be mentioned to better explain the setting of Captain Marvel's debut. Notably, Lex Luthor was running for President, much to the annoyance of Superman. As such, the Man of Steel was kind of easily ticked off by just about anything, and as luck would have it, the arrival of the cheery Captain Marvel only bugged him some more.
Captain Marvel is presented pretty well in this episode. He's excited to be part of the Justice League. He tries seeing the good in everyone - including Luthor. This leads to his first clash with Superman, who doesn't trust Luthor (and who could blame him). It all culminates in a big fight between Captain Marvel and Superman, in the newly constructed Lexor City. Having the city empty at the time was a decent enough excuse to have the two heroes engage in a fight of these proportions, seeing as much destruction ensued. The fight has some pretty cool choreography. Captain Marvel uses a trick similar to the one from the Kingdom Come comic to fight Superman with a lightning bolt attack, but as in the comic, Superman still manages to come out on top.
All this helped Luthor advance his master plan (which I will try not to spoil, though I presume most reading this have already watched the series), with the world seeing how dangerous and destructive Superman can be, and all due to a misunderstanding. This also makes Captain Marvel question his role as a hero, or rather as a member of the League, as he doesn't believe any of them still act as heroes. He quits the team, after a pretty cool and dramatic speech. He used to idolize these heroes, he wanted to be like them and stand for something. But now, thanks to some meddling from the bad guys, the heroes themselves do their jobs in rather questionable ways, and Captain Marvel doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. It is kind of weird having all this from his first appearance, I think it would have left an even bigger impact if we saw him before all this and knew more about him. They still manage to get the point across, though. Likewise, it would have been nice if we saw more of the character later on, if his opinions would have changed after the story-arc ended or something along those lines. Sadly, this was Captain Marvel's only appearance during the DCAU. It was still pretty awesome overall, even if it was mostly only a confrontation between him and Superman. I still found it more entertaining than other such set-ups, where two heroes have to fight each other because of a misunderstanding, from various other projects over the years.
Other cool Captain Marvel related tidbits in the episode include Billy attending C.C. Binder Elementary School, or a scene reminiscent of an old Fleischer Superman animated short, only with Billy taking Clark Kent's place. There's also a pretty amusing bit when Batman and Superman discuss the new member to the team, with Batman admitting most of the heroes like Captain Marvel because he's "sunny". Shane Haboucha voiced Billy here, while Captain Marvel's voice was provided by Jerry O'Connell, who would go on to voice other DC Comics super-heroes in various other projects over the years, including the Atom or more recently, Superman himself. I thought they were both good choices for this episode.
It is a little tricky to review this story alone, without touching any of the other plot elements that were featured in past episodes, or how things would play out by the end of the season. I think the episode still stands well on its own, in regards to Captain Marvel's introduction and portrayal, as well as offering a decent enough set-up for his fight with Superman. But as the ending hints, Luthor's plan was just getting started. Kind of an ominous way to leave things off in this retrospective, but this is where this article ends, and the next parts will focus on other incarnations of both Billy Batson and Captain Marvel. There is a lot more to cover, and thankfully, not all of his appearances included a fight with Superman.
Next: Billy Batson: The Brave and the Bold!