What about DC Comics' Captain Marvel, though?

I confess, as a kid, and maybe even now, I did quite like the extended Marvel Family. Why? Because each character, whilst having the same/a similar outfit, felt unique. They had their own "flavour".

Captain Marvel Jr. felt very different to Captain Marvel. Mary Marvel felt differently to both of them. And Uncle Marvel, being an earnest character without any super powers, was just a fun character to read about.

Even the Lieutenant Marvels had a fairly fresh spin on things. Am I remembering rightly that they only had a fraction of Captain Marvel's power (I guess that's rank for you!)? Plus, there's the fact that they are a team - and hopefully team adventures are always going to have a different "flavour" to solo exploits.

I can't tell you what the current state of Captain Marvel's universe is. I don't know what is what, who is who, what is canon, etc. Or if any of the above characters even exist in the post-REBIRTH universe. But for me, the de-uniquing of Captain Marvel was at least a little fun. And probably a better example of de-uniquing than most.

However, I would have been quite happy if, after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Earth-S would have been sealed off and completely inaccessible from the resolved Earths. Let them go on with their own lighter-hearted stories, not so science-oriented and drama-drenched. Did Mary Marvel encounter a fairy? Okay. Let it go. Did Captain Marvel battle an irate Earth who was jealous of him? Don't object to that as the genre - BASE the genre on it. And if Captain Marvel Jr. encountered a man who had a magical hand blender that allowed him to fly, it didn't require a crossover with Robin, Superboy, and Firestorm. It was just kinda fun and they made a story of it. Thus one fogey's opinion, anyhow.

Not familiar with that one, but I like the sound of it. Do you know the issue number, please? (I could Google, but sometimes one may as well ask first!).

That's a shame, I would have liked to have seen that.

Robbie, you can read that comic online here:

Also, one unified platform across which all characters are marketed seems to be a working model for the company as well. So long as Character A can seemlessly meet Character B and they can both go after the villain who has killed Character R.I.P., everyone is happy. Having to journey from reality to reality via Transmatter Machine or somesuch device is clumsy and far too "old school" for modern readers. 

And finally, if we do confine this wonderful, imaginative children's concept to books only manufactured for the kneepants brigade, won't we be depriving ourselves of the creative opportunity to burn down their house and give the whole lot of them a good, old-fashioned "Identity Crisis" style bloodbath? Someone mails Billy the severed head of his sister while Freddy is driven insane when his other leg is eaten by a carnivorous cadre of Mr. Mind's caterpillar brethren... Captain Marvel decides he's had enough! He is a soldier whatever else he may be, and if Billy can't see that they're at war, then maybe it's time for Billy to muster out and leave this fight for the big boys... C'mon! We can't confine ourselves to just the curtain-climbers and crumb-crunchers when we have stuff like this just idling in the garage, waiting to be unleashed onto the world! 

As proven time and time again, kiddie comics don't sell in Comics Stores. Drone it along with me, everyone, "We have to sell to the audience we have rather than the audience we want..." There have been Captain Marvel kiddie comics done since Crisis and they're not on the shelves anymore. Why would DC want to throw good money after bad? Besides, there is this major subplot going through the Marvel Family and New Gods books about how Desaad became sexually obsessed with Mary during his time possessing her body, and how Black Adam feels when he discovers that for at least some of the time he had her under his power, he was sleeping with a gnarled, twisted old man animating her form... Desaad decides to impregnate Mary, and the only way to tell if he's been successful is to capture Marvel Bunny, which of course means vivisection for the poor condemned, carrot-cruncher... Be with us for, "The Rabbit Done Died!!"

Just as a couple of decades later, Superman became a more sci-fi oriented feature, designed to appeal to the same sort of readership via similar storytelling and marketing decisions. If there was no Marvel Family to bring in readers and their buying dollar, maybe a Superman Family could do as well. And what do you know? It did. Not the kind of business the Marvels did in wartime, but well enough just the same.

It's worth noting for fans who keen at irritating levels that Marvel was superior because they didn't engage in such shenanigans, that DC didn't at first either. It was twenty years into publishing their books that DC began to populate them with side characters in similar costume. Marvel, conversely, dove in more quickly to the de-uniquing biz, with Counter-Earth and Earth-A within their first dozen years of publishing; concepts that didn't simply add new side characters, but which flat out duplicated characters such as Reed Richards, Dr. Doom, and Tony Stark entirely. When Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, and the She-Hulk showed up in the late Seventies, they were merely on-schedule.