Merry Marvel Christmas: THE MARVEL FAMILY

The Original Marvels. No other set of characters that I can think of are as well loved by fans as much as they are misused by the industry. You'd think it would go without saying that these characters don't adapt well to dark, gritty postmodern stories, but apparently not. Somebody needs to tell the writers to leave these characters in their own separate reality, which is where they work best. The best version of these characters I've seen since the '70s was Jeff Smith's "The Monster Society Of Evil" (we'll look at that one of these days too).
For now, here's a Christmas story from the last good Marvel Family series, SHAZAM!, from the '70s. Not quite as good as the classic Otto Binder stories, yet faithful to the fantasy spirit of the Fawcett originals.

by Elliot S. Maggin and Kurt Schaffenberger
from SHAZAM! #11, March 1974








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THE KING OF ALL TIME

Normally, when you say "pre-code comics", people naturally expect the contents to be somewhat lurid or raunchy. This not the case with the majority of titles published by Fawcett. In fact, almost the opposite is true. Fawcett decided early on to make their stories suitable for all ages. The "seal of approval" was only added to the comics to help the lagging sales that affected all comics when the industry was becoming a social anathema near the end of the golden age.[1]
Unfortunately, it couldn't save them. Not only were they going against the parents and teachers, they were also being attacked from within the industry. Despite it being a frivolous lawsuit, the legal fees involved in their case against National Comics (DC) made it unprofitable to continue publishing the Marvel Family's adventures. Their solution? Settle the case out of court and stop publishing comics altogether.[2]
This was truly an injustice to Fawcett, but also to the comics fans, as you can clearly tell by this story from the next-to-last issue published. The stories were getting longer and more dramatic, without losing their sense of imagination and wonder. There's no doubt in my mind that the Marvels would have dominated the silver age just as they had during the golden age. We'll never know.

from MARVEL FAMILY #88, October 1953

EDIT:Since this story got deleted by my image hosting service, I recommend you read this over at DIGITAL COMIC MUSEUM where you'll find it in it's entirety

[1]Read more about that here

[2]More on that here

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The Black Market

You can definitely see the signs of the times in this story, illustrated by Al Carreno.In it, Junior fights his nemesis Captain Nazi, who is involved in a scheme to steal rations from the British. When else but during World War II have comics ever been as involved in any patriotic propaganda? Today all the comics seem to be more concerned with selling at least one issue of every single title that they publish by including the characters in some overly long crossover event. Not that I agree with propaganda, or that I support any wars, but today's comics seem to put a lot of emphasis on realism without having any real connection with reality.
Regardless, this is a fun story with a surprising costar. Enjoy!

from CAPTAIN MARVEL JUNIOR #2, December 1942















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CAPTAIN MARVEL, JUNIOR

I can't say exactly what they were aiming for with this story;
suspense?
romance?
twist ending?

Whatever it was, it seems to fail on all counts.
Stuff like this makes it hard to imagine that Fawcett's Marvels were the top selling comics of the golden age.



















And, as a bonus, check out this advertising....



from CAPTAIN MARVEL JR #48, April 1947

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