Hey MARVEL COMICS Enthusiausts..?

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Captain Marvel (Shazam) was created by C.C. Beck for Whiz comics back in the 40s. He was so popular he out sold Superman and thus lead to a lawsuit. After years in the courts DC finally won and Captain Marvel (SHAZAM) was canceled. Then in the late 60s Marvel Comics jumped on the Captain Marvel name (later changed to Mar-vel) since it fell into the public domain. This became a problem for DC after they purchased the rights to the first Captain Marvel in the early 70s with the intent of publishing a monthly book. Marvel prevented DC from using the name Captain Marvel on the cover thus causing the confusion that we now have. To get around this DC changed the title to SHAZAM!
From what I understand Marvel actually filed a lawsuit to prevent DC from using Captain Marvel on the cover, and only twice has his name been used on a cover. The first was Shazam 1 from 1972 and the second was on a cover of Justice League from the late 80s. Neither time was his name used as the title, but was spoken by another character....Show more

The name Captain Marvel has been used in the Marvel Universe as well as Detective Comics (DC). Captain Marvel was changed to Mar-vel in the Marvel Universe because DC sued Marvel for the rights because that is what they had named the character Shazam, even though that was the power word that the character used to transform into the alter-ego.

So there you go....Show more

The answer might be a little more complicated than you would like, because the circumstances behind Marvel establishing their own Captain Marvel character(s) and DC having to publish the original Captain Marvel under a title logo other than 'Captain Marvel' took decades to come about.

Superman first appeared in 1938, and the character showed that not only was there a room for original characters in a medium that had concentrated on reprinting newspaper strips, an original character could be as popular, if not more popular than some well known newspaper strip characters. Naturally, when Superman was given a comic book with his own name of it, as well as his venue in 'Action Comics', other publishers noticed. The first Superman imitation came along in 1939 (the same year that the quarterly 'Superman' title started appearing) and was published by Victor Fox, who had briefly worked as an accountant for the company that would become known as DC comics. Wonder Man appeared only once, because the publisher of Superman immediately sued Fox. Fox agreed to stop publishing Wonder Man but continued publishing comics.

A publisher named William Fawcett also decided to enter the comic book business and in the last few months of 1939 published the first appearance of any character named 'Captain Marvel'. Donenfield, the publisher of Superman, sued Fawcett for a violation of copyright law, claiming Captain Marvel was an outright imitation of Superman. Unlike Victor Fox, William Fawcett had a good deal of money derived from the publication of several magazines, including the very popular 'Mechanics Illustrated', so Fawcett counter-sued Donenfield for attempted obstruction and continued publishing Captain Marvel. The legal battle went on for years, and Fawcett didn't stop publishing comics featuring Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., Mary Marvel, and the Marvel Family until 1953. Fawcett threw in the towel on Captain Marvel because comics featuring super-heroic characters weren't making nearly as much money as they once had, and the super-hero herd had mostly dropped like flies in the years between 1948 and 1951. Pumping more money into legal fees to defend Captain Marvel and counter-sue National/DC comics just didn't make sense to Fawcett any longer, when super-hero comics were marginal at best. Fawcett continued publishing a few comic books (notably 'Dennis the Menace') until 1959 and then gave up on them altogether.

Fawcett quit publishing comics just about a year before super-heroes started making a comeback, and a company owned by publisher Martin Goodman, who had published comics since 1939, had their executive editor and head writer, a man named Stanley Leiber but who wrote under the name 'Stan Lee', try a book featuring a team of super-heroic characters. The book, 'Fantastic Four' was a hit and became the flagship title for Goodman's company, which was renamed 'Marvel Comics'.

Meanwhile, DC comics also had great success with super-heroic comics and started thinking about buying the Captain Marvel character from Fawcett and publishing their own Captain Marvel books. Fawcett resented the long legal battle he had fought with Superman's publishers and didn't finally decided to sell the Captain Marvel character to DC until the early 70s. Unfortunately for DC, the name 'Captain Marvel' came up for copyright renewal in 1967 and Fawcett didn't bother to renew the copyright. Another company obtained a copyright on the name when it became clear Fawcett was going to let their claim lapse, and published some pretty dreadful comics featuring a character who was named Captain Marvel but who bore no resemblance to Fawcett's 'Big Red Cheese'. That company went out of business, and Marvel bought the Captain Marvel name from them, and began publishing their own version of Captain Marvel who bore no resemblance to either of the previous Captain Marvels. When Fawcett finally sold the Captain Marvel character to DC, DC quickly learned that they wouldn't be able to publish Captain Marvel under a 'Captain Marvel' title logo. DC decided to publish not only Captain Marvel but the entire Marvel Family under the title logo 'Shazam!', the name of the Wizard who had given the members of the Marvel Family their powers.

So, to make a long story straight, no, none of Marvel's Captain Marvels (they have had three different characters who have used the name) have any relationship to DC's 'Shazam' title....Show more

Yes and he is a DC Comics...Show more