Shazam versus Captain Marvel

[Artistsean]

I know years back, before I was born, there was a lawsuit between Marvel and DC over the name Captain Marvel. and I heard that Marvel won, before I was born, and DC had to change Captain Marvel's name to Shazam.

But Even before I heard about this I new Captain Marvel as Captain Marvel and not Shazam, so when and how did he start getting called Captain Marvel again?
And why did Marvel's Captain Marvel change his name to Mar-vell?
Was there some turn over of the lawsuit or a loophole or something?

 

[Kebab gud]

Captain marvel has ALWAYS had that name .. its just the book had to change it name

Captain Marvel has NEVER been calld Shazam.. just the book

Fawcett was unable to revive Captain Marvel because in order to settle the lawsuit it had agreed never to publish the character again. Eventually, they licensed the characters to DC Comics in 1972, and DC began planning a revival. Because Marvel Comics had by this time established its own claim to the use of Captain Marvel as a comic book title, DC published their book under the name Shazam! Since then, that title has become so linked to Captain Marvel that some readers have taken to identifying the character as "Shazam" instead of his actual name.

(the lawsuit in the beginning there is the DC- Fawcett thingi)

 

[Artistsean]

Thanks.
So a comic character can have the same name as the other comic character, like Sandman from DC and Sandman from Marvel, but the title of the comic MUST be different?

Thanks.

 

[BrianWilly]

That's about right. I mean, sometimes different comic book companies somehow manage to come out with same-titled comics anyway, but this case in particular was pretty public knowledge.

Actually, right now Freddy Freeman is in the process of being turned into "Shazam," and Billy Batson is just "Marvel." So if Judd Winick has his way, this whole litigation thing will no longer be an issue. Y'know, as if it were ever an issue before.

 

[Ikaris-Eternal]

i think the Shazam tv series from early 70's confused people also. If i'm not mistaken, captain marvel was named Shazam on the show (for legal reasons)

and wasn't Marvel's Captain Marvel always named Mar-Vell? That's his Kree name, right?

 

[Kebab gud]

Nope .. infact Shazam himself was never shown in the TVseries..

 

[CanaryFan]

i think the Shazam tv series from early 70's confused people also. If i'm not mistaken, captain marvel was named Shazam on the show (for legal reasons)

and wasn't Marvel's Captain Marvel always named Mar-Vell? That's his Kree name, right?

No, The show was called Shazam but the character was still Captian Marvel.

 

[King Namor]

Actually National/DC sued Fawcett because they claimed Captain Marvel was a copyright infringement of Superman. Fawcett won the case but National appealed and won. Later DC purchased Fawcett and started using all of their old superheroes including Captain Marvel. It is ironic how after DC put little Fawcett out of business they started using the character they were gunning for and even gave him a power-up making him even more like Supes. I guess after they owned him they decided he didn't look so much like Superman after all. That is just wrong, cold blooded wrong.

Mar-Vell was always the name of the original Marvel version of Captain Marvel. Marvel had no part in this and probably doesn't care if there are Captain Marvel's in every comic universe.

At the time of the suit, Captain Marvel and the Marvel family were Fawcett's biggest export product to England. When they said they could no longer license them the rights to make Captain Marvel reprints the comic fans over the pond went nuts. So the company that had been doing the reprints created a Captain Marvel of their own called Marvelman which seemed to satisfy the masses in England. In time that company went belly up and the rights to Marvelman were purchased by Eclipse comics.

Allan Moore and Neil Gaimen revived the character but Eclipse would not let them call him Marvelman fearing Marvel would make them the next Fawcett. So the Moore/Gaimen character was named Miricleman.

After Eclipse went bankrupt the rights to Miricleman fell into the hands of Todd Mcfarlane. Gaimen tried to get the rights to him saying he had a deal with Eclipse and he owned a percentage of his characters there. Mcfarlane replied "suck what?"

I know this because I ave always been a CM fan and I was a Miricleman fan back in the beginning and collected the entire run and it was all re-hashed in recent years when Gaimen tried to get Miricleman back. I would have loved to see what he did with the character now, because he was not nearly so dark back when he wrote MM originally.

If I remember correctly Gaimen lost his Mircle rights but was able to snatch a conan type female warrior he created for Medevil Spawn away from Mcfarlane. Todd has never used Miricleman and probably never will but neither will anyone else.

 

[BrianWilly]

You also have to think about the fact that, back then, there weren't nearly as many high-profile superheroes as there are today. Today if you made someone called, oh, say, They Sentry and gave him a cape, superstrength, flight, and a big 'ol S on his costume, people just say "LOL HOMAGE or PARODY or SAME KIND OF CHARACTER" or whatever. Back then it would have been like, "what? There's someone else with the same looks and powers as our character? And he's relatively popular? What do we do?...uh LAWSUIT!"