The history of Captain Marvel is kind of a mess. Lots of legal issues, lots of copyright
shenanigans and even more failed characters under that name. Yes, I know everyone's already
talked about this already, but that was back when Captain Marvel came out and this one
is to mark the release of Shazam (or more likely Avengers: Endgame), so it's totally
different or something. Plus, these things tend to focus on the legal issues and the
major Captains, but we're gonna go in a bit deeper on that. So, let's go back to the beginning
and see if we can untangle this yarn ball of a canon. Welcome to Canon Ball.
Captain Marvel's history goes back to 1939. Bill Parker and C. C. Beck created the character
for Fawcett Comics, who wanted a character to rival Superman. But they needed some kind
of hook to make their character even more popular than the one he was competing with.
And since comics were aimed at children, their solution was to make the hero's alter-ego
not mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, but actual child Billy Batson, who transforms
with the utterance of the word "Shazam" into the body of an adult. Shazam is both the name
of the wizard who gave him his powers, and an acronym for the legendary figures he gains
power from: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. He is joined by the
"Marvel Family", other heroic characters that receive the same powers. The two most prominent
are Billy's twin sister May Batson, who becomes Mary Marvel, and a crippled kid named Freddy
Freeman, with whom Billy shares his powers to save his life, turning him into Captain
Marvel Jr.
Needless to say, the character was a huge hit, which then made him a huge target. See,
the good Captain was actually more popular than Superman during the '40's, even beating
Supes to a live action serial, and so National Comics sued Fawcett over this blatant rip-off
which, coupled with the waning popularity of superhero comics after the war, led to
Captain Marvel's adventures coming to an end in 1953.
In 1966, with superhero comics back in vogue, and with the Captain Marvel trademark expired
and up for grabs, another company would snatch it the name and make a new Captain Marvel
for the Silver Age: M. F. Enterprises's Roger Winkle, who was an alien robot that could
separate his arms and legs by shouting "Split", like one of those very specific action figures
from the '90's. You know the ones. Basically all of his enemies had the names of existing
comic characters and with only four issues under his belt, he disappeared into obscurity
where he fucking belongs.
In '67, Marvel Comics also took note of the expiration, because apparently M . F. Enterpreises
didn't actually take the trademark, and thus, Marvel took the name for themselves. Because,
how could they not? They introduced a hero by that name under Stan Lee and Gene Colan.
This character is Mar-Vell, a captain of the recently-introduced alien race, the Kree.
It's a fairly standard story of an invader turning traitor to defend a less powerful
race, like Dances With Wolves or Devil May Cry. His hero name comes from civilians mishearing
"Captain Mar-Vell" as "Captain Marvel" and believing him to be a new superhero, based
on his costume and name. Thus, he became that. Later on, he had a brief run where he was
trapped in the Negative Zone and could only escape by briefly switching places with Hulk
sidekick Rick Jones, as a nod to Billy, though this didn't last too long.
Speaking of Billy, National (now going by "DC Comics") licensed the rights to the Fawcett
character for use in their comics. The Captain officially became a DC publication in February
1973's Shazam!: The Original Captain Marvel #1, before Marvel forced them to change the
subtitle to The World's Mightiest Mortal. It was some absolute Real Ghostbusters shenanigans
going on. DC were allowed to use the Captain Marvel name in the comics themselves, but
they couldn't sell anything under that name, so all comics and merchandise would use the
Shazam! label. The Fawcett universe of Earth-S merged with the main DCU in 1985's Crisis
on Infinite Earths, and has remained a part of it ever since, as DC owned the full rights
to the characters by 1991. The next big change for Billy happened with the 2011 New 52 reboot,
which saw him adopt the name of Shazam as his hero persona. Right before that, the Flashpoint
universe had him use the name "Captain Thunder", which was one of the original proposed names
for the character, and I have to wonder if that was DC doing a test run with the name
for the New 52, before settling on the much more iconic "Shazam".
Back with Marvel, Mar-Vell was liked well enough, but he wasn't nearly as popular as
Fawcett's Captain, and sales started to fall. Even an updated look and a run as the "Protector
of the Universe" didn't help matters much, so Marvel opted to try something different.
The 1982 graphic novel, The Death of Captain Marvel, saw Mar-Vell die of radiation-induced
cancer and was probably the most popular story to ever come from the character's existence.
That same year, Roger Stern and John Romita Jr. introduced a new Captain Marvel named
Monica Rambeau, a police lieutenant from New Orleans with the power to transform into any
type of energy. She's probably at the height of her fame now with her supporting role in
the Captain Marvel movie and, no doubt, further expanded role in the future of the MCU, but
she actually led the Avengers for a while from 1987-88. And considering she was a black
woman, it's pretty impressive that they gave her such a major role. During a brief retirement,
a third Captain Marvel was introduced, so Monica took on the names Photon, Pulsar and
currently Spectrum. She's appeared as recently as 2017's Ultimates 2, but you should expect
her to pop up some more now that the normies have heard of her.
In 1993's Silver Surfer Annual #6, the aforementioned third Captain Marvel debuted: Genis-Vell,
son of Mar-Vell. Known then as Legacy, he would take on the Captain mantle in December
1995, with the launch of his solo series. Admit it, you've never even heard of this
guy, right? Not surprising, given that his solo book ended after only six issues, with
the remaining six being summarised in the next Captain Marvel book five years later.
This book lasted two years before being relaunched, and then being cancelled due to low sales
two years after that. He then used the name Photon as a member of the New Thunderbolts
from 2004-2005, where he was killed off by Baron Zemo and no one cared enough to bring
him back.
In Issue 16 of the 2002 series, Genis' sister, Phyla-Vell, was introduced as an anomaly created
when Genis destroyed and recreated the universe. She cured her brother's insanity and became
the new Quasar after the Annihilation event. She then joined the Guardians of the Galaxy's
2008 team, which was the basis for the MCU version. Under the name Martyr, she was suddenly
killed by Thanos in 2010 and has made a couple of cameos in the afterlife since. Her time
as Captain Marvel was... very brief.
In 1996, the Marvel and DC universes briefly merged into the Amalgam universe, seeing numerous
characters becoming fused with their counterparts. Naturally, this led to Billy fusing with Mar-Vell
into Captain Marvel. By exclaiming the word "Kree", Billy Mar-Vell transforms into a super-powered
adult and joins the Justice League Avengers. He has all the shared powers between the two,
but none of the more unique ones, making him kinda worthless, really.
March 2007 saw Mar-Vell return in Civil War: The Return. However, he was later revealed
as a Skrull sleeper agent named... Khn'nr, I think, in the 2008 event, Secret Invasion.
Like the other Skrulls posing as heroes, he was supposed to revert to his true persona
when the scheme went into motion, but the botched conditioning led to his real personality
being wiped and leaving only Mar-Vell's. He thus rebelled against the Skrulls in a really
nice parallel with the real Mar-Vell's rebellion against the Kree. He was mortally wounded
by Super Skrull and passed the mantle on to Marvel's sixth Captain Marvel.
Noh-Varr started out as the protagonist of the Marvel Boy comic from 2000 under Grant
Morrison and J. G. Jones. He was the sole survivor of a Kree ship from another universe,
and declared war on humanity after being taken captive by S.H.I.E.L.D. After Secret Invasion,
he joined Norman Osborn's Dark Avengers team as Captain Marvel, before later working to
disrupt Osborn's plans. By April 2010, he'd switched to the name Protector, leaving the
Captain mantle open again.
As you can see, keeping a character in the role was a major problem for Marvel. Some
of them might have been popular, but they didn't necessarily suit the role, and most
of them lacked longevity as characters. And this was a huge issue, since Marvel had to
keep producing material under the Captain Marvel name, or they'd lose the copyright
and there was no way they'd ever get it back if DC got their hands on it. But what could
they do when, the only two things of note about Marvel's Captain Marvel were The Death
of Captain Marvel, and the fact that there was a fairly popular spin-off character named
Ms. Marvel?
Ms. Marvel was Carol Danvers, a supporting character and love interest from Mar-Vell's
early days. She was badly injured when a Kree device detonated near her in Captain Marvel
#1. Almost a decade later, she resurfaced with Kree powers in Ms. Marvel #1 from 1977.
She joined the Avengers soon after, up until the infamous Avengers #200 where, long story
short, an alien telepath named Marcus had brainwashed Carol into having sex with him
to get her pregnant with himself so he could use her as transport to escape his dimension.
And then she left with him, totally in love. Once it was pointed out that this was more
than a little rapey, Chris Claremont was able to bring her back the following year, having
her lose her powers to Rogue, and telling the Avengers to get fucked for not helping
her.
She was then experimented on by another alien race, the Brood, granting her cosmic powers
as Binary in 1982's Uncanny X-Men #164. In 1992, she lost her Binary powers, other than
scaled down energy manipulation, and regained her old powers too. She finally rejoined the
Avengers in '98 as Warbird, sporting her most iconic costume. Following her role as a major
player in the Pro-Registration side of Civil War and a brief time as Captain Marvel in
the alternate House of M timeline, Carol's next big development came in July 2012, when
someone at Marvel finally got a clue and decided to give the mantle to their already popular
spin-off character, thus making Carol their seventh and current Captain Marvel.
Unfortunately, her time in the role has been fraught with controversy, even outside of
the movie's influence. From a horrendous bout of character assassination in Civil War II
that only Tony Stark could relate to, to a new hairstyle that very few artists can make
look good, to the often very masculine proportions she's given by various artists, to the Wolverine-esque
hard push that's seen her being associated with The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy,
A-Force, S.W.O.R.D., The Ultimates and Alpha Flight in just a few years. She's also gone
through three (soon to be four) separate series of Captain Marvel since 2012, along with numerous
other titles with similar names, which could come down to Marvel's sudden DC-like constant
relaunches; but it could also be a sign of fan dissatisfaction with modern Carol and
the state of Marvel's current political climate. If the fact that Civil War II concluded with
Carol, a character Marvel needed to get over with fans before her then-upcoming movie,
beating Iron Man, the face of the MCU, into a fucking coma isn't enough to tell you that
Marvel has a real problem with their handling of Carol since the title change, then I don't
know what is.
The one ray of hope during this is the introduction of the fourth Ms. Marvel, Kamala Kahn. Despite
what's happened with Carol, her current successor remains fairly popular. She is a Muslim teenage
superhero fangirl of Pakistani descent, who has to deal with rather traditional parents,
normal teen drama, and awakening her Inhuman powers to take on the former mantle of her
favourite superhero, which gets her embroiled in all of the Inhumans' major events, and
brings her into conflict with her idol over their views during Civil War II. Kamala has
a lot going for her and, though I can't speak for how all of this has been handled, it's
a shame to see Carol's fanbase dwindling and, going off what I've heard, dragging Kamala's
down with it.
And throughout all this, Billy Batson remains largely the same. He's gone through character
progression by succeeding Shazam for a few years after Infinite Crisis, and even changing
his name to Shazam in the New 52, but Billy is still a character people can enjoy and
even get excited for when he gets his own big budget movie, even in light of the flaccid
attempts at aping Marvel's success from DC Films that we've had to suffer through in
recent years.
I like Carol. I was a big fan of her mid-00's solo book, so it's genuinely painful to see
Marvel drag her name through the mud with their modern comics that do nothing to endear
her to longtime fans or most newcomers. This is, of course, not helped by an only average,
overly-politicised movie outing that starred a woman that cannot keep her fucking mouth
shut. Hell, I think the best thing anyone's done for Carol in a decade is Capcom having
her and Dante defeat Ultron Sigma, and considering what game that was in, that isn't saying much.
I think the issue is that Marvel wants Carol to be a sort of female equivalent to Captain
America, and so they're Roman Reigns-ing her, to much the same result as that term's namesake.
And this affects Kamala as well, but to a lesser extent. They are pushing her too hard,
too fast, and it's doing nothing but making fans push back. Meanwhile, the only push Billy
gets is from terrible alternate universe stories into a fucking grave...
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Oh, and there was also that one character, Marvelman, but nobody car-