Goodbye to "The Big Red Cheese"

[The Bat]

I guess it's just because I'm more of a Superman Fan and I always saw Shazam as a cheap copy.

[Figuremod73]

LOL
I like Supes better to but the idea of Billy turning into a big buff superhero is pretty cool.
There was nothing wrong with the old design either.
Jim Lee......

[aquatroy]

I guess it's just because I'm more of a Superman Fan and I always saw Shazam as a cheap copy.

In DC's hands the character wasn't much more then that. However, the Fawcett Captain Marvel is one of the coolest reads you could get your hands on.

[boynightwing]

I've never been a huge fan but I don't hate him either. He's just kind of there for me.

I liked him in the one episode of JLU and I like him in Young Justice. He just wants to hang around with the other kids who are technically older and "cooler" in his eyes, but they see him as an adult JLA member or "one of them". So he doesn't really fit in anywhere. It's kind of sad and funny at the same time.

[Random Axe]

I'd normally be disappointed and crushed by something like this, but. like the rest of. this 52 BS, I just don't care anymore. Outside of trades and collected books, DC to me is Dead Comics.

I give the company 18 months. They went all in with Jim Lee and will have to live with the armored results. They say new readers and kids won't buy into or believe superheroes in tights and trunks in this modern era.

A good artist and writer can MAKE THEM BELIEVE.

[pmwasson]

I read a collection of Fawcett/DC comics (Shazam!: From the Forties to the Seventies) as a kid and thought he was great. I still have the book as its one of my favorites.

[The Bat]

I give the company 18 months. They went all in with Jim Lee and will have to live with the armored results. They say new readers and kids won't buy into or believe superheroes in tights and trunks in this modern era.

From The Mayo Report:

"January 2012 was an historic month for DC Comics which took all of the top ten slots on the comics sales list from Diamond for the first time since Diamond started releasing sales information based on sales invoiced to retailers in March 2003. Having been shut out of the top ten twice before during that time, this is a major achievement for DC. Even more impressive is that one of the items did it with estimated sales reduced to account for possible future returns. This is the fifth month in a row that DC had had the largest percentage of the total unit sales of the top 300 comics. All of this points to the decision to reboot the DC Universe with the New 52 as having paid off so far."

[Random Axe]

^^^ Eighteen months, not six. This level of both incompetence and blind, stinking luck is not sustainable. Even a blind, armored squirell finds a nut occasionally. Blind squirrells don't have a long life expectancy.

[kingdom warrior]

caca.......Uninspired and Pretty DAMN STUPID!!!! Long Live Captain Marvel, "The Big Red Cheese"....C.C Beck is turning in his grave.....

[Random Axe]

DC had an opportunity with SHazam here and didn't even come close. They could have retained the fun factor that was almost always associated with the character and kept him in his traditional suit. He'd be the one dude in the DCU without armor, piping, belts and grimaces. He'd have stood out so much in this new world they created.

Aquaman has been the butt of some jokes in his book. The entire Justice League could have made fun of Shazam's outfit till he planted Supes into the ground like a tent spike. Instead, they turned him into angry, hooded lightning bolt man.

I'm not 100 percent writing this off, but I'm at least 90. We still have yet to see the entire suit, which from a design perspective looks kinda cool. It's just not the Captain. All indications are they have stripped everything away from the character. Dane had wondered how anyone could like Shazam. It's something I grew up with. He was my first comic book and my first Mego, and I watched the TV show religiously. DC has shown it no longer has any ties to tradition or the legacy they currently represent.

[huedell]

It's sad.... if they woulda stuck w/him the way he was, and put out a
feature... it coulda been the "PHANTOM MENACE" of superhero movies
and I mean that in the best way possible.... you know with a kid taking
the big hero role... and a wacky sidekick or two.

[The Toyroom]

Jerry Ordway's "Power of Shazam!" series was probably DC's most successful attempt at "modernizing" Captain Marvel and The Marvel Family and placing them in the DC Universe, while still maintaining a lot of the basic core of the characters and concepts. The stories weren't necessarily whimsical but I think Ordway did his best of walking the line between classic and modern. Simply due to his history, both real and meta (having been in suspended animation for number of years), Captain Marvel can be and should be that link to the past when characters weren't as grim and gritty.

[kingdom warrior]

Captain Marvel has always been "Wish Fulfillment" so many kids Identified with him because Billy was also a kid who in an instant with one word became a superhero.

The stories were well written and the art was masterful for the time. plus a KICKASS movie serial, no wonder those kids from the 40's loved him.

I read and loved the 70's comics, loved the TV show, Hell I had a red pajama that I turned into a Captain Marvel costume...drove my mother nuts flying around the house and yelling SHAZAM!!!!! and of course love my Mego of him.
Funny today I picked up the Retro figure of him and I was giddy like I was a kid all over again.......

[Random Axe]

Black Adam will have dredlocks and a neck tattoo, ya know, keepin it real.

[The Toyroom]

What's sad is this new Shazam is coming from the pedigree of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Johns has done some fantastic work with the Justice Society and Black Adam in the past and it's a shame to see him pushing the corporate agenda with this new approach when he's capable of so much better material.