MovieChat Forums > Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) Discussion > It's amazing how much better this was th...

It's amazing how much better this was than the Superman serial.

posted 16 years ago by Forgotten_Hero
14 replies | jump to latest

Considering that Superman was the original and Captain Marvel was a knock off, you'd expect that Superman would be of a higher quality, but no. Despite this serial being made seven years earlier, it still had better special effects, better action, a more threatening villain (though admittedly The Scorpion isn't as sexy as the Spider Lady), and a more engaging storyline. Both series had the same plot, on the part of the villains, in that they both featured a crime lord attempting to create a weapon to take over the world and destroy the hero, so it's a wonder that the individuals who did the Superman serial didn't improve upon the story rather than create one that pales by comparison.

[–] CamelCamelCamel 16 years ago

Well Superman can't grab the bad guys by their junk and throw them head-first off of bridges, though, so it's kind of an unfair comparison.

[–] celso-20 16 years ago

Yeah! Captain Marvel, on the very first chapter, takes a machine gun from the enemies and kills 3 of them - Superman would never be allowed to do that!!!

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Forgotten_Hero 16 years ago

That's true.

[–] gpdullius 15 years ago

...and shoots them on their backs!!!

Serenity now...

[–] rudeboy8080 14 years ago

You will believe that a man like Superman can fly!

[–] porfle 14 years ago

Plus, Captain Marvel doesn't turn into a cartoon whenever he takes off.

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[–] jackiex 14 years ago

Neither should CM...:(

[–] edbuskirkjr 14 years ago

Yeah, Captain Marvel indiscriminately killing bad guys bothered me. The machine gun was bad enough, you could argue he was shooting them in the leg, or some other place you could survive being shot in. But throwing guys off skyscrapers is just playing judge, jury and executioner. It's the most serious flaw in this otherwise excellent serial.

[–] slimer-3 14 years ago

I never thought of Captain Marvel as a knock-off of Superman, so much as a better, more interesting and less remembered take on the same design (he was the Mr. Pibb to Superman' Dr. Pepper), and his serial was just executed better in just about every way. I just finally got the DVD of it today, after suffering through the miserable Superman and Batman film serials a few months ago, and I am just blown-away with how excellent it is. "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" isn't simply the best example of this genre I've encountered, but just a genuinely great piece of action/adventure filmmaking.

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[–] grendelkhan 13 years ago

If you look at the overall body of work of both characters, in the 40's, Captain Marvel comes out on top. Superman had some fine stories, but they could be quite hit and miss, while Captain Marvel was consistently imaginative and had a sense of fun. For a while, he was outselling the Man of Steel.

I never bought the knock-off. He was certainly inspired by the success of Superman, but he was handled in a greatly different manner. The magic elements and the completely seperate identities of Billy Batson and Captain Marvel made him much more unique, coupled with the other Marvels. In fact, I suspect the success of the Marvels led National (DC) to finally go ahead with Superboy, after rejecting previous pitches by Jerry Siegel. Mary Marvel certainly factored into the creation of Supergirl.

It's a shame Republic never did a follow-up with Mary and Junior. You could have easily spread featured chapters across the serial. It would have also been nice to include Sivana or Black Adam. They would have translated more easily to live action than many of the other Marvel villains.

[–] diggler_inc 13 years ago

The second Superman serial was excellent.

[–] Forgotten_Hero 13 years ago

Mary Marvel certainly factored into the creation of Supergirl.

You know, I never drew a connection between those two. I guess Mary would have preceded Supergirl by some time, huh? It's interesting... Captain Marvel borrows concepts from Superman, then DC turns around and borrows from Fawcett. I gotta say, it bugs me that DC bought out Fawcett. There's nothing really to do with Captain Marvel since they want to keep their homegrown Superman as their top flying strongman.

[–] grendelkhan 12 years ago

They didn't buy them out, at least, originally. Fawcett's comic sale were down, so they settled out of court with DC and got out of the comic game. Years later, DC licensed Captain Marvel and other Fawcett characters for new comics. For a time, there was some kind of problem and DC couldn't use any Fawcett charcaters (sometime in the latter 80s or so)other than the Marvel's and their supporting characters. Then, DC was using other characters, like Bulletman and Spy Smasher. I've never seen an article that cleary and authoritatively relates what happened, but I think DC bought the rights to the other characters.

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