Shazam (DC Comics)

• 1. Introduction

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  Shazam, the comic book hero also called Captain Marvel, headlined an issue, Whiz Comics #2, that sold over 500,000 copies. The hero at its center is a boy who becomes a towering adult by speaking a single word. Yet this same character would later be unable to print his own name on his covers. He would be taken to court, copied overseas, cancelled, and rebuilt by one writer after another. Why did a hero this popular lose his name? What ended his first run on the newsstands? And what keeps pulling him back into print?

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• 2. A Hero Called Thunder

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  In 1939, Fawcett Publications opened a comics division, eager to follow the success of National Comics and its new heroes Superman and Batman. Staff writer Bill Parker was recruited to create heroes for the first title, tentatively named Flash Comics. His creations included Ibis the Invincible, Spy Smasher, the Golden Arrow, Lance O'Casey, Scoop Smith and Dan Dare.

  Parker also wrote a story about six superheroes, each holding a special power granted by a mythological figure. Fawcett's executive director, Ralph Daigh, decided that one hero carrying all six powers would work better than a team. Parker answered by inventing a character called Captain Thunder.

  Staff artist Charles Clarence Beck, known as C. C., was recruited to design and draw the story. He gave it a direct, slightly cartoony look that became his trademark. Beck told an interviewer that he and Parker found the superhero comics of late 1939 poorly written and poorly drawn. In his words, they wanted to give readers "a real comic book," drawn in comic-strip style and going back to "the old folk-tales and myths of classic times."

  The first issue was printed in the fall of 1939 as both Flash Comics #1 and Thrill Comics #1. It was a small run meant for advertising and trademark purposes. Soon afterward, Fawcett learned that it could not trademark Captain Thunder, Flash Comics or Thrill Comics, because all three names were already in use. The book became Whiz Comics. Artist Pete Costanza suggested calling the hero Captain Marvelous, and the editors shortened it to Captain Marvel. The word balloons in the story were re-lettered to match.

  Actor Fred MacMurray supplied the model for the hero's look, though people also compared him to Cary Grant and Jack Oakie. Fawcett's founder, Wilford H. Fawcett, carried the nickname "Captain Billy." That nickname gave the hero his alter ego's name, Billy Batson, and his title. Fawcett's earliest magazine, Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, gave Whiz Comics its name. Circulation director Roscoe Kent Fawcett recalled telling the staff, "Give me a Superman, only have his other identity be a 10- or 12-year-old boy rather than a man."

  Whiz Comics #2 itself carried no copyright registration or renewal.

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• 3. Lightning Underground

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  Whiz Comics #2, cover-dated February 1940 but published in late 1939, introduces Billy Batson as a homeless 12-year-old newsboy. He sleeps in a subway station in New York City, a home that later DC stories call Fawcett City. A mysterious man in a green cloak asks him to follow. A magic subway car, painted in unusual shapes and colors, carries them to an underground throne room.

  On the throne sits a very old man with a long beard and a white robe. He is the wizard Shazam, and for over 3,000 years he has fought evil with the powers of six immortal elders: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury. Their initials spell his name. Now he is too old to go on and needs a successor.

  Billy is chosen because of his misfortune. After his parents died, a greedy uncle threw him out and stole his inheritance. Later retellings add that Billy is pure of heart.

  Ordered to speak the wizard's name, Billy is struck by a bolt of lightning and becomes an adult hero in a red costume with gold trim. The wizard names him Captain Marvel and tells him to carry on the work. Then a stone block hanging above the throne falls and kills the wizard, as prophesied. In later retellings the wizard returns at once as a spirit mentor, summoned by lighting a torch on the wall of his lair. That lair sits inside the Rock of Eternity, a bicone-shaped rock at the nexus of time and space.

  Saying "Shazam" lets Billy call down the lightning, and Captain Marvel can say it again to turn back into Billy. His first battle is against the mad scientist Doctor Sivana, who becomes his archenemy. Billy also talks his way into a job as an on-air reporter at radio station WHIZ, which lets him travel and investigate crime. Sivana's adult daughter Beautia becomes an unwitting love interest for the shy hero, despite her wavering loyalty to her father.

  Each letter of the magic word S-H-A-Z-A-M names a gift. Solomon's wisdom brings perfect memory, fluency in every language and strategic combat skill. Hercules provides strength often compared to Superman's. In Golden Age stories it is limitless, enough to move stars and planets. Atlas supplies stamina, so Billy needs no food, sleep or even breath. Zeus's power drives the transformation itself, along with lightning bursts and spellcasting, and it is considered the hardest to master. The courage of Achilles makes him nearly invulnerable and resistant to heat, force, disease and aging. Mercury grants speed and flight.

  The 2011 reboot changed the rules of the magic word, so that Billy could say "Shazam" without transforming unless he meant to. Before that, classic stories flipped him between forms on any utterance, whether accidental or played back from a recording. In 2023, the Lazarus Planet event restored the old rule. Very high voltages of electricity could also force him back to human form. The Fawcett version was extremely bashful around attractive women, and some villains exploited it.

  When Billy shared his powers with the Marvel Family or, from 2012, the Shazam Family, the Powers of Shazam acted as a finite supply. It was divided into halves, thirds or smaller parts depending on how many transformed at once, and everyone grew weaker accordingly.

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• 4. The Best-Selling Marvel Family

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  Captain Marvel Adventures sold fourteen million copies in 1944. At one point it ran bi-weekly with a circulation of 1.3 million per issue. Several covers carried a blurb calling it the "Largest Circulation of Any Comic Magazine." In the 1940s the hero outsold even Superman. His solo series had begun in 1941, with a premiere issue cover-dated March 1941 that was written and drawn by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

  In 1941, Republic Pictures released the serial Adventures of Captain Marvel, with Tom Tyler as the hero and Frank Coghlan, Jr. as Billy Batson. It made Captain Marvel the first comic book superhero adapted to film.

  Between 1941 and 1942, the franchise grew a family. Whiz Comics #21, from September 1941, introduced the Lieutenant Marvels, three other boys named Billy Batson who could also become adult heroes. Whiz Comics #25 followed in December 1941. In it, Captain Marvel saves Freddy Freeman, a disabled newsboy left for dead by the villain Captain Nazi. Freddy says "Captain Marvel" to become Captain Marvel Jr., and unlike Billy he keeps his 14-year-old look.

  Bill Parker was drafted into World War II, so by 1942 Otto Binder took over most of the writing. C. C. Beck stayed as lead artist, and together they steered the stories toward comedy and fantasy. Other artists on the Marvel Family included Pete Costanza, Mac Raboy, Marc Swayze and Kurt Schaffenberger. Binder wrote over 900 of the roughly 1,790 Captain Marvel stories Fawcett published. In the mid-to-late 1940s he created the non-powered Uncle Marvel, Tawky Tawny the talking tiger, and the villains Mister Mind and Black Adam.

  In some later retellings, Binder's villain Black Adam would be given an ancient Egyptian past as the wizard's first champion.

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• 5. Courtroom Defeat

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  In 1941, Detective Comics sued both Fawcett Comics and Republic Pictures for copyright infringement. That company later became National Comics Publications and is today DC Comics. It claimed Captain Marvel was based on its character Superman. The case, National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc., reached trial in 1948 after seven years of litigation.

  The presiding judge found that Captain Marvel was an infringement. But he also found DC negligent in copyrighting several Superman daily newspaper strips, and ruled that National had abandoned the Superman copyright. The verdict delivered in 1951 therefore favored Fawcett.

  National appealed. In 1952, Judge Learned Hand declared that the Superman copyright was valid after all. He did not find the character of Captain Marvel itself to be an infringement. Instead, he said that specific stories or super feats could be, and a retrial would have to decide which. He sent the matter back to the lower court.

  Fawcett never faced that retrial, and the lawsuit was not its only problem. Captain Marvel Adventures had topped the charts during World War II, but its sales fell every year after 1945. By 1949 it was selling only half its wartime rate. In the early 1950s Fawcett tried borrowing from the horror comics trend to win readers back.

  On the 14th of August 1953, Fawcett agreed to stop publishing Captain Marvel comics permanently and to pay National $400,000 in damages. Fawcett closed its comics division that autumn and fired its comic book staff. Whiz Comics ended with issue #155 in June 1953. Captain Marvel Adventures was cancelled with #150 in November 1953. The Marvel Family ended with #89 in January 1954.

  Hoppy the Marvel Bunny was sold to Charlton Comics, which reprinted a few Fawcett-era stories as Hoppy the Magic Bunny. Every reference to "Captain Marvel" and "Shazam" was removed. Otto Binder and Kurt Schaffenberger moved to DC, where they became prominent on the Superman-related comics from 1954 through the 1960s. In 1963, Schaffenberger slipped an unauthorized cameo of Captain Marvel into Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane #42.

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• 6. Rivals and Imitators

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  In the 1950s, a small British publisher called L. Miller and Son printed black-and-white reprints of American comics, including Captain Marvel. The lawsuit's outcome abruptly cut off its supply. The publisher turned to British comic writer Mick Anglo, who created a thinly disguised version called Marvelman. Captain Marvel Jr. became Young Marvelman, and Mary Marvel became a male character, Kid Marvelman. The magic word became "Kimota," which is "Atomik" spelled backwards. The new characters took over the numbering of the British Captain Marvel series at issue #25.

  Marvelman ceased publication in 1963. Writer Alan Moore revived him in 1982 in Warrior Magazine. From 1985, Eclipse Comics reprinted Moore's serial in color under the title Miracleman, because Marvel Comics objected to the word "Marvel." Both Moore and later writer Neil Gaiman noted within the story that Marvelman was based on Captain Marvel. Marvel Comics obtained the rights to the original 1950s Marvelman characters in 2009. In 2013 it bought the rights to the 1980s version and its reprints.

  In 1966, M. F. Enterprises produced its own Captain Marvel, an android from another planet. He could split his body into parts that moved independently by shouting "Split!" and rejoin them by shouting "Xam!" His young human ward was named Billy Baxton. Marvel Comics created its own Captain Marvel in 1967, and M. F. owner Myron Fass sued for trademark infringement. Fass accepted a $4,500 settlement, and Marvel secured the trademark of the name.

  In 1969, fan publisher Bill Black tried to revive the original hero in his fanzine Paragon Golden Age Greats, Vol. 1, #2, drawn in a more realistic Marvel Comics style. On the legal advice of his friend and mentor Martin L. Greim, he destroyed the entire print run except two copies for his own files. He then rewrote the story around his own new hero, Captain Paragon.

  In 1970, the fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector gathered C. C. Beck, Don Newton, Robert Kline and Gene Arnold for a special issue, The Rocket's Blast Special 8. It covered the hero's origins and creation, with new art by Beck and Newton. On its last page sat an opinion piece titled THE DEMISE OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, strongly criticizing DC's lawsuit. Directly below it, the staff still credited the copyright of Captain Marvel to Fawcett Publications.

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• 7. Return as Shazam

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  On the 16th of June 1972, DC entered into an agreement with Fawcett to license Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family. The Silver Age of the mid-1960s had made superhero comics popular again, but Fawcett's settlement had barred it from reviving the hero. DC publisher Carmine Infantino chose to bring the property back, at the urging of Jack Kirby, who had recently left Marvel Comics.

  Marvel Comics had established Captain Marvel as a trademark for its own character in 1967. So DC titled its book Shazam! Infantino wanted the subtitle The Original Captain Marvel, but a cease and desist letter from Marvel forced a change. Starting with Shazam! #15, from December 1974, the subtitle became The World's Mightiest Mortal. All toys and merchandise had to use the "Shazam!" label with little or no mention of "Captain Marvel." Many people came to call the hero Shazam.

  Shazam! #1, cover-dated February 1973, mixed new stories with 1940s and 1950s reprints. Dennis O'Neil was the main writer, later followed by Elliot S. Maggin and E. Nelson Bridwell. C. C. Beck drew the first 10 issues before quitting over creative differences. He said, "As an illustrator, I could, in the old days, make a good story better by bringing it to life with drawings. But I couldn't bring the new Captain Marvel stories to life no matter how hard I tried."

  DC paid Fawcett a licensing fee per issue, per page for each Fawcett character used. After 1977, the payments went to its successor, CBS Publications. The revived Marvel Family lived on a parallel world named Earth-S. Their 20-year absence was explained as suspended animation caused by Doctor Sivana. The family also appeared in the "Crisis on Earth-S" arc in Justice League of America #135-137 in 1976.

  Reception was lackluster. Shazam! #34, from April 1978, was heavily rewritten with more realistic stories and art by Alan Weiss, Joe Rubinstein, then Don Newton and Schaffenberger. The next issue was the last. The feature survived as a back-up in World's Finest Comics, from #253 in October-November 1978 to #282 in August 1982.

  Filmation adapted the revival twice. The live-action 1970s series starred Jackson Bostwick and John Davey as Captain Marvel and Michael Gray as Billy Batson. An animated series followed in the 1980s.

  In 1981, Roy Thomas was lured from Marvel Comics to DC with a contractual promise that he would become main writer of Shazam! and the Justice Society characters. In 1985, the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries fully integrated the Marvel Family into the DC Universe.

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• 8. Reinvention Cycles

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  The first post-Crisis appearance came in the 1986 Legends miniseries. In 1987, Captain Marvel joined the Justice League in a relaunch by Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis. That year also brought the four-issue miniseries Shazam!: The New Beginning, by Roy and Dann Thomas with artist Tom Mandrake. Its most notable change was that Billy keeps his own personality when he transforms. That choice justified the sunny hero's place in a darker comic book world, and it stuck for most later versions.

  The New Beginning sold well, but the planned ongoing series never appeared because of editorial disputes between DC and Roy Thomas. His plans for a punk-styled Mary Marvel and an African-American Captain Marvel Jr. stayed unpublished. Thomas left DC in 1989. Other revival attempts, including a reboot by John Byrne, also never reached print. By 1991, DC had ended the fee-per-use arrangement with CBS Publications and bought the full rights to the Fawcett characters.

  In 1991, Jerry Ordway was assigned the property. He wrote and painted the graphic novel The Power of Shazam!, released in 1994, with an origin close to the Fawcett original. It was critically acclaimed and led to an ongoing series that ran from 1995 to 1999. Mark Waid and Alex Ross placed a brainwashed Captain Marvel in the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come. In 2000, Paul Dini and Ross made the graphic novel Shazam! Power of Hope.

  From 2006 to 2008, The Trials of Shazam!, a 12-issue series by Judd Winick, took the property toward magic and mysticism. Captain Marvel gained a white costume and took over the wizard's role. Freddy Freeman worked to prove himself worthy of the name Shazam. Meanwhile Mary Marvel, possessed by the New God DeSaad, became a villain in Final Crisis.

  In 2011, the Flashpoint miniseries imagined six children, including Eugene Choi, Pedro Peña and Darla Dudley, who each held one of the six attributes. Saying "Shazam!" in unison turned them into Captain Thunder. The New 52 relaunch followed. Justice League #7, from March 2012, began a Shazam! backup story by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Billy became a cynical 15-year-old foster child in Philadelphia. His new foster home under Victor and Rosa Vázquez came with five siblings: Mary Bromfield, Freddy Freeman, Pedro Peña, Eugene Choi and Darla Dudley.

  The hero was officially renamed Shazam at this time. Johns said the change was made "because that's what everyone thinks his name is anyway." The renaming drew mixed reactions, and the reboot as a whole met both acclaim and criticism.

  In 2019, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. released the film Shazam!, with Zachary Levi as Shazam and Asher Angel as Billy Batson. Both returned for the sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Alongside the film, DC launched a new Shazam! series by Johns on the 5th of December 2018, with a manga backup story about Mary and her pet rabbit Hoppy. It was cancelled with issue #15 in November 2020, after publishing delays.

  A new ongoing series by Mark Waid and artist Dan Mora began in May 2023. In it, Billy's foster siblings lose their powers.

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