Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

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NoOneofConsequence
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by NoOneofConsequence »

I'd forgotten they'd done a bunch of DC superheroes stuff in the late 60s/early 70s. Unfortunately, those and Tarzan (which apparently has had no effort made to do a decent DVD transfer) are the only ones easily available. :(
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly. That is the first law of nature.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Ken »

Ares wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:12 pm My first exposure to the character was the Filmation animated series, much like Ken.
?

My first exposure to the Captain was a reprint of page 5 from Whiz Comics #2 inside The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer.
My next exposure was a copy of Superman #276 [my dad bought it; how much was because he wanted to give it to his almost 6 year old son, and how much was because he was a Captain Marvel fan from waaay back is debatable], though this was technically Captain Thunder, since Julie Schwartz got cold feet or something
Then was the live action Filmation TV program.
Then there was Shazam vol. 1 #16, that reprinted the King Kull story from CMA #137.
Then there was DC's hardback book Shazam from the 40s to the 70s. And that was really when my fondness from the Captain truly blossomed.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

I really like your notion that the Rock of Eternity is a sort of beehive of individual versions thereof combining into a great whole clustering around what I’ll describe as the Rock of Finality (The name used for an Evil Opposite to the Rock of Eternity which appeared in a comic I do not clearly recall): my own theory was that the Rock of Eternity was so darned infinite that every single version of The Wizard and his champions could use it at the same time and never really notice each other (mostly because they’re so darned busy with the current manifestation of the Seven Deadly Enemies).

This is, admittedly, somewhat less elegant - and arguably slightly more cartoonish - than your own notion, but the Marvel Family power suite doesn’t feature ESP, so I think it’s vaguely workable.

May I please ask what your take on the Seven Magic Lands might happen to be? (I actually rather enjoyed this storyline, if only because it makes perfect sense that the Rock of Eternity would link to realms other than the Earthly and because it’s easy to imagine Mr C.C. Beck having some fun illustrating the various magical realms).
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

Also, may I please ask if this thread is the right place to discuss your thought on Willie Fawcett (aka Captain Thunder) from SUPERMAN #276?

I’ve become rather fascinated by the pastiche of Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) DC created when they ALREADY owned the rights to The Big Red Cheese* and would love to see your thoughts on the character (Not to mention share my own - I’d really love to see him slotted in on Earth 36 of THE MULTIVERSITY, where it strikes me he would be a very natural fit).

*Any superhero who spends his nights battling Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolf Man knows how to give readers a good time; I’m also intrigued by the notion of a world where Earth’s Mightiest Mortal has to be assembled from elements of the Superman mythos (My impression was that Captain Thunder is THE local hero of Metropolis on a world where Superman does not exist, but which otherwise contains all the elements associated with Superman comics - amongst other things, given the presence of Big Red).
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Ares »

Libra X wrote: Fri Aug 26, 2022 6:55 pm I really like your notion that the Rock of Eternity is a sort of beehive of individual versions thereof combining into a great whole clustering around what I’ll describe as the Rock of Finality
Thanks! Glad you like it.
May I please ask what your take on the Seven Magic Lands might happen to be? (I actually rather enjoyed this storyline, if only because it makes perfect sense that the Rock of Eternity would link to realms other than the Earthly and because it’s easy to imagine Mr C.C. Beck having some fun illustrating the various magical realms).
I'm not a fan of Geoff Johns' version of Billy Batson / The Shazam mythos in general, and that series was no different. It TRIED to be a bit more classic Captain Marvel, but there was Johns usual schtick of making everything darker and 'more serious', he brought out pet characters like Black Adam to save the day and Superboy Prime to be the big final villain, and he brought back classic Marvel Family villains basically to job out in the final issues.

The Seven Lands of Magic was . . . well, a disappointment, frankly. While I'm glad someone finally remembered that the Rock of Eternity could be used to travel to different dimensions, the fact that they limited it to just seven rubbed me the wrong way. The Rock of Eternity is connected to the entirety of time and space. You can go anywhere and anywhen. It's about infinite possibilities, and Geoff Johns narrowed it to just seven. And worse than that, with all of his imagination was "Earth", "Lame Video Game Land", "Pleasure Island run by Evil Peter Pan", "Wizard of Oz + Alice in Wonderland", "Furry Land", "Lame Halloween Town" and "Prison Land". Those places could have been fun in and of themselves with the right work, but they never managed to be more than surface level time wasters.

Each of those places could have been a story in and of themselves, a concept that could have been completely realized. But instead, Johns tries to do them all at once and thus none of them feel like a real adventure or anything more than the surface level. And the idea that there were 'seven' places connected to the Rock of Eternity was just limiting when the Rock is supposed to let you go anywhere. There's an infinite number of places they could go to have any number of adventures.

Like, take Wozenderland. Why limit it to just some Oz / Wonderland mashup? Why not make the entire dimension a fairytale realm where Oz and Wonderland are nations, with elements of Fables thrown in, and it's under attack by the Queen of Fables, and Cap has to help defeat the ultimate Evil Queen.

The land of anthropomorphic animals could have just been a new version of Earth-C where Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew lived. Only now make it the Earth to all of the various anthropomorphic heroes of DC, like the Just Lotta Animals and Hoppy the Captain Marvel Bunny. If you want Tawky Tawny to be from that Earth, fine, but there's way more potential for the place than just "place where Mr. Tawny and maybe the Crocodile Men are now from".

The locations just didn't have enough substance to them because the scope of them was so limited. It took the concept of the Rock of Eternity and just made it so . . . small.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

I agree that the story wasn’t perfect - we only get a taste of the Seven Lands, obviously, and I do tend to think Black Adam overexposed - but I do question your interpretation that the Seven Magic Lands are meant to be the only realms one can reach from the Rock of Eternity: my impression was, rather, that the paths to these realms were merely the most reliable and well-defined (Also that the story was meant to allow a taste of these realms, not to show us everything there ever was or would be about them).

Still, to each their own!
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

One notion I like is that the Wizard who was a member of The Council of Eternity (One of the additions by Mr Johns to the Captain Marvel mythos that I really like, since it suggests that while Billy is the first superhero of his Earth he’s hardly the first Champion - the image of Shazam alone in the hall where seven champions once sat is also a wonderfully poignant image) was actually the predecessor of the Wizard we know (Born Jebediah of Canaan a very, very long time before Christ): this would help make clear that wizards are long-lived but not immortal and would also help underpin Shazam’s willingness to try again after Black Adam went to the bad - he knows that a wizard CAN find a worthy Champion and that a Champion can learn to be wizard from personal experience - while also explaining why he took so long to choose the next candidate (because if he gets it wrong again, neither he nor Earth will survive the failure).

Note: this doesn’t mean that The Wizard would not seek to cultivate heroes* during the long, long wait between Black Adam and Billy Batson - it’s a little sad that there have been few stories explore what the Wizard did for Earth before his Greatest Champion was chosen - but it does mean that he would be somewhat gun-shy about bestowing the Full Package on any single hero.

*In addition to having canonically placed Ibis the Incredible in a time & place where the hero could fill the gap left by The Wizard’s death, I’ve come to enjoy the idea that Shazam was training up El Carim, Master of Magic, to become something like the Sorceror Supreme of Earth-S (I believe it’s actually canon that El Carim was taught by the spirit of a mighty magic wielder called ‘Wizzar’ who could very readily be reinterpreted as the Wizard Shazam), though whether the ‘Master of Magic’ lived long enough to be a master mage is an interesting question.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

Oh, and I’m morally certain that there’s an interesting story to be told in how a Nice Canaanite Boy managed to not only win the support of Solomon the Wise, but persuade the Almighty to turn a blind eye to that power being bestowed on a Champion possessing the power of Heathen Demigods (and it’s also potentially interesting to wonder how he acquired the support of Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury to boot).
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

By the way, I was just reading your remarks on the “What should a flying paragon do for a day-job?” thread and was slightly amused by the fact that “Billy Batson - Influencer” arguably works even better as a day job for the Big Red Cheese than his old Radio Host gig (While being as direct a lift as modern child labour laws allow).

Amusing mental image of Billy interviewing Clark (not Superman, ace reporter and sometime author of science fiction Clark Joseph Kent) and being slightly embarrassed when a lot of the questions in the comments section are in the “Hey, is that the guy who stole Superman’s girlfriend?” “Can you fix me up a meeting with Lois Lane?” “Lois Lane is AWESOME” “Can you do a show with Lois Lane?” and “Is Superman down for a threesome? Asking for a friend …”
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

On a much, much more serious note - may I please ask if you have any thoughts on Captain Marvel’s EARTHLY home base? (Limiting ourselves to actual cities, he’s been associated with New York City, with Philadelphia and - very briefly - San Francisco: even if we stick with good old Fawcett City it remains an open question as to whether that burg is in Minnesota, Indiana & Wisconsin).

I tend to favour Fawcett City - partly because it’s a nice little nod to the Good Captain’s origins, partly because fictional cities are much more ‘DC’ but mostly because fictional cities are much easier to tailor to their local heroes - but I could be convinced to accept a Real World city (Since that sort of setting helps ground Earth’s Mightiest Mortal and his high-flying adventures in a context that makes them feel cheerfully escapist, rather than frivolous).

So long as that city isn’t New York, New York - I like the idea of Captain Marvel being a constant reminder that there are places & people of interest outside of New York City (even places outside NYC AND Los Angeles): I also remain deeply enamoured of the mental image that any crossover between Earth-5 and Earth-8 (or Earth-616) has to include at least one scene where the Big Apple Superheroes are slightly annoyed by the Marvel Family adjusting to NYC more easily than our other heroes adjust to the idea that New York, New York isn’t the centre of the superhero world in EVERY universe.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Ares »

Regarding the Council of Eternity, I wasn't really a fan. There's a reason I recast them as the people who get transformed into the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man.

As for Cap's home city, I'd stick with Fawcett City, but place it as kind of a sister city to Chicago, right alongside the Great Lakes.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Ken »

Ares wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 5:07 pm As for Cap's home city, I'd stick with Fawcett City, but place it as kind of a sister city to Chicago, right alongside the Great Lakes.
As someone who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, flat out replacing Chicago with Fawcett City would do Illinois a world of good.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Ken »

In the first Captain Marvel story that didn't have Sivana as the villain (from the issue of Whiz that was "No. 5" on the cover), Billy visits Washington, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and in each one, it seems like he is visiting, not at home. Makes me wonder where Bill Parker intended Billy's home to be.
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

I suspect the correct mathematicians answer for this would be “The United States of America” …
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Re: Captain Marvel, the Marvel Familiy and Shazam - Ramblings and Reconstruction: The Rock of Eternity

Post by Libra X »

For some reason - possibly the recent placement of Earth’s Mightiest Mortals in Philadelphia, but partly connected to the generally itinerant character of Fawcett City over the years - I’ve come to think of Fawcett as sitting somewhere between the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwest, quite probably on the Ohio River: I tend to assume it’s comfortably in the Top 10 category, but not populous enough to hit the Top 5 (So the population would be 1&1/2 or 2 million), though that’s mostly grounded in my conviction that New York City & Los Angeles could stand a bit of good-natured ribbing on their not being the centre of SOMETHING in the United States of American (Specifically superhuman activity).
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