Picking a favorite character you’ve created is a bit like saying that you prefer one of your children over the others, but if pressed I would have to admit a preference for Thunder Girl among her Big Bang Comics brothers and sisters.
Thunder Girl is a less literal translation than most of her Big Bang brethren, all created to allow us to pay tribute to the great heroes and creators from the history of comic books. While the Knight Watchman and Ultiman seem very similar to Batman and Superman, Thunder Girl is a step or two removed from her inspiration, the original Captain Marvel.
That’s right. She fills Captain Marvel’s boots in the Big Bang universe, not Mary Marvel’s as some have claimed. Thunder Girl could easily have been named Thunderman if not for her sex change. Captain Marvel had originally been named Captain Thunder but was rechristened before publication.
I don’t recall why the gender switch. Maybe because my old buddy Erik Larsen had already created an avatar character named Mighty Man a decade earlier? Maybe we just wanted another female character? Whatever, the sex change was freeing because it made her another step distant from the source material.
I should mention here that my first introduction to Captain Marvel was in Jules Feiffer’s wonderful book, “The Great Comic Book Heroes”. There was only a single page of comics devoted to Cap, tucked between the full origins of Superman and Batman, because the World’s Mightiest Mortal was consigned to limbo in 1965, when that book was published.
DC Comics, home of Superman had claimed that Cap was a ripoff of their hero and started suing in 1940. They were especially ticked when Captain Marvel became more popular and outsold Supes. The courts sided with Cap’s owner Fawcett Comics over the years, but when the superhero comics biz started to slump in the early 1950s, Fawcett settled with DC and agreed to never publish Captain Marvel again.
Superheroes rebounded in the early 1960s when I became addicted to reading them, but Captain Marvel was long gone by then. I was excited when DC licensed and revived the character in 1972. I had visions of a fantastic Neal Adams drawn series, but “Shazam” was a very cartoony kid friendly book, what I figured that my Dad was referring to as “funny books”. My 15 year old self was confused.
I bought the books and enjoyed them, yet it wasn’t what I had been hoping for. Jim Steranko’s fantastic “History of Comics Volume 2” came out about then with chapters devoted to Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Junior, where I discovered that they had always been “funny books”. I guess I wasn’t the only one disappointed in Shazam. It limped along for a while before being cancelled and Cap was relegated to a back up spot in another book.
About then, DC started using less whimsical art and writing on the series but never did manage to find a way to fully integrate the characters into their universe, although Jerry Ordway’s “Power of Shazam” came closest to me. Alex Ross has always had a fantastic feel for Captain Marvel, in “Kingdom Come” and “The Power of Hope” and I’ve always wished that he had been able to do more with the character.
Back to my story. The original Big Bang miniseries at Caliber Press was intended to introduce the various characters in their Golden Age, Silver Age and Modern incarnations, comprising a full fake history of the Big Bang company, so I needed to find an artist that could evoke the feel of the Fawcett material.
I was lucky enough to locate a wonderful artist named Bill Fugate who loved comics as much as my big Bang cohorts Chris Ecker, Ed DeGeorge and I did. Above all, Bill was a cartoonist. Among other things, he had worked for Disney Comics doing “Little Mermaid” and “Roger Rabbit”. Bill made everything I wrote look and read better, even though he rarely changed a word and never the story.
My original inclination was that young Molly Wilson would transform into a more grown up and somewhat sexier Thunder Girl. My original thinking on her costume was toward that of a drum majorette or car-hop’s uniform. Bill convinced me to stay with a very simple design and a youthful Thunder Girl, and he was right. Thunder Girl debuted in Big Bang #0, which featured a beautiful painted cover by the marvelous Alex Ross.
It is surprising how few Thunder Girl adventures that Bill and I told, but that was partly because we did some Mighty Man stories for and with Erik Larsen after Big Bang relocated to Image Comics. These were done much closer to the original Captain Marvel template. Bill had drawn another Thunder Girl nearly complete tale, but it was thrown out with Bill’s other possessions by an irate landlord. Only the cover was saved, which was used on Big Bang Comics #16.
All of these Thunder Girl stories and more have just been reprinted in a fun little book titled “Thunder Girl Digest”. It also reprints the complete “Big Bang Summer Special” which was our tribute to the entire Marvel Family (Cap, Mary and Junior) who are represented by the World’s Nastiest Nazis – – Super Stormtrooper, Nazi Youth and Valkyrie, plus a tribute to Bill Fugate who died way too soon in 2013, including a number of samples of his non-BB work.
It also includes a cover by Mark Lewis and work by these other great Big Bang artists: Jeff Austin, Bill Black, Jim Brozman, Dave Bryant, Sue Dorne, Chris Ecker, CHAS, Mark Jones, Karl Kesel, Michael Kirsten, Mark Lewis, Doug Mabry, Bob Rivard, Andrew Sheppard, Tim Stiles, Nigel Tulley, Shawn Van Briesen, Jeff Weigel, Glenn Whitmore, Mike Worley and Jim Woodyard. Thanks guys.
“Thunder Girl Digest” is published by Pulp 2.0 Press and is available through Amazon.com for $7.19 at: http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Girl-Digest-Comics-Collection/dp/1494803100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390934637&sr=8-1&keywords=Thunder+Girl+Digest
At left is a page from “Round Table of America: Personality Crisis”. Written by Pedro Angosto and featuring the beautiful artistry of Carlos Rodriguez, this page is the closest we ever got to showing Thunder Girl’s origin in the comics, which only appeared in prose inside the “History of Big Bang Comics Volume 1” (and is reprinted in the “Thunder Girl Digest”). What are you waiting for? Go order your copy now!
(Unfortunately, “Personality Crisis” is not in the “Thunder Girl Digest” and is slated for a future release).
Thunder Girl and all Big Bang Comics characters are copyright and trademark 2014 by Gary S. Carlson and Chris Ecker. Dr. Weird is copyright and trademark 2014 by Gary S. Carlson and Edward DeGeorge.
Shazam (Captain Marvel ) and all related characters are copyrighted trademarks of DC Comics. Mighty Man is copyright and trademark 2014 by Erik Larsen.
