The Infamous Shazam Lawsuit

DC Comics used all their legal power to kill Captain Marvel and turn him into Shazam, but Marvel's response changed comic history forever!

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The Brain Teaser, Bonnie Davies, Senita Mahoney, Jonathan & Megan Pierson, Cody Plourde, David Adler, Milton Appling, Ralph Braganzan, Ethan Dannen, Yoav Haimovitz, LookWhosFhtagn, Scott Nesmith, Casper Qvortrup, Andrew Shaffer, Talentless Hack, Vydal

The song "Jiro Dreams" by Cocabona X Glimlip was provided by Lofi Girl.

The photo of Geoff Johns was provided by Luigi Novi.

Tags: #Shazam #Superman #DCComics

[Dusxio]

Why black characters with lightning powers? I think it's the colour scheme. The brightness of electrical powers really works well with the darker skin tones, gives a sharp contrast when you give them bright coloured hair, and honestly really looks good with shading and the like.

[jacobwilliams]

I feel like DC should've just renamed Billy Batson's hero persona Captain Thunder when they acquired him. Gives him a legally distinct name to work with, and also avoids the issue of Billy both having the same name as the Wizard and also being actually able to tell people his hero name without turning into/out of said form.

[monstersociety]

The legal problems, confusion & weirdness of Shazam continues to this day, too! The MCU Captain Marvel movie and the Shazam! movie both debuted roughly a month away from each other in the same year!

Shazam! is my favorite character, btw.

[Varatho]

I blame the electric powers thing on the Superfriends. They couldn't get the rights to Black Lightning, so they made Black Vulcan. Black Vulcan later inspired Static Shock, and recently Black Lightning got his own TV show.

[GenerationWest]

This is one story I now know by heart from years of coverage, now when I need to explain it to casual fans, I can put it in bullet points lol
(Black characters with lighting powers seems to be a color theory. Contrast something dark, with light to stand out)

[Neyebureturns]

I’ve seen a lot of videos about the legal battle of Shazam/Captain Marvel, but you weren’t lying, you explain things that other haven’t done.
But I still wonder why the call him The Big Red Cheese

[adrianomoraes]

The second part is gonna be the Miracleman stuff?
That gives me a headache every time I remember all the crazy angles of that story and how it ended up with Marvel after YEARS of 2 main names in the industry fighting for it.

[WrestlingWithGaming]

What a legal rollercoaster. Dude, this might be my new favorite video of yours. The editing, script, research, and delivery were all perfect.

[mattwo]

The funny thing about all this is that Superman is weak to magic, which means that with enough training, Batson could totally beat him in a fight.

[Santoryu]

I know having a black character with lightning powers is kinda a cliché at this point and I personally don’t mind it at all. It’s probably one of my favorite super powers in general and if I had to choose what power to have that definitely would be one of them.

[JoseAlvarezV]

I was not aware of all the history Shazam had, thank you for this video!

[CaptainMarvelCulture]

As someone who has been researching the history of all the Captain Marvels for over a decade, I must say that this is a very entertaining and informative video that covers a lot of historical ground and makes some good points. I am particularly glad that you brought up Marvelman/Miracleman, and I look forward to watching that video. However, you do have a few inaccuracies abut the whole Captain Marvel/DC thing here, and a few other things that I would like to inquire about or elaborate on.

1. Fawcett's "Master Man" was created after their Captain Marvel. CM was their first Superhero and Whiz #2 their first comic book.

2. The issue about "Captain Thunder" as the hero's name is debatable, but not about trademark. Some sources say that the name was thought "too clamorous." Ralph Daigh said in court that it was his idea to change the name because he didn't like it. But other sources suggest that the name was changed because a month before Whiz #2 came out, a character named "Captain Terry Thunder" appeared in Jungle Comics #1.

3. Legal technicality department: The judge stated that similarities and differences of characters are not the defining factor in determining copyright infringement, but copying stories and pictures are, and between testimony and exhibits, he found that there was copying..

4. Not a correction, but an inquiry dept: What is your source on Carl Burgos' motivation for creating the MF Enterprises' Captain Marvel? I have been trying to find more info on that. I do know that Burgos worked for Myron Fass, who published that comic, and that the credit in the first issue was :based on a character created by Carl Burgos." The nebulousness of that credit really has md me wondering how much input Burgos actually had.

Remember, also, that 1966 was the year Batman, Green Hornet, and the Marvel Superheroes came on TV and Superman had a Broadway musical, so there was a boom in superhero comics. Even former Fawcett writer Otto Binder and artist CC Beck put out "Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer" that year. Myron Fass was a publishing opportunist/schlockmeister, so there may have been more elements in play with the timing and naming of this character.

5. Elaboration Dept.: There are two competing histories of how and why DC decided to revive the original Captain Marvel. Carmine Infantino, publisher of DC at the time, said that he was a big fan of Captain Marvel and just decided to see if Fawcett would let them bring him back. So he called Fawcett and asked what it would take and they said "make us an offer." A good move on Fawcett's part, since they owned a property8 they otherwise could not make any money on.

The other version is told by Mark Evanier who worked with Jack Kirby. When Kirby was with DC i in the early 1970's, he suggested that DC revive a number of old heroes, and he would edit their new stories. One of them was Captain Marvel (of which he and Joe Simon had done one issue back in 1940). it was that suggestion that led to the call which got the licensing contract.

Since pretty much no one who was involved with DC during the time of the lawsuit with Fawcett was still involved with DC in 1972, the idea that DC audaciously "stole" Captain Marvel seems a little strong.

That is great work on explaining the difference between copyright and trademark, though. A lot of people just don't get it.

[Juniper_Rose]

Drake, there's no way Pikachu is African-American.

He's Japanese. Still black, though.

[JdeeGeekyGao]

As a Shazam fan yes, knew all this, but this is the most well-presented version that I can use to send my friends to this vid when they ask me about Shazam. Because I love my lightning/thunder characters XD But I saw I think it was Pandaredd's TikTok speaking of this and he dropped your name and I was like 'I have to find this persona and follow them.'

[jakepalermo]

Doesn't Billy taking the name Shazam also mean he's fully succeeded the wizard?

[marcovalenzuela]

Good video. As for the black hero with lightning powers cliche, part of it may be that for the longest time DC didn't know if the license for Black Lightning belonged to them or his original creator. So they made ripoffs of him, the most blatant being Black Vulcan from Super friends. It wasn't until the 80s, I think, that DC found that they did have the rights to Black Lightning. However, I did read this on TVTropes, so you may want to check these facts.

[demiurgc]

As usual, brilliant work Drake. Keep it up


Also I didn't think that I needed to hear that Captain Marvel was also known as the Big Red Cheese but I am thankful that I heard it

[harrietr.]

I love the nickname "Big Red Cheese", since you can tell that's what his villains nicknamed hin, like Sonic as "the Blue Blur", even an evil scientist with laser guns mounted by aiming-to-kill A.I. can't hit someone so fast, it'd be a trait that scientist might swear under their breathe later in retrospect.

[LazarusTheGeek]

Loved this vid! Great introduction to your channel.

I really hope you do chase down that whole "black heroes with electricity powers" because I'm super curious about that.

[scinnyc]

That African American Captain Thunder would've been a great idea. But I think DC kinda payed that off by having a Black Captain Marvel in the Elseworlds reality where Supergirl and Batwoman were Earth's main heroes. Fantastic video by the way