Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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Ken
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Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

Post by Ken »

Libra X wrote: Fri Aug 26, 2022 7:04 pm 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).
Ken wrote: Wed Aug 11, 2021 6:07 pm 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
Giving us a place to discuss Willie Fawcett, per Libra X's request, but keeping Ares' thread separate.

As I said, I believe the story in Superman #276 was originally done as a Captain Marvel which was reworked into the story we received because the editor (Julius Schwartz) got cold feet about actually having the two meet.

Plus, it should be noted that DC was licensing the Marvel Family from Fawcett in those days. DC wouldn't own the characters until the mid-80s. So it could be that the Fawcett people nixed the idea of Billy and Clark meeting.

I'm pretty sure that the use of the Universal monsters was a shorthand way to change the Monster Society of Evil into the Monster League of Evil withou having to come up with expys of Mr. Mind, Captain Nazi, Sivana, etc.
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Libra X
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

Post by Libra X »

Thank You most kindly for the accommodation, Ken!

I have to admit that - for my money - ‘Monster League of Evil’ is an even better name for a villain gang than ‘Monster Society’ (Partly because ‘Monster Society’ has a more innocuous sound than ‘Monster League’ - a Monster Society could simply be a collection of nonhuman beings making a life for themselves away from humanity, but a Monster League … that’s a group that has resources and a game plan for what to do with them*).

*Whether you read ‘League’ and think “Sports” or “Political Combination” (I.E. The League of Corinth).


Getting back to to the main point, Captain Thunder fascinates me because:-

(A) ‘Captain Thunder’ is a darn good name for a superhero

(B) Deciding how pastiche characters ought to differ from & resemble their original inspirations is a hobby of mine

(C) I couldn’t help but wonder if Willie Fawcett ever did make it all the way home & what sort of homeworld was waiting for the Good Captain.

Also, the very first place I came across Captain Thunder was at THE FIVE EARTHS PROJECT, in a crossover showing Mary Marvel (of Earth-S) meet up with her ‘Big Brother from another Mother’ and one thought that fellow enthusiasts for Earth’s Mightest Mortals would not only enjoy the story, they might enjoy discussing how to improve on it (For my money having Mary, not Billy, enjoy the crossover was a very shrewd choice, but I was rather disappointed with the world building for Earth-276, since it seems to make that world only a Mirror of Captain Marvel et al, rather than a setting in it’s own right*).

*If nothing else I’m a little disappointed that nobody thought to make Otto a dog; a very special no-prize to the reader who can explain that odd-looking statement! ;)


https://5earths.info/earth-s/marymarvel1987-02/

^^The story and the website can be found HERE for those who are interested: THE FIVE EARTHS project has a number of hidden gems and I happily recommend it to those willing to do some exploring (I’m especially fond of RIDDLE OF THE RAGNAROK ROGUES, but perhaps the most interesting thing on the website are the timelines for those eponymous Five Earths. ^^
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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Oh, and it should be admitted that I’m working with an artist (Ibrahim Ramos of deviantArt.com) on a project intended to produce illustrations of Captain Thunder and the Monster League of Evil that (hopefully) put an interesting new spin on these rather obscure old characters - and I would very much love to discuss my notions with real experts on the Big Red Cheese!

https://www.deviantart.com/ibrahimramos/gallery

^^ The artist’s gallery can be found here - and he seems to have posted a slamming new image when I wasn’t looking! ^^
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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I will say that if they absolutely HAD to change Captain Marvel's name (which to be clear, they don't), Captain Thunder would be a change I could live with. Way better than calling him "Shazam".
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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I tend to agree, not least because it makes more sense for the public to think of Billy as Shazam than for Billy to use the name himself.
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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Libra X wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:58 pmI tend to agree, not least because it makes more sense for the public to think of Billy as Shazam than for Billy to use the name himself.
By "the public", I assume you mean the people on the outside looking in (readers, viewers, etc.) since the general populace in the stories shouldn't know the word "shazam".

Calling Billy's alter-ego "Shazam" will always be akin to calling a certain masked cowboy hero "Hi-Yo Silver". If one published a comic called "Hi-Yo Silver" or made a TV show called "Hi-Yo Silver", everyone would know that it was about the Lone Ranger and Tonto. That's what the title "Shazam" should be for Captain Marvel.
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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I tend to think that the mathematical gobbledy-gook that Captain Thunder was spouting was enough to get him to the Rock of Infinity where the spirit of Merokee was able to restore his sanity.
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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I love the idea of Captain Thunder’s next stop after Metropolis, Earth-1, being the Rock of Eternity - but I’m a little on the fence about Merokee keeping an office there.

I’m quite fond of the idea that the Captain Thunder who appears in Superman #276 is something more unusual than Billy Batson’s counterpart on a parallel Earth (as an homage to the fact that he’s more or less a creation of the last pre-Fawcett days of the DC Multiverse): instead of being a member of the same ‘ms ire r lineage, he’s an example of convergent evolution - his Earth needed a Superman in Metropolis, but lacked a Kal-El to call it’s own, so someone or some higher power put in motion the events leading to the creation of Captain Thunder, who ended up beating as much resemblance to Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) as Superman (possibly even by coincidence).

This is mostly because I like the challenge of trying to build a ‘Captain Marvel’ using only elements from Superman’s own mythos, but it also occurs to me that there are worse ways to round out Willie’s Rogues Gallery than by adding a few characters who were competing to fill the same gap in Earth’s Defences, but found they were more inclined to Evil than to Good …
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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So basically I like the idea of Captain Thunder showing up at the Rock of Eternity, but I would prefer the core plot to be Willie first winning the Wizard Shazam’s trust and then, with his help, contacting the spirit of Merokee so that other old wizard can help repair his original enchantment, removing the hex placed on Captain Thunder by the Monster League in the process, before Shazam sends Willie Fawcett back home (probably with a line about hoping that he’ll someday meet the Champion of Shazam with the same friendship with which Merokee greeted the Wizard himself - I am, in fact, assuming that the Marvel Family are busy with an adventure somewhere: this is mostly so that the Marvels first meet Captain Thunder on HIS Earth, allowing us to see there as well).

Hopefully this story would be a nice reintroduction to the character that - via his conversations with The Wizard - helps show Willie Fawcett as a distinct & engaging character in his own right, while still owning the debt of inspiration linking him to the Marvel Family (Possibly by showing Thunder make his debut in 1941 and not 1940, while throwing in the suggestion he had read comics featuring the Big Red Cheese before becoming a superhero very like him).

Also, if you think I am above inferring that Willie Fawcett had a pet dog named “Tiger” then you are DEAD wrong.
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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That last bit feeds into one of my other notions for Earth-276 (or wherever else Willie Fawcett hangs up his cape): I really like the idea of making Captain Thunder a lens through which to look over the influence that the SHAZAM mythos has had on Superman - not least through the contributions of Mr Otto Binder, who introduced many classic elements of the Superman mythos, some of them very clearly created with an eye to tapping into some of that old Marvel Family magic, like Kara Zor-El (of course the influence didn’t all go one way: Fawcett very much made Captain Marvel a character in his own right, but they’d hardly have asked for him in the first place of Superman hadn’t pointed the way!).

To cut a ramble short, I am absolutely DETERMINED that the Captain Thunder of Earth-276 have a super-dog to call his own (Whether he endowed a mortal pooch with a share of his powers or simply adopted Krypto when the Hound from Krypton arrived on a world without Superman I am not yet sure*).

*I have to say that, Captain Thunder having made his debut in the pages of Superman, I find the latter possibility more intriguing - since showing the OTHER ‘Thunder World’ a place where Kal-El went missing somewhere between Krypton & Earth, but Captain Thunder filled the gap with consummate ease helps

(A) allows us to point out that YES, Superman & ‘Big Red’ are very much peers & equals in terms of power & morality

(B) show how the characters differ from & resemble each other

(C) Set up a story arc allowing us to show quite a lot of Earth-276 and the universe beyond, as Captain Thunder (in between various adventures) tries to puzzle out why his dimension never had a Superman, despite their two Earths having so much else in common.
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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Libra X wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:59 pm I love the idea of Captain Thunder’s next stop after Metropolis, Earth-1, being the Rock of Eternity - but I’m a little on the fence about Merokee keeping an office there.
I didn't say "Rock of Eternity". I said "Rock of Infinity".
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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Even though he debuted in an issue of "Superman", I dislike the idea of trying to making his origins that dependent on Superman's mythos.

In a shared multiverse where the Captain and Superman interact, yes they should be peers in terms of morality and ability. But too much time has already been spent treating the Captain either like a Superman-expy or hobbling him to make him different from Kal-El.
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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Ken wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 9:32 pm
Libra X wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:59 pm I love the idea of Captain Thunder’s next stop after Metropolis, Earth-1, being the Rock of Eternity - but I’m a little on the fence about Merokee keeping an office there.
I didn't say "Rock of Eternity". I said "Rock of Infinity".
Whoops, sorry about that (out of curiosity, may I please ask if you see this as a distinct entity for the Rock of Eternity or as the Rock of Eternity by a different name?).


As for the origin of Captain Thunder, I happily accept your argument: I like the notion that the ideal niche for Captain Thunder (Willie Fawcett) in the modern DC multiverse would
(A) Acting as a sort of midway point between the original Captain Marvel and the modern Shazam - in that he operates in a slightly less ‘storybook’ reality than the former, but with a more classic attitude than the latter
and (B) the best way to explore what the DC universe looks like when there’s no Superman, but there IS a Captain Marvel to fill that particular niche - there has been more than one setting with a Captain Marvel but no Superman, yet I’m not sure there has ever been a story based on the assumption that Earth’s Mightiest Mortal could do a a lot of what Earth would need a Superman to do, but would undoubtedly get it done in a very distinctive way (with a potentially interesting impact on the course of this Earth’s history)

Put another way, there have been plenty of Elseworlds with a Captain Marvel but no Superman, yet the Big Red Cheese has never (to my knowledge) been the focus of any of them.

Why not make Captain Thunder’s return to his home world the story that changes this particular state of affairs?
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

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For the record, I’m assuming that Earth-276 is a world more like the pre-Crisis Earth-1 or Earth-2 (with every major DC hero - Aquaman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern and - last but by no means least - Wonder Woman existing or having existed at some point) but where Captain Thunder takes the place of Superman (To the extent of being local hero of Metropolis, Flying Brick-in-Chief and an inspiration to many).

I’m assuming the Good Captain made his debut during what we’d call the Golden Age, though I’m not sure exactly when that should be (it’s probably best to go with 1940 and give one of those reasons for why Captain Marvel’s alter ego doesn’t age very quickly as the reason Willie Fawcett was a kid hero with an adult identity in 1940 AND the 1950s**): I do think he and the Monster League started their dimension-spanning battle in 1953 and that Willie finally makes it home in the early 1970s (Given the role of a summer camp in his origins, I’m a little sorry that 1972 is about eight years too early for him to start making life much, much harder for Supernatural Spree Killers haunting Camp Mohegan and it’s deeply, deeply unprofessional Camp Councillors, but that’s definitely a story waiting to be told, if you ask me***).

*I’m tempted to suggest showing Freddie Freeman as born in AD 1940, then making his debut in the 1950s, but that angle would work better for a superhero who made his debut in 1953 and retired in 1972 - I.E. symbolically filling the gap left while Captain Billy was in Limbo.

**Showing him finally having to deal with being categorised as a teenager (rather than a kid or an adolescent) might be a useful source of comic beats, especially if Willie insists on being rather grown up, without being infallible (to use the vernacular a ‘Dad friend’).

***We’ve already had “Carrie Vs Jason” more or less, why not “Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) Vs Jason”?
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Re: Rumblings about Captain THUNDER

Post by Libra X »

Anyway, my ideas for Earth-276 are more sketched in than detailed at the moment, but I do have some ideas and will hopefully work them into decent shape at some point! (Please feel free to offer your own critique and your own notions: many minds make light work!). :mrgreen:
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