Funny you should mention the Old Testament, because just as Superman's origin was loosely based on the story of Moses, I always felt Captain Marvel had a strong similarity to the book of Tobias. In it, the angel Raphael takes the form of a young man, Azariah, to accompany Tobias on his journey. Azariah transforms back into Raphael to fight the demon Asmodeus.
For my money, the best DC take on Captain Marvel is the E. Nelson Bridwell version in the last few issues of "Shazam!", and the "World's Finest" run, and the Alex Ross version in "Power Of Hope" and "Justice". I can only hope one day DC (probably after Dan Didio and Geoff Johns are history), will bring in Alex Ross to give us some real Captain Marvel adventures again. And I wouldn't mind if he reboots the whole DC universe in the image of "Justice", as I feel Johns' DCnU is little more than comic book "snuff porn".
I find it ironic the final page of "Curse" features Sivana meeting Mr Mind. That is exactly how the last page of "New Beginning" was. We can only hope "Curse" will suffer the same fate as "New Beginning" and be quickly retconned out. But, alas, Geoff Johns has far more power over DC than Roy Thomas ever had, and Johns also has a Pied Piper power over his many fans, who will blindly follow him wherever he leads, and they may insure this new Shazam is somewhat succesful.
I hate to say it, but at this point, the best thing is for the proposed movie to stay dead, unless they can find a director with the vision and guts who will ignore any DC/Geoff Johns mandates, and make a true "Captain Marvel" movie faithful to the Fawcett, Bridwell, and Ross source material, with nods to the 1941 serial, and a wink to the 1970s TV series.
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