Showing posts with label E Nelson Bridwell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E Nelson Bridwell. Show all posts

Friday, October 21, 2022

BLACK ADAM RETURNS Conclusion

...Black Adam has been resurrected by Captain Marvel's arch-enemy, Dr Sivana!
Unable to defeat the Big Red Cheese, Adam follows Sivana's suggestion to slay Shazam and deprive Cap of his power source...not realizing that it would probably also result in losing his own powers!
Note: this was years before the movie Superman II and Superman's "amnesia kiss" which made Lois Lane forget that the Man of Steel and Clark Kent were one and the same!
Black Adam would return several more times to battle Captain Marvel...and Superman, as well, before 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths would end the DC multiverse and reboot literally everything!
But that's a story for another time!
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Thursday, October 20, 2022

BLACK ADAM RETURNS Part 1

Though Black Adam died at the end of his lone Golden Age appearance as shown HERE...
...as they say on Monty Python's Flying Circus; "He got better!"
Note: this story was created during the run of the 1970s SHAZAM! TV series, and the comic adapted elements of the show, inserting Billy Batson's already-existing Uncle Dudley into the safari-jacketed and mustachioed Mentor role, and utilizing the "Eterni-phone" (which usually connected directly to the gods whose initials made up "Shazam") to contact the old wizard!
To be concluded
TOMORROW!
Writer (and associate editor) E Nelson Bridwell was a serious "continuity cop" as this explanation of how the Egyptian gods (with a bit of logic-stretching) filled out the "SHAZAM" anagram shows!
Plus, artist Kurt Schaffenberger hard worked on the original Fawcett run of the "Marvel Family" when he entered the comics business back in the 1950s!
But this story from DC's SHAZAM! #28 (1976) shows him at his artistic peak two decades later!
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Monday, September 10, 2018

MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL "Epilogue: Mr Mind LIVES!"

...because, like almost all great comic book villains, the little SOB had an ace in the hole...
When DC revived the Marvel Family (after putting them out of business almost 20 years earlier), instead of rebooting the series, the creatives had arch-villain Sivana freeze them (and himself, accidentally) in "suspendium" to explain why they hadn't aged!

After an earthquake hits the museum, Billy/Captain Marvel digs out the museum-goers...
I'm including the next page just because it's a classic example of the kid-friendly "violence" the original series specialized in...
Though Cap stops Mr Mind's plan, the cunning worm escapes...
Despite writer Denny O'Neil and artist CC Beck (Cap's original Golden Age artist who was still going strong) promise in DC's SHAZAM! #2 (1973), the explanation became a running gag as Mr. Mind would escape just before telling how he survived certain death, until SHAZAM! #31 (1977)...
...where writer E Nelson Bridwell (who was DC's resident "continuity fanatic" counterpart to Marvel's Roy Thomas) and penciler Kurt Schaffenberger (who had worked on Fawcett's Marvel Family titles from the mid-1940s until they were cancelled in 1954) finally told the story!
Note: there are no footnotes in these SHAZAM! tales referencing Captain Marvel Adventures #46 (1945), where Mr Mind met his (supposed) demise!
Why?
1) when SHAZAM! #2 was published in 1973, there were no reprints of the Monster Society of Evil serial...nor any Captain Marvel stories in print due to the terms of the DC/Fawcett lawsuit!
2) When SHAZAM! #31 was published in 1977, DC had reprinted some of the Fawcett Marvel Family stories, but had already perceived reprinting MSoE would be problematic due to the racist content of several of the chapters!
(Of course, this was before the Direct Market and comic book stores in almost every city/town/village!)
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