Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio. This week, Bennett looks at DC's upcoming Shazam backup story starting in Justice League #7.Traditionally I've been the kind of comic book guy who doesn't care for needlessly tampering with classic characters. So you might think that I would be major league cheesed off by the recent confirmation of my worst fears concerning the upcoming "The Curse of Shazam" back-up series set to debut in Justice League #7. To wit it will literally be a "in name only" revival as they'll be taking away his name -- as well as changing his costume and tweaking his origin.
But I'm not. Really. Don't get me wrong, I don't like this one bit and while this will no doubt make some pundits crazy, if DC ever wants the character to be anything like a popular success he'll have to be updated. If DC had revived Captain Marvel back in the late 1950's when they brought back The Flash and Green Lantern it would have no doubt been in the form of a science based hero suitable for The Camelot Era. And, chances are, that version of the character would have been a bigger success than the "classic" one revived in 1972 (at least in part) to cash in on the then hot nostalgia fad.
I'm going to go ahead and assume this is just the latest in a series of well-intentioned attempts, which started with 1987's Shazam: The New Beginning, to create a version of the character that's saleable in the direct sales market. Which means stomping like a toad the inherent wish fulfillment at the core of the concept that renders Captain Marvel anathema to today's modern adult readers. The title alone of "The Curse of Shazam" telegraphs (if anyone actually did that anymore) that this is going to be "grown up stuff."
It's not exactly a shocking move, seeing as how this is pretty much the same scenario as 2006's The Trials of Shazam, though it does put Billy Batson in the same sad situation poor Freddy Freeman had to deal with (being unable to speak your own name without getting struck by lightning, now that definitely qualifies as a 'curse'). And, most likely, it's not going to work; over the decades comic book collectors have built up quite a serious sales resistance to The Big Red Cheese. But I'm fully prepared to be wrong; if The New 52 can make a sales star out of Aquaman I suppose anything is possible.
And it definitely makes sense as a marketing move. I mean if there actually is ever going to be a Shazam summer tentpole movie it's hard to imagine that Marvel, the publisher, at some point wouldn't suggest such a film would cause harmful market confusion with Marvel Comics. And for that matter in today's world of cutthroat corporate competition it seems unthinkable Time-Warner would want to spend multi-millions of dollars making and merchandising a big screen production that name checks one of their chief rival’s brands every time anyone says the main characters name.
So, so long Captain Marvel. At least we’ll always have the 1940's. I suppose the most ironic thing about this whole deal is this now gives Marvel Comics an absolute grip on the name Captain Marvel at a time when they don't have a Captain Marvel and show no interest in creating one. Putting yet even more pressure on their still unseen revival of Marvelman.
Of course there are some characters they thankfully seem to have given up trying to "modernize," like Popeye. Ordinarily I'd say anyone trying to do new Popeye stories is doomed from the start but I must admit I have hopes for the upcoming monthly Popeye comic to be written by the always wonderful Roger Langridge (see "Roger Langride on 'Popeye'"). And as much as I enjoyed it I'm still trying to wrap my head around the band Wilco doing a music video that doubles as the first hand drawn Popeye cartoon in 30 years (see "Popeye Featured in Wilco Video").
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.