Our Gods Wear Spandex by Chris Knowles

Author:Chris Knowles
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781609253165
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser Conari

CAPTAIN MARVEL

Fawcett Publishing's Captain Marvel, who debuted in Whiz Comics #1 in 1940, played the role of pagan Sun god to Superman's more traditional Davidic Messiah. Created by writer Bill Parker (who studied classical literature in college) and artist C. C. Beck (the son of a Lutheran pastor), Captain Marvel was Superman's most serious competition in the marketplace. In fact, Captain Marvel Adventures far outsold Superman in the hero's heyday, and Captain Marvel was the first superhero to be adapted to film in 1941 (The Adventures of Captain Marvel). DC Comics rightly saw Captain Marvel as a serious market threat.

In many ways, Captain Marvel is a more fascinating character than Superman. He is not an actual individual, but a magical entity into which young Billy Batson transubstantiates when he utters the occult incantation, “Shazam!”—the name of the wizard who granted Batson his powers, and an acronym for the ancient deities who lend the Captain their powers.107

Batson's transfiguration strongly resembles a Masonic, or secret-society, initiation. In the first Captain Marvel story, Billy, a homeless orphan, is led by a mysterious stranger into an abandoned subway tunnel, recalling initiations performed in ancient times. Out of nowhere, a driverless subway car decorated with arcane symbols appears and Billy and the stranger climb aboard. They then enter an ancient hallway lined with statues depicting the seven deadly enemies of man: pride, envy, greed, hatred, selfishness, laziness, and injustice. Billy enters a throne room and his mysterious companion vanishes.

Billy then encounters an ancient wizard, Shazam, who conjures an inscription on the wall behind him out of the names of six deities. Billy speaks this magic word, is struck by a bolt of lighting, and magically transfigures into Captain Marvel, resplendent in red, white, and yellow cape and costume—solar colors all. The wizard is then crushed by a slab of stone and his Kenobi-like wraith immediately emerges and lights an eternal flame in a ceremonial urn, symbolizing the death and transformation of Osiris and the birth of Horus, the new Sun King. Shazam instructs Captain Marvel to go out and fight against evil and injustice. One of Marvel's nemeses is Black Adam, whose name is an approximate cipher for “Egyptian Man.”108

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