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Why was Captain Marvel—a little boy named Billy Batson whose magic word transforms him into the World’s Mightiest Mortal—one of the most popular comic book characters in the United States in the 1940s? To answer this question, this book takes the reader on a journey through the lives of the writers, artists, and readers who devoted themselves to this hero and his adventures. It’s the story of artist C. C. Beck and writer Otto Binder, one of the most innovative and prolific creative teams of the Golden Age of comics in the U. S.; of the comic book fanzines of the 1960s, which celebrated Billy and the rest of the Marvel Family; and of an art form steeped in nostalgia, a term with a long, complex, and often misunderstood history. Taking its cue from C. C. Beck’s theories of comic art, this book is a study of why we read comics, and, more significantly, how we remember these heroes and the America that dreamed them in the first place.

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Steamboat, Billy Batson’s friend and valet, was a stereotypical African American character who appeared in Fawcett’s comic books until 1945, when a group of New York City middle school students visited Captain Marvel editor Will Lieberson. Those students, all part of a program called Youthbuilders, Inc., successfully argued for the character’s removal. Drawing on the work of Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and George Yancy, this chapter studies the character and his similarities to other racial caricatures in U. S. popular culture of the era. It also provides a short history of the Youthbuilders, an organization created by social worker Sabra Holbrook. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Alan Moore’s Evelyn Cream, a black character who appears in the 1980s series Miracleman. Although not directly based on Steamboat, Moore’s character was an attempt to address racial stereotypes in superhero comic books, figures that have their origins in the narratives of the 1930s and 1940s.

Billy Batson and his alter ego Captain Marvel reached the height of their popularity during World War II. This chapter studies several of Billy’s wartime adventures, stories that artist C. C Beck often dismissed later in his career. In these narratives, Captain Marvel embodies aspects of the ideal American soldier figured as an innocent boy whose courage all but guarantees a victory over the Axis powers. The chapter also examines the social and cultural consequences of this idealized figure, especially on returning soldiers and their families.