I'm not sure whether or not it would be fair to call M.F. Enterprises' 1966 series Captain Marvel the worst superhero comic books of all time. But man, they were terrible. I'm also not sure if they're terrible in a fun way, or just terribly, terribly terrible. I mean, a superhero whose schtick is that he can split off parts of his body? Atlas cringed.
But in the superhero hysteria prompted by the success of the Batman TV series, established comics publishers and fly-by-night outfits alike needed four-color superdoers on the stands ASAP. Some were good. Some were M.F.'s Captain Marvel.
Still, ya gotta give Myron Fass credit for gumption and ingenuity, if not creativity. "Captain Marvel" was a recognizable and marketable superhero name, unused since 1954, when Fawcett Comics' original Cap--the best-selling superhero of the Golden Age of Comics--succumbed to declining sales and legal threats from DC Comics (who maintained Cap was a copyright-infringing imitation of Superman). In the '60s, Marvel Comics had succeeded in re-branding the name "Marvel" as something new and exciting in comics. A huckster like Fass could see the opportunity, and he couldn't see anything that should stop him from publishing a *cough* original character named Captain Marvel.
Our man from Splitsville was created by Carl Burgos, whose earlier creation of The Human Torch for Marvel Comics # 1 in 1939 was a much more impressive resumé item than this. M.F.'s Captain Marvel ran four issues, plus two issues of Captain Marvel Presents The Terrible Five. "Terrible?" Takes one to know one...or five. When this Captain Marvel split for good, Marvel Comics took the cue to create its own unrelated Captain Marvel. When DC licensed and eventually purchased the original Captain Marvel, the character who originated the name had to appear in a book called Shazam! instead of Captain Marvel Adventures; Marvel had trademarked the name "Captain Marvel." But that's a rant for another day.
I'd like to say this is a treat, but who exactly would I be kidding? This is likely an orphaned property, but we'll presume it's copyright the respective owner, and presented here as fair use. SPLIT! It's M.F. Enterprises' Captain Marvel # 1.
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Thanks for posting all those pages! The world needs to see just what this comic was to believe it!
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