With a single magic word...

Well, congratulations to DC and Geoff Johns. They managed to shake me out of my extended break by giving us a small glimpse of their plans for revamping Captain Marvel into a new Grim and Gritty version.



Now, in all fairness to DC and Johns, the description of the series doesn't really say that the new version will be grim and gritty, but man, look at that picture. And here's a snippet of the description from the New York Post article on the subject:

“We changed his name [to Shazam] for a lot of reasons,” said Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns. “One of them is that Shazam is the word most associated with the character, so we just felt it made sense — a lot of people already thought that was his name, anyway.”

Actually, I would argue many people associate the word Shazam with Gomer Pyle...

 

...but let's skip that for now.

Here's the thing, WHY did DC think the Captain Marvel franchise really needed to be revamped in this fashion? Weren't they happy with the way the Jeff Smith Monster Society of Evil grahic novel came out?



At the time, it seemed like they were. And it still is lauded as a great example of a kid accessible graphic novel, so I kind of thought they would continue down that path. I even said I had positive hopes for John's version of the character a few months ago.
It appears I was wrong. :\

Anyway, enjoy today's Free Comic Monday which features another version of Captain Marvel which will undoubtedly be more lighthearted and enjoyable than anything we are likely to see in the near future.


[ Captain Marvel 01 ]

A quick word about my return to blogging: Posts on this site may be more infrequent or a bit less substantive than they have been in the past. That will be for a couple of reasons:

• Currently Pierre is busy with an animation project
• There are familial duties I must attend to on a weekly basis that take up quite a bit of my time (the original reason for my extended break)
• And I have grown accustomed to a life outside of blogging.

I will try to have at least one good post for you each week, but sometimes, you may just have to settle for a hastily typed out rant on why modern comics suck or some such foolishness. ;)

- Jim