The Other Other Captain Marvel

See, there was the Golden Age Captain Marvel, aka Billy Batson, aka the Big Red Cheese. And Marvel came out with its own version of Captain Marvel, the man of the Kree who could change places with Rick Jones. And then there was this fella:



Captain Marvel is a robot who was created on another planet. His mission is to help others avoid the wars that destroyed his homeworld:

So you might say that he was a strange being who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men....

His origin is told in flashback like that, because his memory is faulty. In a robot? He has to recharge his powers every day by passing his hand over that M-shaped medallion on his chest. It turns out that he has a young friend:

We learn that he's a writer for an important press service, and that his next assignment is to cover a revolution in the Caribbean. His flight crashes en route in a jungle. Captain Marvel investigates the area and discovers:

Inside the computer are some giant heads, who initially seem like villains, but then it turns out that they just need Captain Marvel's help getting enough power so they can return to their normal dimension.

Comments: A padded, silly story, although I enjoyed the cartoonish artwork and the insane gimmick of him separating his body into multiple pieces. Like many superheroes, Captain Marvel picked up abilities as needed by the plot:


The second story is pretty much more of the same. Aliens (from Venus) who seem like villains but are really kind of ambivalent:

And how can Captain Marvel prove to them that humans deserve to live? Why by defeating the Venutians' nemesis, the Gronks. And the Gronks are the "Bonus Feature" shown on the cover, Plastic Man. But not that Plastic Man:

Captain Marvel defeats him by using another yet-unrevealed power:

So the Venutians decide that the humans are indeed worthy of living, and head back to their own planet. Plastic Man escapes, setting up a return match with that villain in the next issue. But is he really a villain, or yet another ambivalent antagonist?

Comments: I get the sense that the publisher was intentionally pushing the envelope on copyright/trademark here to find out what they could get away with. Captain Marvel was a former Fawcett character, who had been retired after he was ruled a violation of DC's copyrighted Superman. But DC had not perfected their rights to the character by trademarking the name, so it was apparently out there in the public domain. On the other hand, Plastic Man had definitely been purchased by DC, and so by the next issue he was renamed:

Note that the envelope is again being pushed by that issue with Atom-Jaw clearly a swipe of the longtime Lev Gleason character Iron-Jaw (also a mid-70s Atlas-Seaboard protagonist), and Dr. Fate a GA DC hero.

BTW, I found out about the Silver Age Captain Marvel at one of my regular blogs from the sidebar, but I can't remember where; somebody wrote about him within the last two months or so and intrigued me enough to track down this issue. I'd be happy to link that blog, but I really can't remember where I heard about him. Anybody? Bueller? Update: Jim pointed me to Gorilla Daze, where Allan wrote about the other other Captain Marvel a few months ago. Update II: Booksteve also covered the faux Captain Marvel just last week.

Captain Marvel Versus Superman

Superman Fan covers the oversized comic from the 1970s featuring the battle between the Big Red Cheese and the Man of Steel. But before that matchup ever took place (indeed before DC began publishing Shazam!), there was another tumultuous pairing between Supes and somebody who quite clearly was inspired by Captain Marvel:



In the splash page to Action #351, we learned what his name stood for:



And in Whiz Comics #2, we found out what Shazam stood for:


(Image lifted from the late, lamented Comic Coverage)

Except for Solomon and Atlas, the names are the same, although some of the locations and attributes are different.

In the story, the United Crime Syndicates needs a new boss, their old one having been jailed by Superman. A newcomer appears offering to lead them:



No surprise, the gangsters accept Zha-Vam's leadership eagerly. And apparently believing in the dictum to "Never steal anything small", they attack Fort Knox. Superman arrives and finds himself in quite a tussle:



In the middle section, Zha-Vam delights in forcing Superman to press one of the buttons on his belt, which turns him into still different gods of the past. For example, the "G" button transforms Zha-Vam into Gorgon, in which guise he turns Superman to stone. Supes recovers when he manages to attract lightning to himself. Later, Superman presses the "P" button, and turns out all the light in the word, as Pluto replaces Zha-Vam. Superman must grovel:



Superman's computer reveals a possible way to defeat Zha-Vam; his Achille's heel. But it turns out that the Greek God has planned ahead for this eventuality:



In the final issue, Superman returns from space to discover that Zha-Vam has placed the Shield of Orion around the Earth, and that he cannot get past it. He decides to go backwards in time to evade the shield and while he's at it, he takes a sidetrip to ancient Greece, and Mount Olympus. There he learns that the gods are angry that modern folks no longer worship them:



In response, they come up with Zha-Vam and send him to the future to humiliate Superman and remind people of their awesome powers. Meanwhile, Superman talks to the Oracle and learns there's another set of gods who are rivals with the Olympians. They even the score by giving Superman his own belt, leading to the climactic battle:



In the end Zha-Vam loses his cool and decides to simply use his Kryptonite sock to kill Superman. But Supes uses his belt to call Atlas (for once he's not changed into the hero himself) who opens a can of whoop-ass on Zha-Vam, getting rid of the sock in the process. And Supes uses his belt again, as a whip on Zha-Vam's exposed heel:



This takes the fight out of Zha-Vam, and Supes deposits him back in time to Mount Olympus. The gods, realizing their folly, turn Zha-Vam back into clay, and Superman indulges himself in a little side trip to Mount Olympus of modern times:



Yep, only one god on DC's green Earth in the Silver Age. Comments: Entertaining story and Boring's art works perfectly for Zha-Vam; he's really got it going here. The concept of the old gods being upset that Superman has replaced them is a clever but creepy motivation, although of course thinking it through would reveal that the Greek Gods had been dead for millennia before the Man of Steel came along.