The REAL Captain Marvel

Although few remember this today unless they're really into Golden Age comic book nerd-dom, but Captain Marvel was actually created by Fawcett Comics (which has been closed for decades) and was the most popular superhero comic throughout the 40s... and is the character that we now mostly know as Shazam.  Shazam itself was an acronym that described his powers:

The wisdom of Solomon
The strength of Hercules
The stamina of Atlas
The power of Zeus
The invulnerability of Achilles
The speed of Mercury

Which gives him most of the abilities that Superman later picked up, back in an era when, if you recall, Superman was "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound." (Although Captain Marvel originally couldn't fly either, he picked up that ability fairly quickly.)  Fawcett eventually succumbed to dirty politics and lawfare when DC sued them for copying Superman (probably they are scenes a faire, but the court battle is notable as one of the longest court battles in comic book history.)  Somehow while all of that was happening, Marvel trademarked the name, although they applied it to a totally different character (of course).  DC later ended up with ownership of the Fawcett characters, they couldn't even use his name, so they went back to the acronym of the wizard who granted him his powers and used that as an alternative name.

This Captain Marvel is notable for, among other things, outselling Superman, but also being the first superhero adapted to the screen, in the Republic Serial during the 40s named after him.  Thus, it's quite interesting that the movie Shazam! comes so closely on the heels of Captain Marvel, when he's really the character who by rights should have that name, not Carol Danvers.  How do the two movies compare?

First off, let me just point something out.  Zachary Levi—despite his stage name, which drops his real last name of Pugh—and despite his general appearance, is the descendant European not Jewish ancestry, and his last name is Welsh.  You probably remember him from Chuck and as the voice of Flynn Rider in Tangled, and if you haven't seen him recently, you probably thought of him as a kind of lanky nerdy looking dude.  He's not.  He put a ton of work into looking the part of Captain Marvel, and he's freakin' enormous.  Brie Larceny, on the other hand, is such an entitled little whiny princess that she just showed up, can't look the part, and had to get a butt double hired (squats are a girls' best friend.)

That vibe really describes the differences in the job that everyone involved with each movie did.  The produces, actors and writers of Shazam! worked to entertain you.  They worked hard and did a good job.  The producers, actors (with some exceptions, notably Jude Law, Ben Mendelson and Samuel Jackson) and especially writers of Captain Marvel just showed up all entitled and expected you to be entertained just because.  Billy Batson/Captain Marvel was a character who showed more depth in a single scene with his real mother than Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel was able to pull together during the entire two and a half or so hour runtime of her movie.  She was flat (and not just physically in the backside), uninteresting and unlikeable.  Billy Batson, played by a teenaged boy and Zachary Levi when in superpowered mode, was charming, funny, relatable and very fun.

Sigh.  Marvel continues to slide while DC is finally getting its act together with several good movies now in recent years; this one, Aquaman and Wonder Woman.  Mostly because they're actually trying to be good movies that entertain the audience and make them glad they came, whereas Marvel is not only coasting, but also starting to get into the kind of preachiness that is death to entertainment.

Now, don't get me wrong, Captain Marvel isn't totally unredeemable, even though the main character, the plot, and the actress herself were.  The space opera stuff, when it did that, was pretty cool.  Jude Law and Ben Mendelsson in particular, turned in great performances that I quite enjoyed.  But I absolutely will not buy this movie, or watch it again under, I can't imagine, any circumstances at all.  Shazam! on the other hand, I really liked a lot.  I'll probably buy it on blu-ray, and I'll certainly go out of my way to watch it again.

The worst thing about the Captain Marvel debacle is that it suggests the possibility that Marvel is going to majorly drop the ball with Endgame...