Shazam! Family Vol. 1 – Review
This edition of the DC Archives actually doesn’t cover DC Comics but Fawcett Comics, which was later bought by DC. The Shazam! Family is basically Captain Marvel (now known as Shazam), Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel. The title is misleading because it is really reprints of stories about Captain Marvel Jr., with Mary Marvel’s origin being shared in the last story. Captain Marvel appears twice.
I had read some of the Captain Marvel stories from the 1940s. While Captain Marvel is similar to Superman, his stories were not. Captain Marvel had much more of a humour element to it and many of the stories are rather cheesy to modern readers.
I was not prepared for the Captain Marvel Jr. stories. With a name like that, you would think they would be even more juvenile. However, I found the stories to be quite dark with many more deaths than I have read in other Golden Age comics. For example, there is one story where some criminals are killing people with disabilities for profit. Dark stuff.
Many of the stories in this volume post Captain Marvel Jr. against Captain Nazi. In these stories you can clearly see the propaganda role of comic books during this period.
I would also like to say that I was very impressed with the art. To our modern audiences, much of the Golden Age art doesn’t stand up well. I thought this art was extremely well done and was much less cartoony than the Captain Marvel stories.
While people today think primarily of Marvel or DC, back in the day, Fawcett was doing some very good story telling. It is no wonder that DC felt threatened.
