Comic of the Week - Shazam! #8

The Shazam! Comic of the Week is Shazam! #8 which was published on September 11, 1973  and had a cover date of December 1973.  

This issue was a 100 page Super Spectacular!  All the stories are from various Captain Marvel comics from the 1940s, there were no new stories at all.  

The first story, "A Twice Told Tale", was originally printed in Captain Marvel Adventures #80 (October 29, 1947).  

The second story, "Captain Marvel Introduces Mary Marvel", which was originally printed in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (November 3, 1942).

The third story, "The Mighty Marvels Join Forces" was originally published in Marvel Family Comics #1 (November 21, 1945) and introduced us to Black Adam!

The fourth story, "The Vest Pocket Levitator" is a Captain Marvel Jr tale that came from the pages of Captain Marvel Jr #14 (November 19, 1943).

The fifth story is a Mary Marvel adventure, "The Dog Nappers" which was originally published in Mary Marvel #17 (August 8, 1947).

Our sixth story is "The Adventure in Time" which came from Captain Marvel Adventures #71 (January 31, 1947) and featured the Lieutenant Marvels.  

The final two stories are "The Talking Tiger" and "The Return of Mr. Tawny" which are both stories about Captain Marvel's friend, Tawky Tawny the talking tiger!  These stories were originally published in Captain Marvel Adventures #79 (September 26, 1947) and Captain Marvel Adventures #82 (December 31, 1947).  

The final feature of the comic is the Super Spectacle letter page which featured letters from readers with the editor's response.

This was a good collection of stories and followed DCs strategy of reprinting stories to give the comic readers of the '70s some insights into the characters and adventures from Captain Marvels golden age.

Comic of the Week - Shazam! #7

The Shazam! Comic of the Week is Shazam! #7 which published on August 16, 1973 and had a cover date of November 1973.

This issue featured two new Captain Marvel adventures and the continuation and conclusion of a golden-age Marvel family story.

The first story features one of my favorite characters, Tawky Tawny, in "The Troubles of the Talking Tiger!'  I won't go into detail as I have already written about that story in my article Captain Marvel and The Troubles of the Talking Tiger!  

The second story is "What's in a Name?  Doomsday!"  A rumor gets started that if you simply say the name, Captain Marvel, it will bring on doomsday!

The third story is a reprint from Marvel Family #53 (September 22, 1950) entitled, "The Man Who Changed the World."  In this issue they give the conclusion of this adventure which was first printed in Shazam! #6.

There are two additional features in this week's featured comic.  First, we have Shazamail which had several readers commenting that they are happy to see the original Captain Marvel back in print!

The second feature is the Superman - Shazam Battle Page.  The page lists the intent of the section, "Here's a sampling of the mail we've received on the great battle to see who'll be the top-selling hero of the 70's - Superman or the original Captain Marvel!"  On this page are letters from readers either voting for Superman or Captain Marvel.  I just don't understand why DC did this.  Captain Marvel was just into his 7th issue after being out of print for decades.  Why would you pit one against the other when you have barely given Cap enough time to build a following?  Unfortunately, Cap's comics didn't last and it could be this gimmick was part of his demise.

This was another nice issue and my favorite story was with Tawky Tawny!  DC was doing a good job of creating new stories and including some original stories to help people learn all about Captain Marvel.