Superman Through the Ages! Forum

The story behind why "Captain Marvel" was renamed "Captain Thunder" for the crossover appearance in Superman #276 - and information about Roy Thomas' proposal for an African-American Captain Thunder - are in yesterday's Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/04/19/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-99/).


(http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/CaptainThunderIII_stand.gif) (http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/04/19/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-99/)

One thing that has always impressed me about Maggin is how absolutely well-read he is.

For instance, Maggin's "Captain Thunder" story has a reference to Uncas, which is the "U" in THUNDER. It was Uncas that gave Captain Thunder his bravery. Uncas was the founder of the Mohegan tribe (which was the tribe that the Medicine Man who gave Willie Fawcett his powers belongs to).

Interesting but unsurprising that Uncas, a figure in New England and especially Connecticut history, would be be even briefly talked about in a story written by a New Englander like Maggin!

Maggin's Captain Thunder had one of the great characteristics of a stand-in pastiche character (which can also be seen in Moore's 1963), which is that they are just as interesting as the character they're based on, and yet clearly different. The whole Indian jazz was a fascinating substitution.

Actually, I'm far more interested in Captain Thunder than Captain Marvel, in some respects.

And the idea of Roy the Boy writing a black Captain Marvel in the 1970s is enough to send anybody salivating. Cap's appearances in ALL-STAR SQUADRON were among the only times the character was even remotely palatable to me, and the idea of Roy doing for the Big Red Cheese what he did for other Golden Age characters from the Whizzer to Miss America will remain one of the great "What Ifs" of comics.

It's important to remember here that the black Captain Marvel would have been on EARTH-1 version of the character, just as Hal Jordan is an Earth-1 version of Green Lantern. In other words, Earth-S Billy would have been off somewhere. The idea was that the Rock of Eternity exists beyond time, and therefore there is only ONE Shazam for the multiverse.

It would have been interesting to see an Earth-1 based, clearly different version of the Marvel Family, perhaps with clearly different variations of Earth-S villains, and some new, exclusive bad guys too: just like Earth-1 Superman has a Lex Luthor instead of Alexei Luthor, and a Brainiac (for whom no counterpart exists on Earth-2).

And the idea of a gorgeous black woman being "Mary Marvel"...Mama Mia!

Intriguingly, in the DC COMICS PRESENTS #49, we learn there is a Billy Batson on Earth-1, except he is white, and has no powers.

He would've been called "Black Marvel", ""Black Thunder", and|or "Black Shazam", if Black Lightning and Black Vulcan were any indication.

I do think it's a fantastic idea...  perhaps it can be revisited post-IC.

According to the article, his name was going to be "Captain Thunder" instead of "Captain Marvel."

Don't forget Black Racer (New Gods), and of course Black Adam, who is African, technically speaking.

So what's the Black version of Mary Marvel? Black Betty?

the thing i find about te whole way race was so "political" back in 70s comics, and all the "edgy" characters like black lighting and mal duncan is that well... they are all black...

there was never an edgy new asian character or anything..

I love that song !   Bam A Lam...by Wham Jam  from an old Leadbelly song.......now that song COOKS !

Oh Black Betty, bam a lam  !

Me too! All together now!

Both versions are awesome.  I'd love to see a superhero comics about Leadbelly --kind of like Luke Cage but with a guitar, and set in the 1930s!

The old comics did have a black hero, but he has be mostly forgotten. Mostly due to how he was drawn, he was called Steamboat. Think Ebony in Will Eisner's "Spirit".

His best story appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures No. 13 in a story called "The King of Storms", he got to kick some butt and even save Billy and the day in that one.

Very sad.

(http://bp0.blogger.com/_nWKrpXGTsy0/RixqWSxtTcI/AAAAAAAAAEE/oEpnB69rSWE/s200/steamboat.jpg)

http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/fawcett/steamboat.JPG

From a CC Beck interview:


http://cagle.msnbc.com/hogan/interviews/beck4.asp

Also read this:

http://www.blacksuperhero.com/history.html

What's sad is that he seriously thought that black people would LIKE this portrayal ?

and in spite of some overt racist depictions in The Little Rascals, they were all poor, they were all friends, and they were all equal

Interesting Wikipedia article on Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, specifically Jack Benny's conscious decision to steer away from the stereotypical:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_%27Rochester%27_Anderson

Yes, sad, but not uncommon for the time-era it was written in. Pretty much all entertainment of the time (radio, movies, comics) seemed to feature such ethnic stereotypes of Black people. Needless to say, *this* "Negro" reader isn't exactly mourning "Steamboat"'s death...  :-p

I don't know, it sounds like a sheepish cop-out to me.

Jack Kirby also created a similar character in Whitewash during the same time period. see here: http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/y/youngallies.htm

Sadly it was far too common at the time.

Considering how Asians were shown in Superman comics of the time, I think we are all better off that there weren't a black characters during the same time.

see here: http://comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=2764&zoom=4
 

I still think it's sad that Beck retroactively and shamelessly tried to justify his actions without acknowledging how ludicrous he sounded.  I realize that this (the portrayal of Steamboat and other characters of colour) was very typical, and not limited to comic books and strips. 

Still, I'd hate to see this history "whitewashed".  And if I thought that parsing the various racist sidekicks into "least offensive" was in any way meaningful, I might even venture that in terms of character at least, Steamboat trumps The Spirit's Ebony and Blackhawk's Chop-Chop (I like Chaykin's Chop-Chop, though).

The Young Allies with Whitewash looks a lot like the Newsboy Legion with Flippa-Dippa.  Flippa, however, was introduced in 1970.  Would he be considered a racist character?

No, his gimmick is based on the fact that he liked scuba diving, the old racist stereotype about blacks was that they can't swim. He was also created as a "cool" character, so he was not stereotype.

Whitewash however... http://www.sequart.com/columns/?column=1893

I wasn't offended by Flippa----thought he was there to give the revived Newsboys some ethnic diversity...

I admit I don't know how to swim, but never knew until now there was some sort of stereotype about it (not going to ponder where such a notion came from, and probably don't even want to know...).

read this:

http://blackvoices.aol.com/black_news/headlines_features/canvas_news_articles/_a/pride-and-prejudice-black-people-can/20070117115409990001

Well, so much for "probably don't even want to know"... :-p

I did grow up near a lake, plus swim class was required in high schools in my state (which I barely got a passing grade in... ;-) ).

This myth, like all stereotypes is sooo stupid, that it is amazing that people actually believed it and some still do, even some congressmen..
see: http://digg.com/videos/people/Congressman_Blacks_Can_t_Swim

Well, it's like being Canadian doesn't make you a better Hockey player

It's just so much harder to practice in a non-frozen area

Canadians are bad swimmers for the same reason!

You know, I'd never heard this stereotype before. I'm a lousy swimmer, which is a bit of a pity considering the fact that I live on an island that suffers from erosion.

I had read these views of C.C. Beck before (in Alter Ego, I think), but I find it rather disturbing he still held them many years after Steamboat was featured, and didn't - or wouldn't - seem to understand why any offence may have been taken.

But then, in just about every thing I have read by (and about) Beck he came across as a very obstinate and strongly opinionated man, usually not willing to admit he could ever be in the wrong.

Wing, the Crimson Avenger's Asian (Chinese?) sidekick of the 1940s, is depicted as a very grotesque caricature in the Seven Soldiers of Victory stories, in my opnion.

To say that blacks can't swim is sort of like saying that blacks can't play golf. In the town that I grew up in, for example, the city pool was privately owned and membership was very expensive. While middle class white kids all took swimming lessons when they were children, black kids couldn't afford it, and never learned to swim. So there is actually a grain of truth in this, but not because more pigment makes you less buoyant or some other nonsense. It's because there is still an economic gap between the descendants of former slaves and their peers, and because of privatization of certain resources, like water.

As for Ebony... on the one hand, it was a shock to open up the first volume of The Spirit and see this minstrel show character in it. On the other hand, he was the first black superhero in an industry that ignored black people for even 30 years after that. (This article has the order wrong, Ebony came first in June 1940, which would have still been the spring.) If you read The Spirit in historical context, (but not too much historical context) then it's still a good read.