75 Years of Shazam!

I don't know if I missed the DC celebration for Shazam (the character formerly known as Captain Marvel).  I never saw it, but since his first appearance was in February of 1940, I'm thinking there should have been something.

My first Shazam comic was "Shazam!" #16.  This was not long after DC bought up the property, but still had 12 years before they would integrate the Marvel family into regular continuity.  The Marvels were still stuck on Earth-5.

The statues coming to life was a cool story, and I was already familiar with Shazam from the Saturday morning live action television show.

But of course there was my first introduction to parallel worlds with "Superman" #276 with the confusing (to me) Captain Thunder with a sun emblem on his chest.

This one was DC's way of having Superman fight Shazam without actually doing it.  There were lots of similarities, and it was very strange to my 6 year-old self.