Reply To: Hobby Weekender 05/04/19 Weave me a yarn

[dawfyddParticipant 11926xp 0]

@woldenspoons oh the Captain Marvel naming shenanigans get worse than that – the Big Red Cheese wasn’t even a DC character to start with. The character was created by Fawcett Comics in the wake of Supermans success and for a time surpassed DC’s creations by an order of magnitude. He was the first character to make it onto cinema screens, and in one year moved over 14 million comics. DC set the lawyers on Fawcett and they won on appeal. Fawcett cceased publication of Captain Marvel and shuttered a few years later. The Fawcett characters hung around in limbo for a few years, during which Marvel decided they should really trademark the character with their own title in the name so launched their take in the late 60’s, but whereas Fawcett’s character was a young boy who gained power by speaking the name of the wizard Shazam, cosmically empowered Kree soldier Mar-Vell found himself bound to teenager Rick Jones, one of the two finding themselves in the Negative Zone until the other struck their Nega-bands together (sorry, I recently listened to the Character Corner podcasts deep dive into the Captain Marvel characters and they revel in the dickery of Marvel & DC). DC eventually resurrected OG Captain Marvel but Marvel Comics told them to loose the name off the title of the book after a couple of issues. DC have spent most of the last few decades trying to get Shazam to stick as a name, and he’s become one of Geoff Johns pet projects (along with Hawkman & Black Adam).