Originally written September 23, 2016

Adventures of Captain Marvel is the first “movie” to adapt a character from DC Comics to the screen, which also technically makes it the first comic-based superhero “movie” (although not the first movie to be based on a comic) ever created as well. The reason why I’m quoting it as a “movie” is because technically it’s a serial, but a lot of sources do usually cite it as a movie as well. This serial is made up of 12 parts, with part 1 being a half hour, and the other 11 each being slightly over 15 minutes.

The plot goes like this: a group of researchers find a golden scorpion on an expedition. They discover that when you adjust the lenses on the scorpion, it can turn rocks into gold and disintegrate other objects. They decide that the object is too powerful for one man to possess, so they split the lenses among themselves. Meanwhile, one researcher on the expedition, Billy Batson, is granted powers by a wizard named Shazam that allow him to transform into Captain Marvel so that he can protect the researchers from any evil that comes after them. When a man calling himself the Scorpion starts individually going after the researchers to get their lenses, it’s up to Captain Marvel to stop him.

When viewing Adventures of Captain Marvel, it has to be remembered that it was the first of its kind. No precedent had been set before, no model to go off of. Therefore, I was really impressed by it. It’s obvious that it doesn’t stack up to modern-day superhero movies, but for being made so many years ago it’s still really good. For a serial made in the early 40s, I felt like they did really well with the special effects and everything.

My only real gripe with it is that the story left a little bit to be desired at times. Since you’re looking at 12 parts that are each over 15 minutes long (with a 30 minute first part), it’s close to 4 hours in runtime, and I just didn’t feel like the serial covered all that much material to justify its runtime. The first few and last few parts have interesting things going on, but in the middle it all just becomes about the Scorpion trying to get the lenses from each researcher, and so I found my interest waning at certain points because it didn’t seem like anything substantial was happening. Also, there’s the cliffhangers. I’m sure at the time the cliffhangers that end each part were engaging, but I feel like we’ve advanced and developed so much in storytelling that it just feels obvious where things are going to be heading, and so they end up feeling a little ridiculous and cheap sometimes.

However, with all of that being said, I was still impressed with Adventures of Captain Marvel. I didn’t expect it to hold up that well 75 years later, but it surprisingly does, as long as you view it from a proper perspective of course. I really enjoyed all of the scenes involving Captain Marvel, because it’s so entertaining seeing him just throw all of the bad guys around in a way that’s unlike anything we see in movies nowadays. All of this being said, while I have much respect for Adventures of Captain Marvel for being a very early success that pioneered the way for future superhero movies, I only recommend this to the most diehard comic book fans since there is much better material out there.

4/5