Writer Judd Winick is sure that some people are going to loathe his reimagining of Captain Marvel.

He just hopes that more people love it.

“Captain Marvel should be a big name, but the truth is the books don’t sell for DC,” said Winick. “I keep hearing how Captain Marvel once outsold Superman. … But that was in 1943. Today, we can’t sell his books. We had to take it a different way.”

That’s what he did with “The Trials of Shazam,” released recently as the first of a 12-issue series.

Gone are the simple drawings, the bright colors and outmoded stories that worked in the ’40S but failed to sustain an audience a generation or two later.

With unexpectedly dark art by Howard Porter, “Trials” is the maturing of Captain Marvel. The series basically features only two characters: Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr.

“I hated all those other Marvels, the hillbilly Marvel, the fat Marvel – give me a break,” Winick said. “So in the first issue, we explain that Captain Marvel had to absorb all that magic back into himself to restore the Rock of Eternity, which was destroyed in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. That allowed me to get rid of those other characters.”

By the end of the first issue, Captain Marvel has aged and taken on the role of the wizard overseeing the Marvel magic. Beginning with Issue Two, Captain Marvel Jr. tries to prove himself worthy of becoming his replacement.

There are two appealing concepts inherent in the original Captain Marvel saga. One is that at its core, it is juvenile-boy wish fulfillment.

“Imagine, a 10-year-old homeless boy speaks a magic word and turns into a superhero who can save the world,” said Winick. “How great is that?”

The other concept is the transformation of handicapped Freddy Freeman into the powerful Captain Marvel Jr. – more wish fulfillment. Not only is the boy’s lame leg healed, but he gets super powers, at least for a while.

“If Captain Marvel is going to make it, there needed to be drastic changes, and that’s what we did,” said Winick. “After all, is anyone today going to want to read about a villain who is an inch-long worm that wears glasses? (Mr. Mind, who was an alien worm, to be fair.) I don’t think so. We’re getting away from the silly stuff.”