Captain Marvel by C.C. Beck & Otto Binder (Reprint Checklist)

I’m not a great believer in the idea of there being “definitive” interpretations of comic characters. The most successful characters are flexible enough and have the longevity to sustain multiple and varied reinventions by different creative teams.

What most people mean when they talk of the definitive Batman for example, is “My favourite interpretation of” Batman. This is a very different thing indeed.

Captain Marvel has been around for as long as any other Super-Hero. He was there at the dawn of the Golden Age and he’s still appearing, along with the Marvel Family, in the mainstream DC Universe continuity. After all those years there have, of course, been many superb interpretations of the Big Red Cheese, but my personal creative dream team for Captain Marvel stories is C.C. Beck & Otto Binder.

Beck was the original designer of Captain Marvel, he was in the thick of it from the start, with a considerable proportion of all Captain Marvel art being credited to him. Binder came later, a successful writer for science-fiction pulps already, he tried his hand at the funny books with great results.

Beck’s ability as an artist is deceptive in it’s simplicity. His minimalistic approach to his art was not about showcasing his own considerable talent, but rather about telling the story in a clear and concise fashion, in a way that even a child would have no problem in following, and these stories are certainly aimed at a juvenile audience, but that’s not to say they aren’t enjoyable for an adult. Beck’s style is certainly simple and easy to imitate, but his great strength is in his composition. His ability to frame a succession of images in such a way that there is no ambiguity in the readers mind as to how a character has progressed from one panel to the next.

Binder’s contribution to Captain Marvel can seem a little more nebulous. Most of the major elements of the Captain Marvel mythos were firmly in place before Binder’s arrival as writer. What Binder gave the reader, perhaps unconsciously, I don’t know, was an absolute fearlessness in regard to mixing genres. Any single Binder written story has the potential to flow from a straight up super-hero tale, to funny animal (with Mr Tawky Tawny, the talking tiger) to science-fiction, time travel, or even mystery. The only other comic that I’ve read that comes close to Binder’s scope of story-telling is Jack Cole’s Plastic Man, although Cole’s stories were certainly more anarchic in comparison to Binder’s Marvel, who acted as the stabilising element.

There’s a wealth of biographical and anecdotal information available on the internet for both Beck and Binder, so I won’t be covering that here and as for Captain Marvel, as soon as you read any story about the poor orphan boy who gets a job as journalist and can say a magic word to become an indestructible super-man, well, I’m sure the appeal to any young boy becomes obvious. Indeed, I’ve heard that there was a time that Captain Marvel comics sold more copies than any other comic on American news stands, including his rival, Superman.

Unfortunately, Beck & Binder material is not easy to come by in collected editions, so I have to rely on single story reprints, unless your lucky enough to be able to spend, literally, hundreds of pounds on single volumes from obscure British publishers.

Many months ago DC announced a Hard Back reprinting of the original Monster Society of Evil epic story line, but that is no longer on the cards, supposedly because of the negative portrayal of certain nationalities, specifically the Japanese.

Whatever the case, that volume is no longer available as a pre-order item.

But don’t panic just yet, below is a list of (what I believe to be) all of the Beck & Binder team of Captain Marvel stories that have been reprinted in affordable, floppy comic format since the Seventies.

The list below is sorted by the original publication date of the story, rather than publication date of the comic that is reprinting it (ie. On the first line, Shazam & Shazam Family Annual 1, is actually the most recent comic printed, but it contains the earliest of the Beck/Binder stories that I could find a reprint for, hence it’s place at the top of the list.)

Column one and two are comic title and issue number respectively, column three is the story title and column four is the original publication date, the first two digits being year, the next two being month, the two letters are the comic title (MF= Marvel Family, CM= Captain Marvel Adventures) the final three digits being the issue number.

If anyone is aware of any other Beck/Binder Captain Marvel stories that have been reprinted, please let me know, I’ll add them to the list and, hopefully, to my collection.

Shazam & Shazam Family Annual	1	mighty marvels join forces	4512 MF 001
Shazam (1973)	8	mighty marvels join forces	4512 MF 001
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C27	uncle marvel's rival *	4602 CM 053
Shazam (1973)	17	haunted girl	4603 CM 057
Shazam (1973)	13	captain marvel gets a secretary	4611 CM 067
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C21	missing red suit	4612 CM 068
Shazam (1973)	8	adventure in time	4704 CM 071
Shazam & Shazam Family Annual	1	sivana family strikes at the marvel family ^	4704 MF 010
Shazam (1973)	8	talking tiger	4712 CM 079
Adventure Comics	499	talking tiger	4712 CM 079
Shazam (1973)	8	twice-told tale	4801 CM 080
Shazam (1973)	8	return of mr. Tawny	4803 CM 082
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C27	trio of terror	4803 MF 021
Shazam (1973)	4	ownerless diamond	4906 CM 097
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C35	plot against the universe	4909 CM 100
Shazam (1973)	14	magic mix-up	4911 CM 102
Shazam (1973)	16	world hater	5011 MF 053
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C21	mr. Tawny's personality peril	5012 CM 115
Shazam (1973)	23	world's mightiest project	5102 MF 056
Shazam (1973)	13	mr. Tawny's sales campaign	5104 CM 119
Shazam (1973)	16	sneaking doom	5105 MF 059
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C27	mr. Tawny's diet dangers	5106 CM 121
Shazam (1973)	14	mr. Tawny's fight for fame	5111 CM 126
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C35	robot hunt	5202 CM 129
Shazam (1973)	17	curse of the black thumb	5202 CM 129
Shazam (1973)	13	new home for billy	5206 CM 133
Shazam (1973)	13	pandora pirates	5206 MF 072
Shazam (1973)	15	mr. Tawny's bouncing shoes	5207 CM 134
Shazam (1973)	16	king kull and the seven sins	5210 CM 137
Adventure Comics	498	world's maddest ghost	5211 CM 138
Shazam (1973)	2	captain marvel fights niatpac levram	5212 CM 139
Adventure Comics	495	man without a world	5302 CM 141
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C27	mistake of father time	5302 MF 020
Adventure Comics	499	man in the moon	5304 CM 143
Adventure Comics	502	human hawks	5304 CM 143
Limited Collectors’ Edition	C35	captain marvel battles the world	5309 CM 148
Shazam (1973)	24	sivana saves captain marvel	5309 CM 148
Shazam (1973)	22	captain marvel's most difficult task	5310 CM 149
Shazam (1973)	17	captain marvel's wedding	5311 CM 150

 * Sources disagree in regard to artist for this story, I personally believe that it is not Beck, I have however included it as I do not know absolutely.

 ^ Sources disagree in regard to artists for this story, I personally believe that it is Beck for parts 1, 3 and 5, credits on the reprint appears to confirm that it is.

Whilst these provide a great cross section of Beck/Binder stories, if you buy them you’ll actually have far more stories not by this team. Many of them are excellent and are well worth reading in there on right, and who knows, you may even end up preferring them to my own personal dream team.

On a final note to this post, a friend of mine was gently mocking my love of comics recently, by commenting on how much time I spent reading “Those silly children's picture books.” My reply was the standard “Well actually, not all comics are for kids.” I stopped and thought for a moment before qualifying my reply with “No, they’re not all for kids, only the best one’s are for kids.”

Mad Thinker Reads………..

Captain Marvel by Beck & Binder (or anyone else for that matter.)