Copycat! (Patreon)

For those in the know, you know that Fawcett knew that Captain Marvel was gonna be the next big Superman.

Didn’t know that? Then read this!


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Comic Litigation lady’s and gentlemen! For the past 70 some years this has been going on and… really hasn’t stopped. But this one was the big cheese of them all.  In the 1950s DC Comics pulled out their big guns and sued Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement, saying “Captain Marvel” was a rip off of their IP known as “Superman” (this was long before creator’s content was legally deemed their own as far as Jerry and Joe were concerned… if you don’t know than look up Neal Adams).

After WWII was coming to a close, magazines that made a name for themselves like Action Comics around this time were no longer selling like the used to. Fawcett decided to settle out of court and stop publishing Billy Batson and his stories.  Meanwhile, across the pond, a company that was reprinting old Captain Marvel stories decided to revamp the character as their own, redesigning him as “Miracle Man” in attempts to distance themselves… hopefully. Simultaneously, a little company called Marvel introduced their own “Captain Mar’vel”.

While Fawcett and DC bickered, it turns out nobody bothered to trademark the name as IP’s were dropped, traded, and purchased from public domain. DC bought dozens of Fawcett’s old intellectual property during the early to mid 70s but couldn’t publish a comic called Captain Marvel after the dust settled because of the trademark issue. That’s why now days their books only refer to him as Shazam on covers, and subsequently dropped the Captain Marvel title all together by 2011 #FunFact I’m getting ahead of myself though… Jump cut to the radical 1980s! Alan Moore, prolific writer and self-proclaimed wizard (no joke), decided to update and revamp Miracle Man; but when the book was republished in the USA (you guessed it) they had to rename him to “Miracleman”. IE more legal action was taken.

The law suits didn’t end there however. Some time later, prolific crazy man Todd McFarlane thought he bought the English rights to “Miracleman” but there was a gray area between “Marvel Man” and “Miracleman” (who knew) so Mr Neil Gaiman got involved (probably the most normal person in this story… and he wrote Sandman!) Anyway Gaiman used the income from the recent “1602” series of stories to fund Todd’s effort.

By now the legal rights to Miracleman have been straightened out. Marvel (the company) now owns the property of both “Marvel Man” and “Miracleman”... as if there was even a difference in the first place… I honestly couldn’t tell.

The legal precedence stopped there, but what’s interesting is that the concept of a super powered chiseled white guy hasn’t exactly gone away. There are far more Superman rip offs today than ever before. But it doesn't stop with Superman anymore, Thinking of the current comic climate we've got The Fantastic Four from Marvel or The Terrifics from DC. Young Avengers or Young Justice. Moon Knight or Batman. Doctor Strange or Doctor Fate. Even Man-Thing or Swamp Thing for crying out loud!

The list is endless, but it was because Superman was the first… somehow capitalism got involved and ruined everything like it always does.

Anyway, good night folks! :)








Aw man, I forgot to talk about MAD’s Superduperman! Oh well, another time maybe :P