Despite its recent resurgence
in the pop culture landscape, superheroes
and comic books have been with us
for over 80 years, and just like its host
of larger-than-life characters, the history
of comic books is chock-full of wild stories.
They're sometimes more entertaining
than the heroes themselves.
It also lets you see what others don't, like
the irony of these two movie adaptations
opening only a month apart.
Though they might seem unrelated,
these two heroes share a much longer history
and if it wasn't for a single lawsuit,
we might not have seen either of them at all.
To tell this story, we need to go back to where it began,
and it starts with one man
that you will recognize in an instant.
- [Man] Up in the sky, look!
- [Woman] It's a bird!
- [Man] It's a plane!
It's Superman!
- [Narrator] The arrival of Superman on the comics scene
was revolutionary.
His 1938 debut in "Action Comics #1" essentially gave birth
to the superhero genre and what is now referred
to as the Golden Age of Comics.
He was everywhere, in his own national radio program,
newspaper comic strips, an animated short,
as well as a TV series.
It was shared in virtually every possible format imaginable
except one:
movies.
That's because someone else took his place.
- And now my son, repeat my name
and return to the rescue of your friends.
- Shazam.
- [Narrator] Captain Marvel was another hero
that made his debut in "Whiz Comics #2"
in the late 1939 published by Fawcett Comics.
It featured a 12-year-old orphaned
newsboy named Billy Batson
who can transform into an adult superhero
by shouting one word.
Captain Marvel became an instant success,
launching his own new independent series
"Captain Marvel Adventures," which would later go on
to sell more copies than "Superman."
In fact, for a while Captain Marvel was the most popular
superhero of the time, so popular that it
became the first superhero ever to be adapted
into a motion picture.
Now, there's more story behind this.
The studio behind the film, Republic Pictures,
was originally working with DC,
or National Comics Publications at the time,
to make a "Superman" picture, but they already
had an existing cartoon deal with Paramount Pictures,
which prohibited them from signing another.
So Republic Pictures chose "Captain Marvel" instead.
DC was obviously not pleased.
Fawcett had already published "Master Man,"
an obvious copy of "Superman" that they stopped publishing
after DC had threatened with lawsuit.
They believed "Captain Marvel" was
just another imitation as well.
In June 1941, National Comics finally sued Fawcett
for copyright infringement.
This began National Comics Publications
versus Fawcett Publications, one of the longest-running
legal battles in the history of comic books,
lasting over 12 years. Here's what happened.
DC's argument was simple, that Captain Marvel's main powers
and characteristics were too similar to Superman
and therefore infringed on its copyright.
Fawcett argued that although these two characters
were similar, it wasn't to the point of infringement
and that similar feats have already been performed
by other fictional characters like Popeye or Tarzan.
To prove their point, National Comics
prepared a binder over 150 pages in length
with panels from their comics of "Superman" juxtaposed
with similar panels of "Captain Marvel."
Everything was in close scrutiny, from their costumes,
boots, capes, the ability to leap great distances,
the ability to fly, extraordinary strength and speed,
invincibility to bullets, shells, explosives,
and their secret identity.
They went as far as to include
that they both had clean-cut faces.
The verdict was clear, the judge eventually ruled
that "Captain Marvel" was indeed a copy of "Superman,"
but it was Fawcett who won the trial.
It was all because of one tiny mistake,
a mistake that looked like this.
This was the copyright symbol used back in the 1950s.
The lawyers from Fawcett discovered that McClure Syndicate,
the newspaper company that published the "Superman" comics,
had forgotten to place these symbols
on several of their strips
and argued that DC had no copyright to "Superman,"
and the court agreed.
This was devastating news for DC.
It meant that it did not own Superman
and that anyone could publish Superman's stories
without legal repercussions.
This lasted over two years.
Out of 160 strips of "Superman," published
from January 1939 to April 1950,
less than half of them were from Detective Comics.
DC immediately appealed, and despite the damage,
the decision was reversed.
The judge of the case, Learned Hand,
declared "Captain Marvel"
a deliberate and unabashed duplicate of "Superman"
and told Fawcett to cease all of its publications
and pay DC for the damage it owes.
Fawcett settled.
By 1950, the Golden Age of Comic Books had come to an end.
Sales were slumping to all-time lows,
and Fawcett simply decided that it wasn't worth fighting.
They paid $400,000 in damages, almost $4 million
by today's standards, and with its last issue,
it seemed like the end for "Captain Marvel."
As you well know, it was not.
A brand-new publication that no one knew at the time
trademarked the name after it was abandoned by Fawcett.
That publication was called Marvel.
It took repeating slumps in sales
and six different iterations until Carol Danvers,
whom most of us are now familiar with,
took on the mantle of Captain Marvel in 1977.
Meanwhile, DC Comics, looking for a new hero
to add to their lineup, bought the rights
to all of Fawcett's superheroes in 1972,
including the original Captain Marvel.
The irony was that DC couldn't call him Captain Marvel
because Marvel had the name and decided to name him
after the magic catchphrase
that turns him into a superhero.
And in 2019, these two movies are being released
just a month apart from one another.
The National Comics Publications
versus Fawcett Publications is a prime example
of the thin line between plagiarism and inspiration,
and the tricky balance that all artists had
to find in the early years, a growing pain of sorts.
If it hadn't been for Superman, a revolution
in pop culture history, we wouldn't have had Shazam,
and if it hadn't been for Shazam, we would not
have had Captain Marvel.
Ironically enough, Superman, as we know,
might not have existed without Shazam as well.
During the first few years,
"Superman" also drew lots of inspiration
from the original "Captain Marvel,"
like how his bald, mad scientist archnemesis Doctor Sivana
led to Lex Luthor, and as for Superman
having the gift of flight,
it was Captain Marvel who performed that feat first.
A Superman who can't fly, can you imagine that?
Neither can I, and that alone might
be a good enough reason why we need Shazam.