The Convoluted History of Captain Marvel, Shazam, and Miracleman
When real world legal drama is stranger than the fiction on the page
If you were to approach a random stranger on the street and ask them who Captain Marvel is, odds are pretty good they would say Carol Danvers (or more likely Brie Larson for playing the character in 2019’s Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame). Danvers is a pretty prominent character and frequent member of the Avengers both in the comics and films put out by Marvel. For those who haven’t been reading comic books for multiple decades, it might come as a surprise to learn that Carol Danvers has only held the mantle of Captain Marvel in the comics since 2012. Prior to that, four different characters had used the moniker (six if you include the brief Skrull impersonator leading up to Secret Invasion and Noh-Varr’s short stint during the “Dark Reign” era). While that might seem surprising, it’s actually pretty commonplace for a mantle to change hands in comics. Numerous characters have been Captain America for example. What isn’t commonplace, however, is for characters to hold a mantle across multiple publishing companies. That’s exactly what the case is with Captain Marvel.
Fawcett Comics and the birth of Captain Marvel
Travel back in time with me to 1940. Superhero comic books are a relatively new form of entertainment, but they have quickly exploded in popularity. The craze was kicked off in 1938’s Action Comics #1 from what would later become known as DC Comics. That issue featured Superman, the first modern comic book superhero (created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster). I’m going to go out on a limb and assume anyone reading this knows who Superman is. Regardless, he set the template for what a superhero is. He wore a skintight blue bodysuit with an “S” emblem on his chest and a red cape. In his earliest appearances, he possessed superhuman abilities such as super strength, invulnerability, X-ray vision, and incredible leaping ability. It wouldn’t be long before other publishers would try to replicate the Superman formula and cash in on the superhero craze. No publisher had more success with that formula than Fawcett Comics. In 1940, Fawcett Comics published Whiz Comics #2. Adorning the cover was a brand new superhero character wearing a costume composed of a skintight red bodysuit, a yellow lightning bolt logo on the chest, and a white cape. This was Captain Marvel. Created by C.C. Beck and Bill Parker, Captain Marvel essentially had the same powers of Superman but with a twist: Captain Marvel’s alter ego was that of a young boy named Billy Batson. Billy was granted his powers by a wizard named Shazam. By shouting “Shazam,” Billy is granted the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. Get it? The gimmick of making the hero a young boy was a successful one as Captain Marvel quickly became the most popular superhero of the decade. While it’s difficult to find sources with concrete sales figures, the number I frequently came across while doing research for this piece is that the comic Captain Marvel Adventures sold fourteen million copies in 1944. While difficult to verify exact numbers, there does seem to be consensus that comics featuring Captain Marvel were the bestselling comics of the 1940s. This success did not go unnoticed.
DC Comics Lawsuits and Marvelman
The publisher that would go on to be named DC Comics viewed Fawcett Comics and Captain Marvel not just as competitors but as engaging in copyright infringement. They felt that Captain Marvel was a blatant ripoff of Superman, and they sued Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement in 1941. The lawsuit went through seven years of litigation before eventually going to trial in 1948. The initial verdict came in 1951. The presiding judge found that Captain Marvel was an infringement, but the court ruled in favor of Fawcett due to DC being negligent in copyrighting several news strips featuring Superman. Fawcett’s victory was short lived. Following an appeal, a judge in 1952 found that DC’s Superman copyright was valid and sent the case back to the lower courts for a retrial. Rather than continuing to fight the lawsuit, Fawcett decided to settle with DC in 1953 by paying DC $400,000 in damages and agreeing to cease publication of comics featuring Captain Marvel. Fawcett would subsequently go out of business that year.
The downfall of Fawcett Comics and the cessation of any comics being published featuring Captain Marvel negatively impacted more than just Captain Marvel fans. A small British publisher called L. Miller & Son also faced some newfound hardships. L. Miller & Son had found success by publishing reprints of American comics for British audiences. Their most popular reprints were those starring Captain Marvel. With no more Captain Marvel comics being published, L. Miller & Son had to scramble to find a replacement. Eventually they turned to writer and artist Mick Anglo for assistance. Anglo essentially took Captain Marvel and his supporting cast and did a few quick redesigns to turn them into “original” characters to continue the stories that Captain Marvel had been dealing with. This new character was named Marvelman, and he had all of the same powers and abilities as Captain Marvel with a few tweaks. The alter ego for Marvelman was Micky Moran instead of Bill Batson, and his new magical phrase to become Marvelman was Kimota (“atomic” spelled backwards with a “k”) instead of Shazam. His adventures began in Marvelman #25 (renamed from its previous title, Captain Marvel) published in 1954. The series was a huge hit among British audiences, and it would continue publication up to 1963.
Silver Age Shenanigans: Marvel Comics Swoops In
The 1960s saw a revival in the popularity of superhero comics that would come to be known as the Silver Age. Marvel Comics had ascended to the mountaintop during this decade with new characters like Spider-Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Avengers. While thriving in this new era, the publisher came to realize that there no longer existed a copyright for the name Captain Marvel. Seeing an opportunity to strike, Stan Lee and Gene Colan created a new character named Captain Marvel that would appear in 1967’s Marvel Super-Heroes #12. This new character was a member of the alien race known as the Kree. His real name is Mar-Vell, but humans begin calling him Marvel upon mishearing him. His powers include super strength, flight, energy absorption and manipulation, and a Cosmic Awareness. He was quickly given his own solo series titled Captain Marvel that debuted in 1968. The series and character didn’t really resonate with readers until writer and artist Jim Starlin took over the series with Captain Marvel #25 in 1973. Starlin leaned heavily into the cosmic setting of the character and used psychedelic imagery and heady science fiction concepts to tell mind bending stories. A key member of Captain Marvel’s supporting cast was Carol Danvers who would go on to obtain similar powers and become Ms. Marvel. She would get her own solo series in 1977, and eventually she would adopt the Captain Marvel moniker herself as previously mentioned.
Meanwhile, DC Comics attempted to bulk up their own line of superhero comics by purchasing the rights to the original Captain Marvel and his supporting cast from Fawcett Comics. They began publishing stories featuring Captain Marvel in 1973 under the title of Shazam!: The Original Captain Marvel. The title was quickly shortened to just Shazam!: The World’s Mightiest Mortal after Marvel Comics issued a cease and desist letter. Captain Marvel would go on to be integrated into the DC Comics continuity, but his name would never appear on the cover of any of his comics in order to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits from Marvel Comics. How ironic that DC’s own litigious nature that killed Captain Marvel’s comics at Fawcett was now negatively impacting their own ability to market Captain Marvel comics that they were now publishing. Eventually DC would bite the bullet and abandon the Captain Marvel moniker altogether. In 2012, they officially renamed the character Shazam in a backup story in Justice League #7 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. It’s an interesting coincidence that this was the same year that Marvel bestowed the Captain Marvel moniker on Carol Danvers. Further linking these two characters, the first Captain Marvel movie in the MCU starring Brie Larson was released in cinemas in 2019. That’s the same year the first Shazam! film in the DCEU hit cinemas starring Zachary Levi.
Marvelman Returns
This convoluted story isn’t over yet! In 1982, the character of Marvelman was resurrected in the pages of a brand new black and white British anthology magazine called Warrior and its editor Dez Skinn. Skinn tabbed writer Alan Moore and artist Garry Leach to work on a new story that would be told in six page increments in issues of Warrior. This new incarnation of Marvelman would be radically different from his 1950s counterpart. Moore would use Marvelman to tell a mature story aimed at adults that would deconstruct the superhero mythos and examine what a being with near godlike powers would be like in the real world. These types of stories are commonplace in 2023, but this was truly groundbreaking territory in 1982. Moore has gone on to become synonymous with superhero deconstruction, and that all started with this story. On a personal note, this is my favorite story Moore has ever written.
While doing research for this piece, I tried to find how Dez Skinn had managed to acquire the rights to Marvelman but could never find a good answer. That’ll become more important later.
Moore would continue writing his Marvelman story for Warrior with a variety of artists through Warrior #21 before going on hiatus. Skinn has said that this is due to legal pressure from Marvel Comics due to the use of “Marvel” in the character’s name. Regardless, Warrior was canceled after twenty-six issues due to poor sales. After the end of Warrior, the rights to Marvelman were sold to Pacific Comics in 1984. Pacific Comics was almost immediately bought by Eclipse Comics after that, and Eclipse decided to start publishing colored reprints of Moore’s story under the title of Miracleman to avoid any legal entanglements. After the pages from Warrior had all been reprinted, Moore returned to begin writing new material beginning with Miracleman #6 with art from Chuck Austen. Multiple artists would join Moore on the title until he completed his planned story in 1988. Following Moore’s departure, Neil Gaiman would take over writing duties with Mark Buckingham on art. Gaiman and Buckingham were only able to complete one arc (which experienced multiple delays). Gaiman has intimated that financial turmoil within Eclipse had impacted the release schedule, and Eclipse would ultimately file for bankruptcy in 1995 with the story unfinished.
In 2009, it was discovered that the rights to Miracleman had actually stayed with creator Mick Anglo and had never legally transferred to either Skinn or Eclipse. Upon learning this, Marvel Comics purchased the rights to the character directly from Anglo. After a long hiatus, Marvel began publishing reprints of Moore’s Miracleman comics in 2014 along with some brand new short stories from various other creators. In 2015, Marvel began publishing reprints of Gaiman and Buckingham’s Miracleman series (retitled Miracleman: The Golden Age), and in 2022 began publishing brand new stories from Gaiman and Buckingham titled Miracleman: The Silver Age with promises that Gaiman and Buckingham would ultimately conclude their story with Miracleman: The Dark Age once Miracleman: The Silver Age is completed. Beyond that, Marvel teased in the one-shot comic Timeless in 2021 that Miracleman would ultimately join the primary Marvel continuity in the near future.
So let’s recap. Captain Marvel was originally a Fawcett Comics superhero in the Golden Age that was forced into cancellation due to lawsuits from DC Comics. Marvel Comics in the 1960s then created their own Captain Marvel character completely separate from the one in the 1940s that has evolved over time to become arguably its most famous female superhero. DC Comics ended up buying the rights to the character that they had originally killed in the first place, but they were eventually forced to change the character’s name to Shazam to avoid legal action from Marvel Comics. Lastly, a British ripoff of the original Captain Marvel named Marvelman was forced to change its name to Miracleman to avoid legal repercussions from Marvel only for Marvel to later acquire the rights to the character anyway meaning they now own both their own version of Captain Marvel plus a blatant ripoff of the original Captain Marvel. And people think superheroes are for children…
Now that your brains are all sufficiently melted, maybe you should unwind by watching a lighthearted superhero movie. Is there anything like that currently in cinemas? Oh…