The Marvels’ place-swapping hijinks are an old tribute to Billy Batson and Shazam
Today’s trailer for The Marvels, the upcoming superhero movie starring Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani, is about one thing only: Swapping places!
It’s a good indication that the Captain Marvel sequel, due in November, will be all about the space-travel shenanigans that occur when Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) starts erratically trading places with space agent Monica Rambeau (Spectrum) and intergalactic savior Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel).
It’s a fun gimmick for a Marvel Cinematic Universe flick, but it’s also got roots in the Marvel Comics canon of Captain Marvel. But if we go even farther back, it really starts with one of DC Comics’ flagship superheroes.
Years before Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel, the role was held by an alien guy named Mar-Vell (played by Annette Bening in Captain Marvel). And the reason that Marvel had a Captain Marvel character at all was because the company had snatched up the trademark to an older, very popular superhero called Captain Marvel. Today, thanks in part to that trademark grab, we know that character as Shazam.
When Marvel Comics picked up the Captain Marvel trademark, Shazam was still a kid who yelled a magic word and swapped places with an adult superhero, but for another set of ironic reasons, Fawcett Comics hadn’t published a story about him since before Marvel Comics was even called Marvel Comics. So, as you can imagine, Marvel was pretty gung ho to make their own Captain Marvel a hit with readers.
And in one of those early attempts, Marvel creators Roy Thomas and Gil Kane decided to lean into it. Instead of an alien with energy powers, they paired Mar-Vell up with a teenage sidekick named Rick Jones and trapped him in the Negative Zone.
Fortunately, Rick had
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