WHIZ COMICS #2 (1940)
by Bill Parker & C.C. Beck
The villain retrospective has already covered all major Golden Age supervillains… from Marvel and DC Comics. But I realized there was a glaring omission: the Captain Marvel supervillains, who despite starting in Fawcett Comics will later be acquired by DC.
And where else to start than with Dr. Sivana, who debuted two months before Lex Luthor and who is only predated by Ultra-Humanite and Dr. Death.
He’s so important in the Captain Marvel mythos that the two debut in the same issue!!!
It’s such a short story that I might as well talk about the origins of the Big Red Cheese himself.
Which begins with… uhm… a kid following a stranger into the subway.
Those who are only familiar with the character thanks to the 2019 movie might be surprised to learn that a scary subway ride was already part of the origin in 1940.
Interestingly, the Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man are shown prominently even if they are not part of the story whatsoever. Notice that in 1940 they couldn’t include Lust, or even call them the Seven Deadly Sins.
The wizard Shazam quickly introduces himself and the fact that his name is actually an acronym.
Being an all-powerful magician, Shazam uses a TV screen called Historama © to show us the rather depressing backstory of our protagonist.
And so we arrive at the moment you were waiting for: SHAZAM!
Aaaand the wizard dies. Don’t worry, he got better later (SOMEHOW).
Well that takes care of the origin of Captain Marvel: like all Golden Age stories, it’s very efficient at getting the point straight and immediately moving on.
We spend a surprising amount of time following Billy Batson, instead of Captain Marvel, investigating the “phantom” who is threatening the radio system.
Another interesting thing: Superman will famously borrow A LOT of elements from Captain Marvel, and the latter was able to fly earlier than Supes.
It’s surprisingly hard to pinpoint exactly when Superman first started flying, but it’s important to note that Captain Marvel also is not shown to be capable of flight in his first story.
Here it is, ladies and gentlemen: the very first appearance of Dr. Sivana! Believe it or not, he gets even uglier in later stories.
A ransom of 50 million dollars doesn’t sound like much for Sivana, but that’s in 1940s dollars… it’s roughly about $1,026,800,000 in 2022 dollars!!!
In my opinion, the action in Captain Marvel is already miles better than what Superman was doing at the time.
Captain Marvel doesn’t even meet Sivana in person, since the evil mastermind is behind a TV screen. I guess he couldn’t afford the Historama ©.
Billy Batson informs the owner of the station and gets a job out of it. The end!
Told you Golden Age stories are efficient.
Historical significance: 10/10
Come on.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
All things considered, there isn’t all that much absurdity running around.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
The origin is a timeless classic, to the point that the 2019 movie didn’t have to change all that much despite almost 80 years having passed. If that isn’t standing the test of time I don’t know what is!!!
The Sivana plot is incredibly simplistic, but for the most part everything holds up surprisingly well.
How close is this to the classic character? 4/10
We don’t get to see a lot of Thaddeus Bodog Sivana (yes, that’s his complete name). He doesn’t even have his trademark white lab coat!
And for a mad scientist, he doesn’t have much in the way of crazy inventions… while Dr. Sivana will rapidly become ABSOLUTELY F#CKING BONKERS.
He might be played for laughs most of the time, but considering he’s basically Evil Professor Potter the concept is absolutely terrifying!!!