Blog
The Extended Marvel Family
5/1/2021
While originally, the plan was to just use Captain Marvel and leave the extended Marvel family out of it, after doing a lot more research it's really obvious that we need to at least dig into the history of the Marvel Family in it's many variations and understand why this idea is so pervasive.
Captain Marvel was not the first superhero to have a kid sidekick. That is almost definitely Batman's Robin (Although, if you really want to get technical about it, the very first superhero in recorded history, Gilgamesh, had Endkidu. So maybe the whole idea of heroic sidekicks are baked into the concept of superheroes at the genetic level) Captain Marvel was, however, the very first comic book superhero to have multiple sidekicks when Otto Binder introduced Mary Marvel to Whiz Comics in 1942.
Captain Marvel was not the first superhero to have a kid sidekick. That is almost definitely Batman's Robin (Although, if you really want to get technical about it, the very first superhero in recorded history, Gilgamesh, had Endkidu. So maybe the whole idea of heroic sidekicks are baked into the concept of superheroes at the genetic level) Captain Marvel was, however, the very first comic book superhero to have multiple sidekicks when Otto Binder introduced Mary Marvel to Whiz Comics in 1942.
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Back in the Golden Age, popular superheros all seemed to grow whole families of characters around themselves. In the sixties, as the worlds of these characters unified into one central DC mythology, a lot of these extended supporting casts were trimmed back. The most fameous example of this is Batman losing Bat-Mite, Ace the Bat-Hound, and the original Batwoman & Batgirl, but it also happened in the worlds of Superman and Wonder Woman, whose vast array of supporting characters were trimmed down. Superman would slowly lose characters like his mermaid girlfriend Lori Lemaris, or his whole cast of super-pets... while Wonder Woman would lose her sorority of supporters the Holiday Girls, or the small family unit she had built by regularly adventuring with teenaged and child versions of herself.
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What makes Captain Marvel different is that he wasn't being regularly published in this era. As he started being integrated into the regular DC continuity in the 80's, it was kind of up-in-the-air as to just what elements of his old-fashioned extended cast was going to be integrated and how. It was almost up to individual writers just who was involved. Mary Marvel was pretty much always a given, as was Captain Marvel Jr... but what about Tawkey Tawney? Is he just a mystic talking tiger, or an antropomorphic tiger in a green suit? Are we going to include Uncle Dudley, the older gentleman who was only pretending to be a Marvel? Hoppy the Marvel Bunny? Where's the line on who we do and don't include? Captain Marvel's story has been redefined so many times, it's almost impossible to suggest that any one version of this mythology is the CORRECT version.
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It's worth pointing out that modern DC continuity seems to have solved this problem by completelty redefining the Marvel Family. In 2011, Captain Marvel was redesigned completely in the New 52, and renamed Shazam. This new take on the characters is definitely more familiar to audiences as it was the inspiration for the fantastic 2019 movie. Now, the Marvel Family is made up of Billy's foster siblings. They include Mary & Freddy, but also three original characters in Eugene, Pedro, & Darla. This is a very different spin on the character of Captain Marvel and on the concept of the Marvel Family but it really WORKS. We want our take to be based more on the classic Golden Age character and the versions of him that were integrated into DC over the 80's & 90's, but I wanted to make sure we at least acknowledged this clever alternate take on the concept.
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Thankfully, we're not the first people to try to re-interpret the classic Marvel Family. From the very moment Fawcett comics stopped publishing Captain Marvel comics, other companies have picked up the mantle to produce their own version, most notably the British character Marvelman, who was a deliberate attempt to replicate the popular American character. Marvelman would eventually be written by Alan Moore, evolve into Miracleman, have his rights continually contested, and become one of the single greatest pieces of superhero fiction ever written, so there is a LOT to be learned there about the archetypes at play. Also... I mean.... please just read as much of this character as you can. It's amazing. The takeaway here is that Miracleman is always depicted as a single character with two smaller sidekicks.
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This basically becomes the vibe we're looking to maintain in our version of Captain Marvel. One core central hero, two occasional sidekicks, and maybe a few non-superhero supporting characters. It leaves a few concepts by the wayside; maybe you really want a small army of Marvel characters, maybe you want more anthromorphic rabbits and tigers... but this, in the end, is the Marvel Family as we imagine them
