Shazam! Family Archives: Volume 1 (Archive Editions)
When Captain Marvel emerged as the most successful imitation of Superman in the early 1940s, it didn't take long for his publisher to expand the franchise. Whenever crippled newsboy Freddy Freeman speaks Captain Marvel's name--shazam!--he's Captain Marvel Jr. While the Captain Marvel stories pursued whimsy, his protege's unfurled in a grimmer world in which he confronted bloodthirsty Nazis and sinister ghouls. Whereas the captain was drawn cartoonishly to complement his underlying humor, junior was handled by Raboy, one of early comic books' most accomplished illustrators, whose graceful yet powerful figures and dramatic lighting set his work apart from the crude drawings that were standard for the era (he left comic books a few years after these stories appeared to succeed master illustrator Alex Raymond on the handsomeFlash Gordonnewspaper strip). This volume also includes the first appearance of yet another member of the Marvel family, distaff variant Mary Marvel. If junior's stories lack the innocent charm of senior's, they're nevertheless above-average examples of comics' golden age.Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved