The Weird History Of Captain Marvel aka Shazam | Explains 

This guy keeps saying "copyright" when I think he means "trademark."

He is no longer called Shazam any more as of the new Shazam series by Mark Waid he is now simply called The Captain & has his classic costume back & Waid's version is a hybrid of Classic Captain Marvel & New 52 Shazam.

Trivia: "Captain Marvel", the name, LEGALLY, is owned by Marvel Comics. Shazam (Billy Batson) was originally called "Captain Marvel". Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) was originally created by Bill Parker, C.C. Beck and published by Fawcett Comics back in 1939 as a rip-off of DC Comic's iconic character, Superman. DC, who was known as National Comics at the time, did not like the idea of Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) ripping off Superman, so National/DC sued Parker, Beck and Fawcett in court and LEGALLY bought rights to Captain Marvel the character (Billy Batson). After Parker, Beck and Fawcett went out of business, the Captain Marvel name got snatched by Marvel and Marvel were allowed to do that because Parker, Beck, Fawcett and National/DC forgot to trademark the Captain Marvel name and Marvel trademarked the Captain Marvel name and used the name for their characters (From Mar-Vell all the way to Carol Danvers) who took on the Captain Marvel name. And Marvel had a legal battle with another comic book company called M.F. Enterprises. Like Parker, Beck, Fawcett and DC, M.F. forgot to trademark the Captain Marvel name and created their own version of Captain Marvel who was an alien robot who had the ability to split himself apart and put himself back together again. After M.F. got sued by Marvel and went out of business because of Marvel, Captain Marvel now had two owners. Marvel owned the rights to the Captain Marvel name and DC owned the rights to Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) as a character. DC was unaware that Marvel trademarked the Captain Marvel name first, so DC got a cease-and-desist letter from Marvel telling DC that DC could not use the Captain Marvel name as a title on DC's "Shazam!" comic book covers that were and are published by DC. Shazam (Billy Batson) could still be called "Captain Marvel" in the Shazam!-related comic books published by DC, but Shazam (Billy Batson) could not be called "Captain Marvel" as a title on the front covers of the Shazam! comic books published by DC. Longtime DC fans who were new to Billy Batson got confused and thought "Shazam" was Billy Batson's superhero name. Later on in 2011, the Shazam! comic books went through reboots and became part of DC's New 52 series and DC completely dropped the Captain Marvel name and officially renamed Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) the character from "Captain Marvel" to "Shazam" to avoid conflict with Marvel Comics. So, in conclusion, LEGALLY, the Captain Marvels (From Mar-Vell all the way to Carol Danvers) from Marvel Comics are known as "Captain Marvel" and DC's Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) the character, originally owned by Parker, Beck and Fawcett, is legally known as "Shazam". Any comic book superhero fan who has been following superhero comic books and comic book superheroes since the 1930's and onward knows who the TRUE Captain Marvel was and is, and that was and is Billy Batson. DC should have renamed Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) the character's name from "Captain Marvel" to "Captain Marvelous" because back when Billy Batson was with Fawcett, his creators were trying to think of a superhero name for his alter-ego. The original name was going to be "Captain Thunder", but there was already a character named Captain Thunder. So then, Billy Batson's alter-ego was renamed "Captain Marvelous". But there was a problem: the name "Captain Marvelous" could not fit anywhere on the covers of the comic books, inside the comic books, word balloons, thought balloons and narrator boxes so the name was shortened to "Captain Marvel". Renaming the character "Shazam" was a stupid idea because there is already a character named Shazam, who was the wizard who passed on his powers to Billy Batson.

I like this video a lot. It brings up some important points about racism in popular media when they find that a favorite artist never grew out of a reprehensible social attitude. There is a lot of good info in this video, and it is very entertaining, but there are a few major errors. 1. Fawcett never went bankrupt. As you mention, Fawcett was a successful magazine publisher with a diverse line of titles. When Fawcett finally settled the lawsuit from DC in 1953, the $400,000 they agreed to pay DC and the shutting down of their comics division did not drive them into bankruptcy. It was a business-wise decision, considering that comics, particularly superhero comics, had been declining in popularity. Also, at that point in the trial, the presiding judge, Judge Learned Hand, had decided that though trying to pass off a Captain Marvel comic book as a Superman comic book (one definition of violation of copyright) did not happen, copying of actual stories and covers did. Damages would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis of each instance of copying that could be proven, one by one. This would have taken a lot of time and money for both parties to resolve, so it was simply good business sense to shut down a division of declining profits and stop fighting an expensive legal battle. 2. DC never bought "all of Fawcectt's assets." Why would they? They they got what they wanted when Fawcett agreed to stop publishing Captain Marvel. Concurrently, Fawcett shut down their entire comics division. They sold off some of their properties (mostly licensed westerns of famous western film stars) to Charlton (Including Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, which Charlton re-colored and re-named "Happy the Magic Bunny, with ""Shazam!" changed to "Ali-zam!"). Fawcett continued successfully and profitably publishing magazines (some of which exist to this day or only recently were cancelled) and paperback books for decades. In 1977 they sold out to CBS publishing for $50 million. In 1972, someone at DC Comics (some say Jack Kirby, some say Carmine Infantino) got the idea of reviving the original Captain Marvel because they wanted to. Fawcett initially licensed their superheroes to DC. DC even reprinted bunches of Fawcett stories (with the Fawcett copyright printed on the splash page of each one). It was not until 1991 that DC purchased the rights to the Fawcett superheroes outright. 3. It was not the copyright for the Captain Marvel title that had lapsed, it was the trademark (it is possible that Fawcett had never even bothered to trademark that title in the first place). The unclaimed trademark was initially used by Myron Fass' MF Enterprise as the name of a brand new superhero in 1966. That only lasted 6 issues, and the following year was when Marvel created its Captain Marvel. Myron Fass sued Fawcett for trademark infringement, and settled for a few thousand dollars, enabling Marvel to secure that trademark. 3. The Monster Society of Evil was reprinted in its entirety in a deluxe, oversized, hardcover edition in 1989. Not by DC or Fawcett, but by American Nostalgia Library, an imprint of Hawk Books Limited. there are copies available on eBay for hundreds of dollars. DC did announce a reprint a few years ago, but was sensitive enough to its "product-of-its-time" racism to cancel that plan. None of these errors detract from the point and thesis of the video, which is the racist past of popular culture, but I just wanted to clarify those details. Too many people are getting this history wrong, which is why I am writing a book about it.

This was a fun video! I still call him Captain Marvel no matter what anyone says. He's my favorite super hero of all time. By the way, you missed Mary Marvel Comics and Master Comics! Those were also published alongside Captain Marvel. To be honest, as a person of black descent, I really don't have a problem with Steamboat. Of course the way he was drawn is offensive, but I could tell they were at least trying to be more inclusive. He was written as a nice guy, and I found him funny. My black mother was okay with him too.

You make an interesting point about "separating the artist from the art." Not only did Beck not get what was wrong with Steamboat, he misrepresented the delegation of socially-conscious schoolkids (who were not black) who convinced Fawcett to discontinue the character. However, I would say that Fawcett, or at least writer Otto binder, did edeem themselves with other stories they subsequently wrote and published. One of them was "Mr. Tawny's New Home" in Captain Marvel Adventures #90, 1947. In that story, Captain Marvel's friend, the talking tiger, tries to move into a new neighborhood , only to find out it is "exclusive." Captain Marvel convinces him to stay and fight, but the townspeople start a petition, and then form a group, dressed in robes and pointy hoods,. with torches to burn "that unwanted person" out. Of course their plan goes awry, but Captain Marvel and Mr. Tawny save the day. And all ends happily. Another moment was a story in which Captain Marvel was invited to a town in which only "perfect" people were allowed to live. Captain Marvel revealed the impracticality of this rule by saying that anyone shorter than him must not be perfect. Fawcett also released "Negro Romance, the first-ever comic book of that theme. it ran for three issues in 1950. Also, in stories of "Balbo, the Boy Magician" the titular hero had a friend named John smith who was Black, drawn realistically, was of good intelligence, and spoke in standard English. So while the head artist of captain Marvel never "got" what was wrong about Steambioat, the writers and editors (at least some of them) had a clue.

Never knew about any of this. Wow, and I love Cap!

Thank you guys!

The monster society of evil should be reprinted, however with a disclaimer about the unfortunate racist stereotyping featured. It is an important piece of superhero comic history and an epic story, and should still be seen as such.

Watched a lot of comic related clips on RU-vid this week, but this was the only one I found thought provoking and fresh. Thanks for that. Keep talking about the history nobody else does

I went to the movie 🎥 Shazam furrie of the Gods,when Shazam asked the wizard Shazam who he’s called my answer I spoke in the audience was captain marvel before the wizard told Billy was called Shazam, I spoke captain marvel during the end of the movie 🎥

During wartime, DC coined the term “Japanazi” and drew the Japanese the same way, same as Disney, looney tunes and other’s, so Captain Marvel is not unique on that front and Hollywood portrayed Asians even worse.

Modern sensibility has an awkwardness when dealing with the past history of all cultures and nation’s. If comic books came from Nigeria how would they have turned out? How would they have turned out if comics came from China or Brazil? They didn’t and they came from a predominantly white country but obviously that’s baaadd!!! Like I said, don’t use modern sensibilities on the past!!!

DC Comics Cancels Shazam: The Monster Society Of Evil Hardcover Over Racist Concerns Posted on August 1, 2018 | by Rich Johnston | Comments The left hand of DC Comics was publishing the Captain Marvel series The Monster Society Of Evil in a Shazam deluxe hardcover form. A historically important shift for superhero comics into longform storytelling, running serialised from 1943 to 1945, one of the first stories to do so, it does also contain a number of negative racial stereotypes towards black people…

The character was MARY MARVEL, not MS MARVEL; it also doesn’t strike me as very significant for you to take Fawcett and Beck to task for being just as racist as their contemporaries, at a time when being racist was the norm, and then not go after those contemporaries...better you had focused on the topic of racist stereotypes in old comics/ media, AS A WHOLE, and not hold up Fawcett, as if they were some kind of outlier...

Pace yourself.

1) the character was called MARY MARVEL, not MS MARVEL; 2) in 1980, CC BECK was 70 YRS OLD; you act surprised he was just as casually racist as, I don’t know, RONALD REAGAN...I personally would have preferred to see you talk about racist stereotypes in all media of the 40’s, as opposed to focusing on Fawcett comics, as if they were some kind of outlier...

The critique of 1940's Captain Marvel is anachronistic. It's absurd to judge the past by postmodern standards. What is offensive in our current culture was acceptable in the past. Progressives can't have it both ways. If truth is relative, then it stands to reason that the past depictions of racial minorities wasn't offensive because the majority of the population had no problem with it. Incidentally, The Monster Society of Evil was indeed reprinted in the 1990s. I have a bound volume. The same criticism regarding past racism in comics could be applied to "fat shaming" because superheroes are muscle-bound, or "sexism" because women are depicted as physically alluring. No one wants to read comics featuring overweight, tattooed, bodied pierced, pink-haired landwhales.

I use to like captain racist 😮

I was unaware of the character Stramboat before this video, but since his existence seems to have been almost totally retconned I'm not surprised at that. C. C. Beck was born into a world NONE of us experienced. Unpleasant as it seems to us now, rampant racism (and of course sexism) was simply part and parcel of everyday life. It permeated every media - comic books, films, Disney, Looney Tunes, theatre and music. Yes, it's wrong. It was just as wrong then as it is now, but viewpoints were entirely different then. We can either accept these as historical documentation of a world we no longer agree with but cannot ignore existed, or we can hide them away and pretend it never happened. Just like holocaust deniers.

I find the basic tenet of this MORALLY repugnant. It is reprehensible to look back in history and judge people through today's lens. You somewhat redeemed yourself by at least asking the question (basically) if these should be preserved or allowed to disappear into obscurity. History should NEVER be allowed to (or changed) disappear into obscurity. It is be studying history that we make changes to BE better. I also feel it is wrong for your generation to feel the need to change the definition of racist/racism. Racism USED to mean the belief one race was superior to another based on the color of skin. Using the vernacular of Steamboat's dialogs was somewhat accurate for the times...NOT racist. To paint/color Asian characters as yellow and with too big front teeth is no different than todays political cartoonists drawing Obama with big ears or Trump with flamboyant orange hair. It is a caricature. It can be offensive, complimentary, or funny...but just because YOU find it offensive does NOT make it racist....well, by TODAY'S standard, it IS racist...but that is exactly what is wrong with today's society...people are always looking to stand out by calling everything racist. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame by being a social justice warrior.