WATCH: The Fascinating History Of The CAPTAIN MARVELs

Have you ordered your copy of BMD's Avengers: Endgame issue yet? Do so here.

Like many of you, I caught Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Captain Marvel last weekend and...well, I guess the fact that I saw it twice tells you something about how I reacted to that movie. Marvel's latest was big, fun, bold, unexpectedly surprising in spots, and a very cleverly-positioned precursor to next month's Avengers: Endgame. To say I enjoyed Captain Marvel more than I expected to would be something of an understatement - I had a blast with it.

Anyhoo, I caught Boden and Fleck's film at the Alamo Drafthouse, and during the pre-show I was lucky enough to catch a super-interesting video essay written, performed and produced by my Drafthouse colleague, John W. Smith. Turns out, John spent some time in the lead-up to Captain Marvel's release looking into the fascinating shared history of Captain Marvel, Mar-Vell and DC's Shazam, a saga which I (a dude who's never dipped more than a big toe into the world of superhero comics) had never bothered educating myself on.

It's a helluva fun watch, and when I was asked to put together a post sharing it with the Birth.Movies.Death. readership, I did not hesitate to say yes. I think y'all will enjoy this - even those of you with an extensive understanding of the Captain Marvel/Shazam situation! Give it a look and see what you think.