Time for future superstar Gil Kane’s first work with Mar-Vell, as the creative team turns over to Roy Thomas and Kane.
The story starts with an extended history of Rick Jones, after he quits being Bucky and moves out of Avengers Mansion. You know Rick-the kid who Banner saved from being hit by the G-Bomb? The kid who hung out with Captain America and the Avengers for a while? He’s drawn to be much younger than he was back in those stories-he’s very boyish. Anyway, he’s wandering around the desert and finds Mar-Vell’s nega bands. Well, “finds” isn’t really the word: A vision of Mar-Vell and Captain America lead him to put on the bracelets and bang them together and, alakazam, he seems to become the titular hero.
A boy turning into an older man hero? Yeah, Marvel is turning its own Captain Marvel into a parallel of DC’s Captain Marvel, who everyone I know just calls Shazam because (a) that’s a cooler name and (b) it’s his magic word. When this book was published, DC had estopped publication of Shazam for over a decade, so lots of people probably had no idea that that is what Roy Thomas was doing here.
Anyway, in the end we see that Jones and Mar-Vell are actually merged characters-more like the future Firestorm from DC than the older Shazam character. They force Yon-Rogg to flee Earth, and decide to go after him.
This is a good refresh for Captain Marvel, as the book had really become a steaming pile of crap by this time.
Let’s see what Thomas and Kane can do with him.
Grade is B. For most comics, this would be a B-, a story that’s above average but not great. But considering how bad CM has been, this gets a little higher.