EXCLUSIVE: A long-awaited book for fans of the original Captain Marvel – and classic comics – is coming in 2019…
This is the best news in a long time not just for fans of the original Captain Marvel but for fans of great classic comics: DC in 2019 will be publishing a deluxe edition of the Golden Age epic The Monster Society of Evil.
The 24-chapter story by Otto Binder, C.C. Beck and Pete Costanza, was one of comics’ first continuing storylines and it’s been long out of print. The only previous official collection was a high-end, slipcover edition produced about 30 years ago that fetches hundreds on the secondary market. So for a lot of fans, this is a Grail book.
Here’s DC’s official solicitation, due to be officially released this week:
Not final cover art
SHAZAM!: THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL DELUXE EDITION HC
Written by OTTO BINDER
Art by C.C. BECK and PETE COSTANZA
Cover by MICHAEL CHO
At first he was simply a disembodied voice on the radio, taunting Captain Marvel with his ever-more-fiendish schemes to conquer the world. Then, readers gasped as Mr. Mind was revealed—all two inches of him! Was this lowly creature really the epitome of evil he claimed to be? Fortunately, Billy Batson understood the folly of underestimating someone based on their size! As small as he was, Mr. Mind was big trouble—especially once he turned the menacing members of his Monster Society of Evil loose to wreak havoc!
This new title collects the entire 24-chapter serial from the Golden Age of Comics with new essays by Fawcett Comics expert P.C. Hamerlinck and film producer and comics historian Michael Uslan. Collects stories from CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES #22-46!
ON SALE 02.06.19
$49.99 US | 272 PAGES
7.0625” x 10.875”
FC | ISBN: 978-1-4012-8769-6
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The Monster Society of Evil was first published from 1943 to 1945 and has inspired many Shazam!/Captain Marvel stories in the decades since, including Jeff Smith’s popular take in 2007.
And of course this edition will be out in time for the film Shazam!, which is due in April 2019.
June 17, 2018
So how will the archive deal with racial stereotyping do you think ? Some of the series was done before the students went to Fawcett to complain about Steamboat and essentially won their case. Good for them. Fawcett Collectors of America in Tomorrows Alter Ego 144 tells the story. This series was already challenged right about the time Levitz left Dc management over streotyped imagery. Got that right from him. That Alter Ego issue has the CMA 22 cover with a better image. It could be done. But there is the question of the reflection history as it was warts and all is a kind way of putting it considering the destructiveness resulting from those images. If the book was being marketed for historical reasons but if not it is a real tough one. Here is a link to a shortened AE 144. https://issuu.com/twomorrows/docs/alterego144preview
June 18, 2018
All DC needs to do is run a disclaimer at the beginning of the book. That’s what Fantagraphics did when they published the reprints of the Mickey Mouse comic strip from the 40’s. I think Disney did the same with the release of the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons from the 40’s. Paramount did the same with the release of the Fleischer Popeye cartoons.
June 18, 2018
#1 This is great news. One of the finest serials in comics history is going to be reprinted so a whole new generation can enjoy it.
#2 Broad parody of a wartime enemy is not stereotyping. Please note and remember that this was produced during wartime.
#3 Even if you believe that there is “racial stereotyping” in the book, there is nothing to worry about as it is a very isolated example in today’s pop culture. It is an oddity. It is singular. It can not shape attitudes or instill bigotry because it is unique. There will be nothing else close to this published in February 2019. Any concerns are vastly overblown.
June 18, 2018
Talked to Jerry Ordway this past weekend at Heroescon in Charlotte, and he said he had talked to Jim Lee recently. Was told we will be getting quite a bit of the Big Red Cheese before the release of the movie! Jerry was wonderful to talk to!
June 19, 2018
If the cover for CMA 23 is reprinted as originally done a disclaimer alone in my opinion is not enough. Steamboat was not a parody of the enemy. Side by side with the Captain the starkness is almost unviewable. What Fawcett did by pulling Stramboat was a far bigger story then a disclaimer will ever be. Let that story be told. Although not by definition heroic having done so was certainly groundbreaking. And I am being serious now maybe Donald Glover could be encouraged to make comment. We still have a metaphorical wall to break through. I have two sets on the entire series one is the classic slipcase reprint and the other is a print on demand. And a few of the hard copies from the series. At that I cannot defend some of the the material but I can encourage a thorough examination of the material and the context in which it existed. This nation could not even pass an anti-lynching law in the time period this series was in the public view. People of the time lived as we all do at any period of history within the framework of the world that existed or exits. The best we can do is maybe to understand what it was and what we are as deeply as we can.
June 25, 2018
Publish it as is. We are mature enough as Americans to realize we have ugly parts of our past that we won’t repeat. Censoring will not help.