Shazam and Marvel
Although superheroes and comic books in the world of pop culture have been on the rise recently, it has been ingrained in our fantasy world for over 80 years. There are many stories behind the creation and popularity of these characters. Who has appeared in the colorful pages of comics? Sometimes those stories become more interesting than the main characters, as with DC Comics ‘Shazam and Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel.
To tell the story of these two Captain Marvels, we have to go back to the very beginning. The beginning of the story revolves around him, whose hand is so prevalent in superhero comics today. It’s not that there weren’t superheroes in the comics world before Superman, but no one has responded as well as Superman. The popularity of superheroes in comics has grown since the first issue of Action Comics, published in 1938 by Detective Comics (now known as DC Comics). That is why that time is called the golden age of comics. The character, who bought it for just 130, became so popular that he printed comics and went to radio programs, animation, and TV shows. But Superman failed to make a name for himself as the first superhero in the world of cinema, a character who was even more popular than Superman at that time!
Superman’s colossal success has inspired other comic publications to create Superman-like characters. So, one by one, superhero-like Skyman, Captain Freedom, The Flame, Stardust the Super Wizard, or Gary Concord the Ultraman keep coming. But none of them was as successful as Captain Marvel.
The stories that followed Captain Marvel’s appearance in comics were full of magic and fantasy. Captain Marvel is 12-year-old Billy Batson. Billy, who lost his parents at an early age, gets all his strange powers from an old magician named Shazam. Whenever Billy shouted the magician’s name, lightning struck him, and he turned into Captain Marvel. Then he started a mission to save the ordinary people by losing the evil people. Here Captain Marvel seems to be representing his readers. Because most of the comics students at that time were children and teenagers. Billy Batson, who is the same age as them, became a superhero with a word of magic, which significantly impacted Shazam’s popularity. Superman was born on a different planet. He has never been able to do so much in the guise of a journalist. That’s why Wiz Comics has sold more than 5 lakh copies of that issue.
Captain Marvel surpassed Superman in that year in terms of comics sales. The popularity grew so much that the first comic book made its name on the movie screen. Republic Pictures released the movie The Adventures of Captain Marvel. However, they were already working with National Comics (Detective Comics) to make Superman. But National Comics had a contract with Paramount Pictures for the Superman animated series, which is why they couldn’t make a deal for the movie. So, Republic Pictures chose Captain Marvel instead of Superman.
But Fawcett comics may have imitated Superman a little too much. As more and more new issues of Captain Marvel began to emerge, his resemblance to Superman came to the fore. Finally, in June 1941, National Comics filed a lawsuit against Fawcett Comics for violating copyright laws. Then began the legal battle between National Comics vs. Fast Comics. The two sides have been fighting this war for twelve years, the longest in the history of comic books. He filed the National Comics lawsuit in September 1941, but it went to court seven years later.
DC claimed that Captain Marvel’s abilities and features were similar to Superman’s, violating copyright law. On the other hand, Fawcett claims that although there are similarities between the two superheroes, this does not mean that they have broken the law. Such similarities exist in many more fictional characters, such as Tarzan or Papaya.
National Comics produced a binder of about 150 pages to prove themselves trustworthy, with some panels of Superman and Captain Marvel comics arranged side by side. That’s how close Captain Marvel is to Superman. From their costumes to their boots, capes, to their ability to cover long distances, to their strength, to their ability to run very fast, and to their bullets, nothing happened. They also claim that Captain Marvel’s appearance is similar to Superman’s; Although Beck wanted to make Fred McMurray look like Marvel. The name Captain Marvel has been around since the beginning of the superhero triumph for almost 80 years. Although he had to fight for so many years because he resembled Superman, Shazam could still fly Superman and was inspired to create enemies like Lex Luthor. On the other hand, after the success of Marvel’s Captain Marvel comics and animation, it has also aroused a response on the silver screen.
So that’s how a copyright infringement lawsuit and a 12-year war in court gave birth to Shazam in DC Comics and Captain Marvel in Marvel Comics.