Superman #276 (1974)
by Elliot S. Maggin & Curt Swan
cover by Nick Cardy
Twenty years after the original Captain Marvel ceased publications because DC Comics sued Fawcett Comics into failure, he would get his revenge by fighting Superman.
Or at least that’s what you would think by the cover: despite appearances, this is very much NOT Captain Marvel.
The existence of this comic is truly baffling to me. At first glance you might thing that DC Comics decided to create another Captain Marvel knockoff (even more blatant than Zha-Vam) because they didn’t have the rights to the character… except THEY DID.
Because DC Comics acquired the rights to the character and started publishing new Captain Marvel stories in 1973; the first issue was even presented by Superman himself on the cover!!!
In fact, at the same time DC published Superman #276, the Shazam series was already at issue 12.
Granted, at the time Captain Marvel was living in a parallel universe (Earth-S) and wasn’t sharing the same universe with Superman.
But they could’ve had Billy Batson be teleported to Earth-One instead of “Willie Fawcett”.
Great job with quickly coming up with a believable excuse, Willie, no notes.
Interestingly, Willie is straight from the Golden Age. The same thing was established in the Shazam series, where Billy Batson had been in suspended animation for 20 years.
So in the 70s it seems Captain Marvel was firmly considered old-fashioned.
You’d be surprised by how rarely the “it’s a bird, it’s a plane” routine shows up in comics.
Speaking of which: while I’m a big fan of the Superman radio show (where the catchphrase originated), that never made sense to me.
Why would someone point at the sky to exclaim “Look, it’s a bird!” ???
Superman is busy dealing with the hologram of a transparent giant lizard created by some common criminals as a distraction.
So you know, a regular Tuesday for him.
Like I said that we’re not going to have Captain Marvel here… we have Captain Thunder.
Who, in addition to having a far more mundane magic word, also needs to touch his belt buckle to transform.
His look is such a blatant copy of Captain Marvel that DC should have sued itself.
Seriously, all they did was add the belt and switch the thunderbolt icon with a sun icon, and then it’s the same exact costume.
Honestly they should have the opposite costumes: shouldn’t THE GUY NAMED THUNDER be the one with the thunderbolt logo!?
Captain Thunder deals with the real crime…
…while Superman gets rid of the illusion. SOMEHOW that requires him to trap whatever this thing is into a waterspout.
Why would he need to do ANYTHING if it’s “just an illusion”?
WHAT IS THAT THING!?
Captain Thunder has a unique way to deal with crime… JOINING THE CRIMINALS.
You’re uncharacteristically catty today, Superman.
Captain Thunder distracts Superman by throwing the armored car at him, and then turns back into Willie.
It sure is easy to distract Superman in this issue.
Okay this is the second Superman review in a row where a random kid can just get into Clark’s office. Is it a regular occurrence for kids to show up in the office of a reporter of a major metropolitan city!?
Also: Willie has been in this universe for probably less than half a day and he ALREADY learned the connection between Clark and Superman.
And now we get the incredibly original origin of Captain Thunder.
Instead of being lured into the subway by a creep, like Billy Batson did, Willie is lured into a secret cave by a bird.
But instead of an ancient Wizard, he finds… someone who makes me worry, given DC’s track record.
Please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist…
Shockingly, we’re mostly safe.
“Mostly” because while the comic goes as far as using the name of actual Native American people… the Mohegan aren’t extinct, there are still Mohegans today.
Then again Willie is from another Earth.
As a Captain Marvel knockoff, Captain Thunder is obligated to have his own acronym.
Which is… weird. I appreciate the effort to keep a nature theme, but they couldn’t follow through with ALL the letters.
I find especially laughable that the N stands for just “nature” in general.
If anything Maggin did his research, because one of the letters stands for an actual Mohegan person.
Although why use him for “bravery” and not “wisdom”, to parallel the S in Shazam standing for Solomon? Come on, it would have been neat!
While Captain Thunder is kind of lame, I think I prefer his catchphrase “Creepies!” to Captain Marvel’s “Holy moly!”.
The parallels go all-out, even including Not Sivana here…
…but also the Monster League of Evil, a FAR lamer version than the awesome Monster Society of Evil.
The battle with the League of Generic Monsters is the last time Willie remembers before this story.
Turns out that the League Of Public Domain Monsters turned Captain Thunder evil.
On one hand, it’s a bummer to just say it right now without ANY suspense.
But at the same time, that DOES sound like something straight out of the Golden Age.
I can never get over Superman being skeptical of… well of anything, really.
Considering the amount of crazy stuff you have witnessed, what exactly is so unbelievable in Willie’s story!?
Superman versus Discount Shazam, round two.
Superman has one advantage here: he has WAY more superpowers.
Not that they matter when they’re both invincible.
I cannot imagine this story making much sense if you don’t know Captain Marvel.
Like Captain Thunder calling Superman “big blue cheese”, because Captain Marvel’s traditional nickname is “the big red cheese”.
I’ve said before that I don’t really see why Maggin is praised as one of the biggest Superman writers by a lot of readers.
I could never put my finger on why, but one of the factors is definitely his tendency to have Superman acting like his plans are strokes of genius…
…when they’re either REALLY basic or nonsensical.
Like in this sequence: Superman studied Thunder’s “speech and behavior patterns” in order to predict that, if he was stuck by lightning, he would attack while saying “thunder”.
This turns Captain Thunder back into Willie, and the big deduction from Superman is that… he’s from another Earth.
Obviously it took super-intelligence to figure that one out, because it’s not like the multiverse was already firmly established at this point and Superman had already met PLENTY of people from other realities.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, is when the story turns absolutely bonkers.
Yes.
NOW.
Because the way Superman finds out where Captain Thunder is really from…
…is by forcing him to stand still and think about it really hard.
That’s it.
And IT WORKS by… uhm… well…
And that’s how Captain Thunder sha-booms back home.
And we end with the epilogue of this adventure having made Superman feel a little less alone, because it’s not like he knows tons of other superheroes however.
It’s also part of Maggin’s very slow effort to make Lois Lane a legitimate romantic interest for Clark (as we’ll see in later reviews).
Pre-Crisis Clark Kent, mind you, so I don’t get what she sees in him.
Historical significance: 0/10
This is the last Captain Thunder appearance. And the only reference I could find is in 1997’s “The Power of Shazam #27”, where he’s shown as a potential alternate version of Captain Marvel.
If the alternate version with detachable limbs feels random… we’ll see THAT Captain Marvel in the hero origins retrospective.
Silver Age-ness: 6N-8/10
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Holy moly, what a mess. Captain Thunder is a very surface level substitute of Captain Marvel, with none of the charm of the presence.
The story is nonsensical, and not even in a funny way… it’s just dumb. Superman’s victory is presented as him being the smarter hero, but the victory is just handed to him by the plot.
Not to mention that this entire thing depends ENTIRELY on the reader recognizing all the Captain Marvel references… but that’s all they really are: references.
I cannot remember another instance of hearing or reading “catsup” instead of “ketchup” outside of a Simpsons gag.
To my American readers: does anyone call it catsup?
To my fellow non-American readers: have YOU ever heard it as “catsup”?
Interesting letters: nothing really notable from this issue, but I went head and looked if future issues commented on this story. Superman #280 has several positive letters about it.
I find it truly baffling that readers thought Superman couldn’t fight Captain Marvel because of “differences in format” (???) or that Captain Thunder being from another Earth was unique.
It’s 1973, the multiverse is old news!
Honestly this could very well have happened, both because Schwartz seems to have been quite well-liked by both writers and readers… and because 70s DC got meta with shocking frequency.
But a bit earlier than that, in Superman #278, we had something weird: a full letters page dedicated to debating who is the better character, Superman or Captain Marvel.
Doing this on the Superman book feels like cheating.
Plus, they are comparing a character who never ceased publications with another one who stopped FOR TWENTY YEARS, of course Superman would feel more modern!!!
Not to diminish Superman’s importance, Kathy, but you have no clue just how much Superman borrowed from Captain Marvel.
While attempts to modernize Superman in the 70s didn’t work out, it’s amazing to me that anyone could consider him overly serious.
I’m far more of a Superman fan than a Captain Marvel fan, but characterizing the latter as “just a character for little kids” is disingenuous.
And as mentioned, doing this IN A SUPERMAN BOOK is cheating.
