Some of you will recognize this as a re-creation/reinterpretation of the cover of Whiz Comics #2, first appearance of the original Captain Marvel in the Golden Age.
This was inspired by a story a friend told me a few weeks back. Like me, his default setting when someone says “Captain Marvel” is to think first of the Fawcett Comics original. His wife doesn’t particularly read a lot of comics, but she’s familiar with the character through him. Recently, he and his wife were out at the movies. They were looking at the posters for coming attractions. One was for Marvel’s Captain Marvel film. My friend’s wife looked at the poster and was puzzled. “Um, why is Captain Marvel a girl?”
Looking around online, there seems to be more than one person out there who’s a little confused as to why these different characters have the same name. I’ve seen forums where this question’s been asked. People who know what’s going on try to explain, only to perhaps go into too much detail, causing the eyes of those who asked the question to glaze over and regret their having asked. So I’m not going to get into all that here.
This just appealed to my sense of fun to make this swap. It’s not like I haven’t made a character swap like this before! I’ve even swapped publishers on this one. In my mind, this would’ve been published by Timely/Marvel. I even gave the Captain a new/old logo, in line with the kind of logos they used back then.
And like many of you, I’m looking forward to seeing what Marvel has done with their Captain Marvel in the movie!
Tremendous idea, Mark, and well-rendered here (of course). Lots of cars are totaled when super-heroes (and for that matter super-villains) are in action. Perhaps one of these days you can do something similar with Marvelman. Just a thought.
I’m glad you like this, John. Yeah, when you have these characters from different companies whose creation/inspiration is sort of intertwined, it makes fodder for pieces like this. I actually have some more ideas along these lines, so we’ll see if those show up here too.
This is a nice recreation. It’s funny how Super hero’s in the forties liked to “rough up” automobiles (thinking of Action comics one).
Did you like the movie?
My concern is that the films are so successful, they are going to drive the contents of current comics. It’s one way bad ideas, or poorly conceived editorial decisions get made, my opinion.
I thought the movie was good (Gave it three stars on Netflix). I liked it, but not as much as I’ve liked so many of the other Marvel movies. To my frustration, I’ve not been able to put my finger on any real big concrete reasons for why this one didn’t seem to hit me with the same impact as the other films. I even ended up seeing it twice in the theater, and still can’t figure it out. But again: I did like the film. It’s just a question of how much. When I’ve talked to others or looked around online, this film seems oddly to be somewhat polarizing. People seem to either really love it, or not care much for it. My being kind of in the middle puts me in what’s apparently a rare position for opinions on this film.
Lyle, here is something which might interest you. Years ago Roy Thomas said something to the effect (roughly paraphrasing here from memory) that he hoped that super-hero movies wouldn’t come to dominate, because that wouldn’t be good for comics. And I think that time has proven him correct, not only in terms of what you suggest, but also in terms of just the very medium of comics. Why bother to read a flat, soundless book when something similar but far better can be experienced in live action, 3D in some cases, with plenty of sound? In years past, the adaptation of a comics feature into other media helped drive the popularity of the comics themselves. They’re still doing that — only this time they are probably driving it DOWN, not up!