The Coming Of Capt. Shazam

Lightning Comics was a branch of the Milson Publishing Company in 1967. They only had two separate titles under this brand, Fatman The Flying Saucer and Super Green Beret. Both of these were created by the same artists, CC Beck and Otto Binder, who most people would know from their earlier work with Fawcett Comics in 1939 in making the original Captain Marvel, aka: "Shazam". After DC Comics eventually put Fawcett out of business because they believed Captain Marvel was ripping off Superman, DC bought the rights to the character and eventually put him under their own label, but only under the title of Shazam as the name Captain Marvel had been scooped up conveniently by Marvel Comics who was a totally different character. There was an other minor publisher in 1966 called MF Enterprises who came out with their own character named Captain Marvel that was a flying alien android with no connection to either DC or Marvel's, but MF Enterprises shut down due to legal conflicts. Lightning Comics' Fatman was a obese superhero who could transform his body into a genuine flying saucer making him one of the first ever Transformers, plus their Super Green Beret was an American soldier in the Vietnam War who was given superpowers by a wizard. Each of these heroes had similar origins to Fawcett's Captain Marvel, but then Lightning Comics went a step further with the introduction of a new character, Captain Shazam. Supposedly this Shazam was in the military or owned his own boat since he's an official captain. This was advertised in Issue #2 of Fatman and according to most reports was also the creation of Beck and Binder even though there's nothing solid to confirm it. It's weird enough that Beck and Binder would make a character with the name that one of their previous heroes would say to change into their super-form. That's like a rival comics publisher printing out one called "Captain By The Power Of Grayskull". The unrevealing ad didn't show what this mystery hero would look like, but according to the guys at Lightning Comics he was supposed to be "Cool! Tuff! Boss! Fab!", which makes him sound like he's a reject from one of the numerous superhero teams that sprouted out in the 60s like Super 6, The Impossibles, or The Mighty Heroes. Bob Kane's cheapo Cool McCool probably had more substance than this uber-beatnik wannabe would. Even as a "turned-on super swinger", Captain Shazam was probably better off having been heard and not seen.

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