Now that DC has begun Calling Billy Batson Shazam in his superhero identity and Carol Danvers is the official Captain Marvel of Marvel Comics these days, there's been an opening for the title of Ms. Marvel. Marvel didn't waste any time and new there is a new hero on the scene. She certainly is getting plenty of early exposure, with her own comic, appearances with Carol Danvers and membership in The Avengers.
Cap teamed with the original Ms. Marvel way back in STF #72...
Cool cover as usual. This one really would be an ideal pairing, considering the young ages of both Billy and Kamala. Maybe they'd even be close to enough to date if someone though to do so. Otherwise, they'd become fast friends who I easily see on going on plenty of adventures together, but without the modern trappings of needless gore, sex or murder. In other words, they'd ideally be fun and light-hearted, not grim and gritty.
ReplyDeleteYeah I figure that their ages would play a role - hence the Field Trip that unites them...
ReplyDeleteHow about Shazam meeting Prime from Malibu's old Ultraverse
ReplyDeleteThat's a good one, I've been meaning to use Prime.
ReplyDeleteYou could also throw in Mighty Man (Image), Mighty Titan (Red Anvil) and Fishnet Angel (Shooting Star)! All three metamorph via magic word.
ReplyDeleteYou know, for decades I loved reading comics and my weekly visit to the comic shop was one of the highlights on my week. I still go to the comics shop most weeks to pick up the handful of comics I still read (one of them being Scooby Doo Team-Up), and I look at the latest offerings from DC and Marvel, and I can’t help but feel that somehow they’ve lost their way....
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or is anyone else tired of the constant BIG EVENTS and the “All New, All Different” reboots that seem to occur every other month? Ever since “The New 52” DC comics all seem so dark and joyless. As for Marvel, The Fantastic Four has been canceled and The Avengers have been subdivided into fifteen different teams none of which seem at all familiar.
I mean, I get it; I’m an old fogey. I’m no longer their target audience, and they’re not writing mainstream comics for me anymore. I just wonder who they ARE writing them for. I can’t imagine that the books they’re producing these days are selling very well. If they were, why would they have to keep trying to generate false excitement by constantly starting over with new #1’s every few months?
All of this is my roundabout way of saying thank you, Ross, for doing what you do. I visit this site almost every day, and when I do, I get the same kind of joy I used to get from my weekly comic shop visits. This is something I look forward to.
Again, thanks.
Thanks, that's the kind of reaction I like to hear!
ReplyDeleteI like this team-up, Ross, even though I haven't yet actually read anything (apart from a few panels found posted online) that stars the new Ms Marvel. It reminds me of a kinder, more innocent, style of heroes than we currently tend to be faced with.
ReplyDeleteI only came back into reading comics a couple of years ago, prompted by the display of graphic novels & trade paperbacks in my local library, after a couple of decades away from this hobby... I couldn't get into Marvel (who used to be my favourites) at all, because of the changes since then and the fact that different lines had undergone major alterations at different times so there was no obvious point at which to start: At least DC's sequence of Crises and reboots provided some obvious break-points in the history for me.
I agree that a lot of the 'New 52' stuff is overly "grim & gritty" (or "dark & edgy", as the 'TV Tropes' website calls that style), and am mostly buying & reading back-issues from earlier periods instead, but there is SOME lighter-styled material from after Flashpoint that I'm finding enjoyable: the BatMite limited series, the Harley Quinn/Power Girl limited series, the Harley Quinn 'Road Trip' special issue (with Ivy & Catwoman), 'Gotham Academy', the more recent storylines in 'Batgirl', 'Bombshells', and a few others... and the just-started 'Superman. Lois & Clark' series, which places the pre-Flashpoint Superman & Lois Lane Kent (& their young son) undercover in the post-Flashpoint timeline (as a result of the 'Convergence' event) looks quite promising, too...
Very nicely dne cover, evocative of old CM covers where we see a representation of the transformation process with Billy standing in front of his inner big brother, Cap. Plus, it almost looks like the CM part is original artwork!
ReplyDeleteHowever...
"Now that DC has begun Calling Billy Batson Shazam in his superhero identity [...]"
Ugh! You needn't have brought that up... I hate this New52 facet of the character the Powers That Be have imposed with the heat and rage of a thousand super-novae. I don't know if this is
A) out of honest fear that, now that they're part of Disney's stable, Marvel Comics can now do to DC what DC did to Fawcett in court back in the Fifties
B) another example of the executives thinking the readers are idiots who will think a character being called Catain Marvel will mean they're reading a Marvel book rather than a DC book (which, if that were true, may actually help boost sales, frankly)
or
C) again, the bigwigs think that the readers are stupid, and that using the name Shazam on the cover when the character is called Captain Marvel inside the book is too confusing for them.
I would point out for B has nothing to with name but Copywrite. Marvel had the Captain Marvel name first and they complained to DC to change it or go to court.
DeleteI think I'll have to subscribe to the old fogey club as well. I've been a comic reader, in one form or another, for a long time and I still love to get myself back into reading some of them ... but I really can't. The big issue, for me, is that more often than not I found myself looking at the page and thinking "why in hell is 'X' doing that?"
ReplyDeleteI don't mind some the revision and retelling they did over the years (e.g. the New52 Wonder Woman I can live with), but then I got to some points and I can't simply get my head around how screwed up some of the narrative is for me. For example, I recenlty picked up one of the final issues of Secret War where Cap and Iron Man brawled again over what Tony had done and I just couldn't understand it. I know there was the whole Civil War thing, but I thought they mend after that, but apparently I was very wrong.
In general what I think it's wrong are two things:
1) the authors are leaving out the hero part of superhero more often than not; these are characters that are supposed to make a positive difference in their worlds or at least try, this seem to have become a secondary concern;
2) most of the story aren't fun to read -- at least for me -- I don't mind serious tone, but when all that a story has to offer is pain, hatred and fear, then I call bull.