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Ashcan; white pgs
1st app. of Captain Thunder re-named Captain Marvel in Whiz Comics
Jon Berk Collection
For a time in the 1940s, Fawcett's Captain Marvel was the most popular and best-selling superhero in comics, outstripping even Superman and Captain America in sales and fame, his square-jawed exploits appealing to younger readers and older pulp fans alike. Initially developed as a swipe of the then-new Superman and Batman, the character was designed by C.C Beck and Bill Parker to act as a beautifully detailed and carefully plotted alternative to what they felt were crude and hastily assembled cape comics cluttering the newsstands, and the results, graced by Beck's impeccable lines and Parker's liberal borrowing from mythology and classic fairy tales, were an instant smash. Little did Captain Marvel's initial fans know that their hero was originally given the meaty moniker of Captain Thunder and was intended for Flash Comics, neither of which proved to be available for trademark to Fawcett. A hasty redesign of the cover logo and last-minute relettering of the debut story resulted in the hero premiering instead in Whiz Comics #1. A very small batch of in-house copies were created, however, of the original version, dubbed as "ashcans" in industry parlance. These incredibly rare, extremely important documents are among the most treasured and desirable of Golden Age keys, and we are honored and delighted to offer this astonishing find to comics historians and serious collectors. Forget the first appearances of Superman, Batman, heck, even Marvel #1 -- this is the rarest of the rare, possibly the grail of grails for Golden Age comic collectors, akin to finding an untouched First Folio. These copyright-claiming editor-only ashcans were never meant to be seen by public eyes, and only a handful were ever printed -- of that number, less than ten are known to exist. Add to that, this being the only printed appearance of Captain Marvel with his original moniker, we can't think of a scarcer Golden Age treasure.



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