Epilogue

The epilogue returns to Captain Marvel’s first appearance and studies the debt it owes to James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon. This section also examines the hero’s impact on science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, whose story “Paladin of the Lost Hour” offers a variation on both Lost Horizon and Billy Batson’s origin story.

Wertham’s Little Goblins

After Fawcett’s legal settlement with National in 1953, the original Captain Marvel did not return to comic books until 1973. In the meantime, comic book fans and amateur historians began writing about the character in the 1960s. This chapter traces Captain Marvel’s afterlife in these fanzines, publications that helped to establish the foundation for comics studies in the United States. The chapter also includes an overview of recent developments in the field of memory and nostalgia studies. These recent studies of the history of nostalgia in medicine, psychology, and the arts are essential for an understanding of how childhood memories have shaped comics studies as a discipline.

“A Fabric of Illusion”

C. C. Beck was one of the most influential artists working in comics in the U. S. in the 1940s and 1950s. As the co-creator of Captain Marvel, he and his assistants worked on one of the best-selling comic book characters of the era. Later in his career, he also developed a reputation as a comics critic. In addition to his columns for The Comics Journal, he established the Critical Circle in the late 1980s, a group of friends, fellow artists, and fans with whom he shared his unpublished essays on the form. Like Will Eisner, Beck was significant as a cartoonist and as a theorist of comic art. This chapter explores how he applied those theories to his work, which is known for its narrative economy and simplicity.

“Brother, that Ain’t Imaginary!”

Billy Batson and his alter ego Captain Marvel reached the height of their popularity during World War II. This chapter studies several of Billy’s wartime adventures, stories that artist C. C Beck often dismissed later in his career. In these narratives, Captain Marvel embodies aspects of the ideal American soldier figured as an innocent boy whose courage all but guarantees a victory over the Axis powers. The chapter also examines the social and cultural consequences of this idealized figure, especially on returning soldiers and their families.

Steamboat’s America

Steamboat, Billy Batson’s friend and valet, was a stereotypical African American character who appeared in Fawcett’s comic books until 1945, when a group of New York City middle school students visited Captain Marvel editor Will Lieberson. Those students, all part of a program called Youthbuilders, Inc., successfully argued for the character’s removal. Drawing on the work of Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and George Yancy, this chapter studies the character and his similarities to other racial caricatures in U. S. popular culture of the era. It also provides a short history of the Youthbuilders, an organization created by social worker Sabra Holbrook. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Alan Moore’s Evelyn Cream, a black character who appears in the 1980s series Miracleman. Although not directly based on Steamboat, Moore’s character was an attempt to address racial stereotypes in superhero comic books, figures that have their origins in the narratives of the 1930s and 1940s.

Otto Binder and the Secret Life of Mr. Tawny, the Talking Tiger

Although he did not create Captain Marvel, Otto Binder wrote most of the stories featuring the character in the 1940s and early 1950s. Binder got his start as a literary agent and science fiction writer. Under the name Eando Binder, he and his brother Earl began publishing in the science fiction pulps of the 1930s. The Mr. Tawny stories about a talking tiger who becomes friends with Billy Batson are Binder and artist C. C. Beck’s most accomplished work, filled with autobiographical traces of Binder’s life as a freelance writer. This chapter draws on theories from the disciplines of animal studies and comics scholarship to examine these narratives, which remain some of the most compelling comics published during the Golden Age of comics in the U. S.

“Tiny Flashes of Light”

The relationship between comic books, comics scholarship, and nostalgia is complex. This chapter explores the history of Captain Marvel, the popular comic book hero created by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck for Fawcett Publications in 1939. In addition to sections about the National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc. copyright infringement case, the chapter also examines Captain Marvel’s place in early fanzines and comics scholarship published in the 1960s and early 1970s in the U. S. As an overview of the book, the introduction sets out to understand why the character was so tremendously popular in the 1940s only to disappear from popular discourse after the conclusion of the lawsuit in 1953.