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I’ve always liked Mary better, if nothing else because Captain Marvel Jr’s outfit looked too much like pajamas to me. Although, I did like his appearances in Winick’s Outsiders where he was a retro-hipster that was just really into the rockabilly culture. The new take on him in Trials of Shazam! is pretty cool too though (if you can’t tell, I don’t have a lot of experience with the classic Marvel Family tales).

Well, Mary’s in a coma (I know, it’s really serious), and Freddy no longer has the cane, and he’s got a bitchin’ tattoo!

I hope ToS! is gleefully ignored by Jeff Smith.

I don’t know if she’s cooler, but when I was a kid, Mary Marvel was the first superheroine I really found attractive, so I’d give the edge to her. That said, when Mac Raboy illustrated Junior, there was not a cooler superhero on the planet

If you mean “who would I rather hang out with; a young boy in a skin-tight ELVIS costume or a doe-eyed hottie in a mini-skirt”?

Yeah. Not Elvis Jr. THAT’s for sure.

Other than that, I have little to no “practical knowledge” of the Marvel Family, except that their arch nemeses are a super-intelligent worm with glasses and a mad-scientist with progeria.

As far as comic baddies go, those two concepts are GOLD.

I would SO buy a title that just had THOSE two in it.
And Mary marvel too.

~P~
P-TOR

I hope ToS! is gleefully ignored by Jeff Smith.

I keep praying (if not outright suspecting) that ToS! will looked upon in five years with the faint embarrassment that we now look upon Doctor Strange dressing up like Kid Eternity in the 90s…

Well Mary of course, she’s just so gosh darned cute. And she was adorable in “Formerly known as the Justice League” and “I can’t believe it’s not the Justice League”,
the two best mini-series EVER.

Mary Marvel is more unique. Mary Marvel wins.

Mary Marvel FTW. She’s cooler, even in a coma.

Mary. She’s more essential to the Marvel Family conceit. You have the wizard Shazam as the father figure and Mary as the kid sister. Captain Marvel Jr. is kind of redundant. Even Tawky Tawny, as much as he gets sneered at today, adds something richer and to the mix than Junior.

I haven’t been reading Trials of Shazam, so I don’t know about this toolish coma business; I’ve been reading Captain Marvel’s appearances in Justice (pretty good so far) and I’m still waiting for the how-could-it-possibly-not-be-wonderful Jeff Smith series.

I hope ToS! is gleefully ignored by Jeff Smith.

As far as I know, Jeff Smith’s series is out of continuity. All the better, says I.

Mary Marvel - easily. In the older Captain Marvel stuff, Freddie just comes across as “kid sidekick”, while in the more recent Ordway revamp, Freddie is just plain whiny. Mary is a bit “sidekick” in the older Captain Marvel stuff too, but less so, and in the more recent Jerry Ordway revamp she kicks ass - she’s about the only one in the whole “Marvel Family” who isn’t a mopey brat about their powers. So either way, Mary wins.

I’m a-goin’ with Jr. for one simple reason: Mac Raboy.

Some of the best art I’ve EVER seen in comics! I’m so glad there’s an archive edition out.

Kid Miracleman. Heh heh heh.

Dammit, I was gonna say Kid Miracleman!

I prefer Hoppy or Uncle Marvel, myself.

And hey, Elvis stole his look from Freddie, man.

Mary, every time. The other guy is just a total nonentity.

Gotta go with the Mary Marvel consensus here, as, like many others, I don’t see CM, Jr. as being distinct from the Big Red Cheese in the way Mary Marvel is.

However, I can see an argument that Freddy Freeman is in some ways a purer distillation of one facet of the Shazam! vharacters — the idealized self/real self division. Billy Batson, though an orphan, is a kid newscaster with a talking tiger pal who turns into an idealized grown-up hero. Both bits of his life are wish-fulfillment fantasies.

Freddy? He’s a crippled newsboy who lost his grandfather to the Nazis,and who turns into an idealized version of himself as a superhero…but can’t speak his own codename without losing it. It’s a bit more poignant, and the divide is a bit sharper.

I can just about see why WInick wants to use him as the new CM. Pity the execution is horrible and the new concept for CM’s mission misses the point entirely.

I like Junior better just for the fact that if he speaks his own (superhero) name, he loses his powers. That’s pretty cool.

Dude can’t say his own name without becoming totally weak. Mary Marvel in a landslide.

Captain Marvel, Jr.
He’s always seemed cooler than Mary to me.

It is so Mary “No Panties” Marvel, the original Shazam Party Babe! As compared to some cripple named Junior, think straight true believers!

My only Mary Marvel experience is from The Mist one-shot and the two recentt JL mini’s - but I still give it to her, she cracked me up in both of them.

Capt. Marvel gets points for electrocuting a worm in a mini-electric chair, but Mary goes hyperactive when she drinks coffee.

Hey, does Jr. lose his powers when he says “CAPTAIN MARVEL” or does he have to add the “JR” for that power-loss?

If THAT were the case, he could just bypass the “JR” part, or truncate the name into “MARVEL JR” or “CAPTAIN MARVEL - the Lesser” OR just say it in a different order like “JR CAPT. MARVEL”.

Right?

I honestly don’t know, since I don’t have FAWCETT/DC CAPT. MARVEL knowledge.

~P~
P-TOR

Actually the “Jr.” has nothing to do with his changing back and forth. Where Capt. Marvel says “Shazam” to change, Jr. says “Captain Marvel”. So he could say anything he wanted as long as he didn’t use “Captain” & “Marvel” together, in that order.

Mary Marvel - she was a Supergirl before Kara Zor-El was even a glimmer in Mort Weisinger’s imagination.

They’re BOTH laaaame.

But Black Adam and Isis rock.

Three letters…CM3? WTF?

Mary is SO much cooler than Junior… fer gawsh sakes, he can’t even say his own name without depowering! And just because Elvis stole his hairdo, he thinks he’s big stuff…Mary was Hot in the 40S and she’s Hot today! I can’t wait until big whiner writer Winnick gets through with this worthless new series and after the sales tank, we’ll get real Marvel Family back!

Hoppy the Marvel Bunny