Captain Marvel makes it to DCnU

Announced at the NY Comic Con, Captain Marvel will make his debut in the DCnU Reboot Earth in a back-up series that will be published in Justice League beginning in issue #5, titled "The Curse of Shazam", written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Gary Frank.  The artist mentioned  their take will be very modern, and will feature a new costume.  He also kept referring to the character as "Shazam", leading to speculation the name "Captain Marvel" may be jettisoned. No more details have been announced, but it can be assumed it will relaunch Captain Marvel from the beginning in the new Reboot Earth continuity. 

This means there will be two versions of Captain Marvel.  A version very close to the original version published by Fawcett Comics, located on Earth-5, and this new, relaunched/revamped version on the main DC earth.  Fans of the Jerry Ordway Power Of Shazam series may be snubbed, unless DC relocates that version to Earth-2 with the JSA, which seems highly unlikely at this point.

I am a little skeptical about Geoff Johns writing, as he has been overbooked as of late, and it is taking a toll on the quality of his work.  Plus in all his previous Shazam writings, he tends to keep Captain Marvel in the background while putting the spotlight on Black Adam.

Mr Johns, with all due respect, I hope you come across my blog and read it, and as one Michigander to another, please read my Captain Marvel Rebirth post and take it into consideration.  Please make Captain Marvel as great as he was in the Golden Age, as he still has the potential to be as successful to today's audience.  And, hey, why not put Fawcett City in southeastern Michigan? If the movie ever gets to the production phase, it would be great to have it filmed here!

Such an original idea for a movie!

Classify this in "What the - -?" column.  It has been announced comic book writer Mark Millar's Captain Marvel rip-off character, "Superior", will get a movie, to be directed by Matthew Vaughn.  Superior is about a young boy with MS who becomes a superhero through a magic wish.

Meanwhile, the development on the Captain Marvel movie seems to stalled to a complete stop, with director Peter Segal virtually invisible, and the much hyped script by Geoff Johns and Bill Birch seemingly DOA.  DC and Warner Brothers really need to get their act together.  Can't they see all the potential in a quality, properly done Shazam! movie? One of my first posts on this blog was a Shazam manifesto and its more relevant now than ever before.

At the very least, Captain Marvel is getting some exposure through his appearances in animated projects, such as Cartoon Network's Batman: The Brave & The Bold and Young Justice, and the Superman/Shazam! DVD short, even if the comic books and movies seemed to abandon him.

Lamenting the Batman Logo

To comic books, the cover logo is important, kind of like how a theme song is to a TV series.  Once upon a time (before 1986), Batman had some of the coolest, most iconic, and legendary logos in the history of comic books.

But then, when Denny O'Neil took over as Batman editor in 1986, that all changed, and ever since, with only a very few rare exceptions (the current logo for Batman and Robin being one of them), Batman has had some of the dullest, blandest and ugliest logos in comics.

The new Batman logo for the DC reboot definitely qualifies for "ugliest".

I'm not too happy with the direction the Batman franchise is taking in the reboot, as I explained in a previous post, but once the reboot runs its course and things get restarted yet again, I want to see a return to the classic and iconic Batman logos.  I want a return to greatness.

For my money, perhaps the coolest and greatest of all Batman logos was the one that first appeared in the early 1970s, and continued to be in use as a secondary logo until 1986.

The one thing I would tweak about it, though, is Batman's head. I always felt the face was too small for the logo.  I would take the head from the 1940s logo to replace it with.

I always thought the face on this logo was perhaps the most definitive drawing of Batman ever.  To add it to the 1970s logo would create the absolute perfect Batman logo:

As for Detective Comics, I would take another classic logo, the one from the 1960s.

But I would remove the word "Batman", and replace it with this legendary "Detective Comics" logo.

DC was smart enough to keep Superman's logo untouched (with the exception of a minor tweaking in the early 1980s) since 1940.  Even the Action Comics logo remains fundamentally the same since 1938. Too bad DC never had that same sense for Batman.

DCnU Reboot Earth

This week the company wide reboot of DC Comics began.  In a nutshell, the entire continuity has started over, with the exceptions of Batman and Green Lantern, who now seem to be the "golden age" heroes, having been around several years longer in the timeline than Superman and the other characters.  The real Golden Age heroes, the Justice Society of America, have been retconned out and put on an alternate earth, Earth-2.  Also missing from Reboot Earth are the Marvel Family.

In my humble opinion, the DC reboot screwed up by not starting Batman over with the rest of the universe. The Batman franchise is overpopulated with replacement Robins, excessive "Batman Family" sidekicks, and even a "Batman Inc", where there are versions of Batman in other countries.

I really want to see the franchise go back to simplicity, and have the original and classic Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson version of Batman and Robin.  Get rid of all the excessive baggage.  Of course, we don't get that.

Then there's the Marvel Family. Rumor has it, as the JSA has been moved to Earth-2, the Marvels may be moved to Earth-5.  Grant Morrison insists his "Thunderworld" one-shot will be part of the second wave. I would be fine with that, if DC would actually give us an ongoing Shazam! series, with stories and art based on the Otto Binder-C.C. Beck era.  But with anything regarding Captain Marvel, DC usually gives us some kind of bait-and-switch.  It is entirely possible an entirely new character based on the same premise may be introduced on Reboot Earth, named Captain Thunder, whose secret identity is not Billy Batson, but a college age person who can claim superpowers by uttering "Shazam".

I recently wrote an open letter to DC regarding Captain Marvel and I still stand by everything I wrote.

Perhaps Earth-5 would be a good place in reintroduce the "real" Batman and Robin I've been longing to read... a mash up of the original 1939-1941 stories with the great "new old look" era of 1968 (moody and nocturnal adventures written by Frank Robbins and drawn by Irv Novick, Bob Brown, and Joe Giella), and the defining Steve Englehart-Marshall Rogers stint and elements of the Gerry Conway-Gene Colan-Don Newton serialized era.

Or maybe the DCnU Reboot Earth will ultimately be a total failure and a year from now, we'll have yet another reboot.  Only this time, DC may do it right, by using Alex Ross' Justice as the foundation.

Popeye: "War Of The Nightclubs"

As I reported in a previous post, Popeye will be returning to comic books in an all-new series from IDW.  To celebrate this, I thought I would post an original Popeye short story I wrote for the Official Popeye Fanclub a few years ago.  In this story, I wanted to combine the best elements of E.C. Segar's comic strips and Max Fleischer's cartoons, a path I hope IDW will also take (but leave out the weak attempts to be topical, like the "Iron Giant" line, something I wish I could edit out).  Special thanks to Mike Brooks, president of the Official Popeye Fanclub, and to Donnie Pitchford, who did the artwork for the story.  Donnie is also currently the writer-artist of the new Lum and Abner comic strip, which everyone should check out, and request their local newspaper to pick up for their Sunday funnies.

To see the scans in a larger size, just click on each page, then left click on the image and right click "Properties". On the pop up, copy and paste the address (URL) in a new tab or window. Then click on the new image to make it larger.   Simple, huh?

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3