SHAZAM #3 was another issue in the complete run of the title that I had borrowed to read from my grade school friend Donald Sims. That's a nice cover in the spirit of a number of Fawcett pieces spotlighting the Marvel Family. It's only undone by how chunky all of the linework seems to be. … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #3
As I mentioned previously, my grade school friend Donald Sims possessed a complete 35 issue run of SHAZAM, the DC Comics revival of the original Captain Marvel of the Golden Age of Comics published in the 1970s. At one point, I convinced Don to let me borrow the run so that I could read it … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #2
My grade school friend Donald Sims had inherited a bunch of comic books from some older relative who had tired of them and passed them along. He mostly had a smattering of stuff, but there was one complete run among his possessions. And that was SHAZAM, DC's 1970s revival of the original Captain Marvel, a … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #1
It's a well-known part of comic book history that Fawcett Publication's character Captain Marvel was one of the most popular characters of the Golden Age of Comics, regularly outselling Superman. And in fact, the series was successful until a lawsuit from DC/National Comics forced Fawcett to agree to cease publishing the Captain's adventures. For years, … Continue reading The Second Captain Marvel Story
And so, after four months, we finally come to the end of the titanic clash between the World's Mightiest Mortal and the vastly-overmatched foe of subversives as the running Captain Marvel vs Spy Smasher conflict reaches its inevitable climax. Once again, there isn't any clue given on the cover that this colossal story has been … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: The Epic Battle Between Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher, part four
Continued stories weren't really a big thing during the Golden Age of Comics. They got experimented with a bit, but in general the common wisdom seemed to be that the young audience for comic books couldn't be depended upon to reliably come back for the next installment, and that instead giving them a great and … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: The Epic Battle Between Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher, part three
The cover to WHIZ COMICS #16 gives no indication of the titanic struggle that was played out within its pages. Inspired clearly by the battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner in MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS, a fight that made that series a best-seller, Fawcett's creative team decided to do their own super hero vs … Continue reading Lost Crossovers: The Epic Battle Between Captain Marvel and Spy Smasher, part two
Spy Smasher was introduced in the first issue of Fawcett's WHIZ COMICS (numbered as #2 so as to account for an ashcan edition created solely to secure copyright to the title.) The brainchild of Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, he became one of the most popular characters in the Fawcett publishing line, appearing in his … Continue reading Spy Smasher in Peacetime: The Last Spy Smasher story
As we've covered in a number of different earlier posts, the chain of causality which led to the creation of the Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Comics' signature creation, is long and tangled. Every once in a while I see people make reference to this story in relation to it. And in fact, there isn't any direct … Continue reading The First Spider Man Story
One of the casualties of the haphazard manner in which I've grabbed and kept things over the years is that on a more-than-occasional basis, I'm not sure precisely where I culled it from originally. That's the case with this cool four-page 1940s vintage behind-the-scenes article on the making of Captain Marvel comics during the Golden … Continue reading How The Comics Are Made
The Tom Brevoort Experience 