Captain Marvel Adventures #18 – Comics Archeology

Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (1942)
by Otto Binder & Marc Swayze
cover by C.C.Beck

Given the cover, they were pretty confident Mary Marvel would stand the test of time.
The Marvel Family is now complete, 2 years after Captain Marvel and 1 year after Captain Marvel Junior.

Already on the teaser page, Billy Batson spoils the mystery of the story.

And it spoils one of the lesser known things about Mary Marvel: the word S.H.A.Z.A.M. refers to different gods. We’ll talk about this when the story reaches this point.

For once, Billy’s job makes a bit of sense because while I still don’t get why HE gets to deliver the news, I can buy a radio having a kid host a quiz show.

By the way, the answer is correct because this is a 1942 story and therefore Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states.

Athough Captan Marvel’s creator shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the quiz.

Especially when the other questions are definitely more difficult. Also, as Captain Marvel’s target audience tends to be younger than the typical DC target audience, this is a neat little teaching moment.

Aren’t you glad they already told us they’re brother and sister?

Then Billy has to leave the show because he received an urgent message form a dying woman… who has a bombshell of a revelation.

Okay get ready for Mary’s backstory, because it’s a lot.
First of all: their parents died when they were infants. They’re dead in pretty much all continuities, although I’m not sure if the Golden Age says how they died.

But the nurse was also attending a rich woman who just lost her daughter.
Two questions here: why “its” mother and not “her” mother?
Second: Billy at this point is like 12 years old, but the nurse looks WAY older in the present than in the flashback.

As you probably expected, the nurse then passed Mary as the daughter of the rich lady.
I’m assuming also throwing away the dead baby girl.
She COULD have said to the rich lady “sorry your daughter is dead, but if you’re interested I have a different brand new baby girl right here, and since you’re rich why not take the boy too as an extra?”.

Aaaaand she dies before she can reveal how Billy can find his sister.

Faced with this shocking news, Billy’s greatest worry… is to get back to the show.
Also, this entire interaction took LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES.

Golden Age Captain Marvel is basically always written having the mind of Billy, just with a slightly more adult demeanor. This is a rare occasion where you can interpret the panel as the Captain considering himself a different person.

Back to the quiz: I actually didn’t know this one! So I made a quick search and… apparently Mary gets it wrong. Pretty sure this WAS known in 1942 and the writer didn’t check.

See what I meant by saying the teaser page spoils the story?

Billy… I know you don’t have the Wisdom of Solomon, but you’re an idiot.

Good timing too, because Mary has JUST been kidnapped.

Captain Marvel stories can be very dumb, but how can you be mad at this goofball?

The mystery is immediately resolved, and Billy decides to reveal his secret identity to his sister.

Another reason why you can’t get mad at Golden Age Captain Marvel: it’s weapons-grade wholesomeness.

Even though it’s unquestionably a product of his time, when it would have been inconceivable for magical powers to be compatible with a uterus.

While MOST of Captain Marvel’s enemies know his secret identity, these random kidnappers don’t… and yet they STILL immediately gag the two kids.

But not Mary, which is why she gets a new sets of clothes.

The criminals don’t recognize her, even though she transformed right before their eyes.
And most importantly SHE LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME! She’s not even wearing glasses!!!

She doesn’t even NOTICE she’s being attacked.

Probably the most realistic reaction to JUST having received powers.

She immediately takes care of them, in her own style.

The concept of a girl receiving powers is still too much for Billy to comprehend.

In order to understand, the three kids travel to the wizard Shazam… who knew all along that Billy had a sister living with a rich family. And yet he still allowed Billy to grow in a dirt-poor orphanage.

Since it’s apparently too much for gods to give powers to a girl, Shazam selected different deities to power Mary.

And as for the Captain Marvel gods, it’s a weird arrangement with lots of details that don’t make much sense.

Selene is the Greek goddess of the Moon. I have no clue why she’s the one giving Mary the power of “grace”, or why the heck it’s supposed to mean, or even why it’s spelled “Selena”.
My guess is they confused this with the first name Selena (for example, it’s a perfectly valid Spanish name).

I trust that I don’t have to explain Hippolyta.

Ariadne is a weird decision, since she’s not a goddess… although she IS the granddaughter of Zeus, and Captain Marvel has Solomon so there’s precedence for mortals giving those powers.
She’s definitely giving the power of “skill” based on the myth of the Minotaur’s labyrint.

Zephyrus is BY FAR the weirdest choice, considering that the entire reason for giving a different set of gods is that male ones shouldn’t give powers to Mary… but Zephyrus was the MALE god of the wind of the west!

I’m guessing they couldn’t figure out a goddess with a name starting with Z.
And if you’re thinking “well if a male god is okay, why not keep the same”… if you know mythology, would YOU want a young girl to have ANYTHING to do with Zeus?

Then we have Aurora, who for some reason gives Mary Marvel her beauty… even if, again, SHE LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME as her non-powered self!!!

And finally we have Minerva, who arguably makes more sense giving wisdom to a mortal than Solomon does for Captain Marvel.
Although she’s a Roman goddess, why not go with Athena for the role? There two As in “Shazam”, and it’s not like M is a hard initial for a goddess.

Considering Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel are generally shown to be equals when it comes to powers… does that mean Hippolyta is as strong as Hercules? That Zephyrus is as fast as Mercury?
Also, Mary Marvel doesn’t have a specific goddess giving her stamina, power or courage, which are granted to Billy by Atlas, Zeus and Achilles.

And so we close the story with her brother needing to come up with a codename.

Looks like there’s no god in charge of creative names here.

Historical significance: 10/10
Mary Marvel is QUITE significant for Captain Marvel of course, but also for comics because she proved female equivalents to established male superheroes can be successful.
It’s definitely not a coincidence that the same writer who created her would eventually create Supergirl.

Silver Age-ness: 10/10
That is some Silver Age timing: Billy randomly meets his long-lost sister FIVE MINUTES before he learns he has a sister.

Does it stand the test of time? 2/10
Still quite enjoyable, but this is VERY MUCH a product of its time. It’s also quite short, full of plot conveniences and the teaser page spoils the main plot point.
Still, there’s an earnestness in Mary’s transformation that still works.

How close is this to the modern character? 6/10
Artist Marc Swayze is on record saying she based Mary’s appearance on Judy Garland.
Yeah I can see it.

Also there’s a rumor that the S in her name was initially considered to stand for Sappho, but it was dropped because they didn’t want to think they were implying Mary was a lesbian.
Sounds like an urban legend to me, considering Wonder Woman was allowed to exclaim “Suffering Sappho!” every other panel. Plus what power would she have granted?

While not as popular has her brother, Mary Marvel was a regular in many of Captain Marvel’s series and even one of her own, lasting from 1945 to 1948.

In the Golden Age properly, Mary Marvel kept her classic design. But in the early 50s, close to Fawcett ending publications, she received a more grown-up redesign by Kurt Shaffenberger.

We have an, uhm, interesting quote about this by Fawcett editor-in-chief William Lieberson.
But take it with a grain of salt because I could only find one reference to this that I wasn’t able to confirm with a second one.

Perhaps Mary’s mature change had something to do with her new editors. For a long time, Mary Marvel was edited by Mercy Shull, who could have fitted easily into a 32A bra. When Mercy left to open a dude ranch, she was replaced by Kay Woods, who would barely have fit into a 38C cup, and consequently, Mary’s shape began to blossom.

When DC Comics acquired the rights of the Fawcett comics in 1972, Captain Marvel was relaunched with the “Shazam!” series (as the rights on the name were acquired by Marvel Comics by this point), and Mary was also there.
You can see her look is somewhere between the original and the 50s one.

That relaunch didn’t really go anywhere. But after Crisis, in 1994 a new Captain Marvel series introduced a new Mary Marvel as well.
Thankfully THIS version didn’t go with the nonsense of a different set of goddesses: she gets her powers from the same gods of Captain Marvel.

This version implemented a significant change. While traditionally Mary Marvel has the same age of Mary Batson, in the post-Crisis version she keeps the same dynamic of her brother: Mary is a teenager and transforms into the adult Mary Marvel.

By issue 28 of that series she moved to a white version of the costume, to differentiate herself from Captain Marvel. This is honestly my favorite look for her.
It’s also notable that in the series itself she wasn’t called Mary Marvel, but Captain Marvel. That will change after the series, when she’ll start using Mary Marvel as her superhero name.

The end of the “Power of Shazam!” series begins an unfortunate era for poor Mary.
After a few guest appearances here and there, her next important role is in the Matteis&Giffen book “Formerly known as the Justice League” where her innocence is played up for comedic effect… a little too much for my taste.

It’s to contrast her Golden Age origins with the wacky jokesters of the modern team, sure, but Mary comes off as an airhead.

I also don’t like how everybody knows she’s not an adult.

But that’s infinitely preferable to the mess that followed, because for a while DC was just obsessed with the concept of Evil Mary Marvel.
Whether by giving her Black Adam’s powers, a black costume and making her evil…

…and as a final insult, making her join the Female Furies of Apocalypse with this war crime of a look.

Even Harley Quinn would call this “a bit much”.

By 2009, all that nonsense was undone and she lost her powers, becoming a teenager again.

Just in time for a complete reboot in 2011. In this version, she’s Billy’s adopted sister.
I haven’t read this one, but she seems to have been back to her original characterization (although she was initially called Lady Shazam) and she’s been the main Shazam for a bit.
And as of 2019 she officially turned 18.

While Captain Marvel is one of the earlies superheroes to get an adaptation, she’s not in the live action serials of the 40s.
She has to wait for the 1981 cartoon series “The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!”.

She’s in the shockingly great first Shazam movie, portrayed by Grace Fulton as a teen and Michelle Borth as an adult. The superpowered version shows up at the end and doesn’t do much, but as a supporting character the non-powered version is great.