Shazam #5, the Original Captain Marvel enters my life, via a visit to the butcher's shop.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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If there's one thing visitors to this site can take for granted, it's that it will never be anything but topical.

And so it is that, this Easter Sunday, it can be found reviewing that most Easterly of comics.

Shazam #5.

OK, I admit it. It has nothing to do with Easter. But, who knows? Maybe we can find a little of that Easter magic contained somewhere within its pages.

I first acquired this comic in the early 1970s in a shop just beyond the city centre, before being dragged into a small butcher's shop where the elderly customers were complaining they'd never get used to this new money the government had brought in which involved having to know the ten times table, as opposed to the twelve times table.

How appropriate, then, that also concerned with money is small-time crook Slip Kelly who, in our first tale of the issue, encounters no less a dignitary than a visiting leprechaun.

Grabbing it, he claims his one wish and is granted the power of invisibility.

With that, he robs the local bank, simply by walking out of it with a large pile of banknotes in his hands.

Fortunately for the bank - but not for Slip - clean-cut child Billy Batson just happens to be there and, quickly transforming himself into the Original Captain Marvel, sets about tackling the situation.

However, the leprechaun reveals that Slip can only be restored to visibility by cancelling his own wish.

And Original Cap knows just how to make him do it.

He drops Slip from a great height, knowing that because he can't see him to rescue him, he has no way to prevent the crook from being splattered upon impact with the ground. Thus it is that Slip can only survive if he re-grabs the leprechaun and demands it make him visible again.

I'm not sure if I should point out that, if Slip hadn't managed to catch the leprechaun on the way down, he'd now be a huge red mess on the road and Original Cap would be facing a murder charge, lending the whole plan a far darker edge than it's, presumably, meant to have.

My main takeaway from this, the issue's first tale, is that CC Beck's art has a cartoony simplicity to it that's totally at odds with how super-hero comics were drawn at the time but has an easy-on-the-eyes charisma you can't help but like. 

Also, writer Elliot S Maggin has dropped the exclamation mark from his name. The one that I've now convinced myself he always used.

I am, though, puzzled as to why our hero's depicted with closed eyes in every single panel he appears in.

In our second tale of the issue, Billy Batson's accompanied, on his mission to collect old periodicals for recycling, by his friend Sunny Sparkle - who, despite everything we're told about him, looks like something from a horror film - and his not so sunny cousin Rowdy. Among the material they gather on that collection is a book that tells you how to do everything.

Rowdy spots his opportunity and uses it to turn himself, instantly, into the world's toughest guy.

Clearly, this can't be allowed to stand and, so, Original Cap challenges the boy to a show of strength in which our hero tears apart the book that's given Rowdy his newfound power.

And, with the book destroyed, that newfound strength becomes newlost strength and whatever slight menace Rowdy may have posed to humanity is gone.

To finish, we get a Captain Marvel Jr tale.

And this is noticeably different.

For a start, it's not drawn by CC Beck. Written by Joe Millard, it's drawn by Sheldon Moldoff and isn't a new adventure, being a reprint from 1948.

It's a big occasion for the local kids because, in the street, they spot a man who's only ever referred to as Champ who's clearly a boxer of some import.

He may be a champ in the ring but, out of it, he's made of 100% rotten and nearly gets an autograph-seeking child killed by knocking him into the path of a speedy automobile.

Fortunately, local newspaper vendor Freddy Freeman's on hand to become Captain Marvel Jr who then takes Champ off to have a word with him about this behaviour, doing most of his talking with his fists.

It's then that we learn Champ's agreed to throw his next fight but, happily, a random woman walks into the room and convinces him not to, by referencing his mother and father.

Who this woman is isn't made clear in the story. But Captain Marvel Jr clearly knows her. So, I'll assume she's his housekeeper or something.

Suitably shamed by her speech, Champ, with Jr's aid, quickly brings justice to the match-fixers, and Champ's a reformed character who's now even willing to talk to children.

It does leap out at you that this story has a far more serious attitude than the issue's other two, in both art and writing and does make you realise that Daredevil would never have existed had Captain Marvel Jr been around.

Overall, the book's a charming and simple read, like encountering a less demanding but cooler version of a 1970s Superman comic and, therefore, I give it the gentle Easter Sunday thumbs-up it, no doubt, deserves.

Superman #276, Make Way For Captain Thunder!

It's the question we've all asked; "Who'd win a fight between Superman and Captain Marvel?"

Admittedly, I never actually have. After all, the answer's blatantly obvious. How's Captain Marvel supposed to beat Superman when he's got Rick Jones griping in his ear and singing all the time?

But, of course, there was another Captain Marvel, one who never dared speak his name, for fear of the solicitors getting involved and, in 1974, he got to meet his old nemesis from the 1950s law courts, the Man of Steel.

Except he didn't, because the foe Superman tangles with in his 276th issue bears absolutely no resemblance at all to the original Captain Marvel. Seriously, no one could possibly confuse the red and white clad Captain Thunder and his youthful alter-ego Willie Fawcett with Captain Marvel and Billy Batson.

It all begins with Willie appearing, from nowhere, in a Metropolis street, just in time to see Superman flying overhead on his way to dealing with some threat or other.

This is all very odd, as Willie's never heard of Superman before, even though everyone else seems to recognise him.

Then, while Superman's dealing with an imaginary monster conjured up to distract him while a gang of criminals rob an armoured truck, Willie decides Captain Thunder had better tackle the gang. He rubs his belt buckle, says the magic word, "THUNDER," and, in his super-heroic guise, sets off to sort out the miscreants.

There's only one problem. No sooner has he transformed into the captain than he's stricken with an irresistible urge to help the wrongdoers!

Needless to say, this quickly brings him into conflict with Superman, in a fight which only ends when Thunder gives Supes the slip by changing back into Willie.

Willie goes to see Clark Kent because he's told the reporter's a friend of Superman.

He tells Clark how he first became Captain Thunder and of how his last battle was with a gang of villains comprising Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster and the Mummy.

As he left the defeated fiends in a cage he'd created for them, they shouted a mysterious threat at him, one he only now understands as meaning they'd found a way to send him to the wrong dimension and turn Captain Thunder evil.

Together, boy and reporter set off to solve the mystery of just how he got here and how to get him back home.

But, before they can even start, yet another crime breaks out and Willie once more transforms himself into Captain Thunder, causing the resumption of his fight with Superman.

This time, the Kryptonian clobberer manages to hold on to Thunder for long enough for the out-of-sorts hero to figure out how to get back home and cure his malfeasance. With one more rub of his belt, Thunder's gone and that's that problem sorted.

So, is this the epic, no-holds barred lurch into action, destruction and chaos that Nick Cardy's cover leads us to expect?

No. Of course it isn't. It's a 1970s Superman comic. That means reading it's like putting on a comfy pair of slippers and eating some chocolate biscuits. No one is, at any point, in any peril. Despite using their most powerful blows, the two heroes totally fail to hurt each other and everything's wrapped up simply and straightforwardly with a total lack of animosity.

This makes it sound like a bad thing.

And it kind of is.

And it kind of isn't.

Like all Superman tales of this era, it's appealing because Curt Swan draws it with a charm and lightness of touch few artists could match.

In fact, the main enjoyment comes not from the somewhat low-key clash between crime fighters but from spotting all the changes writer Elliot S! Maggin makes to the character of Captain Marvel, especially the retelling of his origin, this time involving a helpful owl, a cave and an elderly native American

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing ultimately depends on your tolerance for storytelling that lacks any desire to be dramatic.

As I've said in the past, I must have a massive tolerance for the dramatically unambitious because, as a youth, I probably had more Superman comics than books starring any other costumed American hero, and something must have been making me come back for more.

Random comics I have owned. Part Six.

All students of history will know there've been many great endings over the centuries; and today, Steve Does Comics brings you an ending worthy of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes itself - as its latest feature grinds to its final resting place.

The only issue of Shazam I ever owned.

Like the Metal Men comic I mentioned the other day, I got it from a newsagents in Heeley Green. I still don't have a clue why that makes it seem exciting but, somehow, it does.

Sadly, I remember little of the main story but remember that I found CC Beck's simple art style appealing.

The Legion of Super-Heroes find themselves entangled in a plan devised by their evil counterparts.

The only issue of E-Man I ever owned.

I believe this issue may have introduced me to the word, "Entropy."

I also suspect this issue featured John Byrne's Rog 2000 in the tale of a haunted hotel. This may have been the first time I ever encountered the work of John Byrne. At the time, I found the tale most droll.

Apart from the cover, I don't remember anything about this at all.

It does however remind me that I once had a comic that featured a reprint of a Lee/Kirby tale about a girl who can walk on air until it's pointed out to her that people can't walk on air, at which point she loses the ability to do so. If you know in which comic that reprint appeared, I'd be very glad to read your thoughts in the comments box below.

It's another issue of Prez - and another whose contents somehow elude my memory.

An evil bad guy has a formula that turns people into monsters. Needless to say, the Avenger soon sorts out his perfidious plans.

The only issue of the Champions I ever had.

You do wonder just who at Marvel thought it made sense to launch a comic that tried to team up the Black Widow, Hercules, Iceman, the Angel and Ghost Rider. Maybe it's just me but that doesn't seem the most natural combination of characters.

Sadly, I can recall nothing of what happened within this issue.

I think a shopping mall may have been involved.

I could be wrong.

My eyeballs detect a Neal Adams cover.

Arguably one of Atlas/Seaboard's stronger offerings. I particularly recall a tale of two samurai and a load of giant spiders - not to mention an article on the making of Towering Inferno.

Wulf the Barbarian has his third outing. I'm not sure if he had a fourth one, the Curse of Atlas being what it was.