October 1941: The World’s Mightiest Mortal, Nothing More

The creative forces behind Fawcett’s million-selling Captain Marvel had their own explanations for his considerable success.

“Billy Batson was Captain Marvel — as a boy of 14,” artist C.C. Beck recalled. “He had the same nose, cleft chin, and dimples as Captain Marvel. Only his eyes were different — and his hair became magically combed back when he changed to his adult form.”

“And Captain Marvel, although he had the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas and other great heroes, was really a small boy at heart. He was merely Billy Batson grown up, not a godlike creature from another planet nor a Frankenstein’s monster sort of being created by a mad scientist or by a nuclear accident. He was just the World’s Mightiest Mortal, nothing more.

“As such, he was human, which few of the other comic book heroes of the time were, and therein lay his appeal to readers all over the world.”

And the writer emphasized the character’s light, satiric touch.

“The Captain Marvel and Marvel Family stories aren’t humor in the strictest sense, but rather satire and parody of life situations and the doings and shortcomings of humans,” Otto Binder told Bill Schelly. “The secret of it all was that Cap and Billy were dead serious and never made a joke at all. It was how we played up the slapstick and puns and situation comedy that made it all funny. 

“But remember this: young kids don’t get the joke at all. They take it seriously, namely, the battle between good and evil with the good guy … always winning. 

“In a sense, Captain Marvel was like Jonathan Swift’s satires of political situations [or] Alice in Wonderland which to the adult is a study of human nature. I always felt I was exploring and exploiting human nature too, digging out its zany aspects to show that much of life was a joke and full of craziness.”