April 9, 2024 • 53 mins
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird. It's a plane. It's... "definitely not Superman." At least, that's what Fawcett Comics told the courts, beginning a multigenerational, multiversal saga of strangeness that continues in the modern day. In today's episode, the guys ask: Why are there so many Captain Marvels?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always so much
for tuda. Could we get some non spoilery super hero music.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That's my that's my sound effect for it. There it goes.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's our super producer, mister Max Williams. I am Ben Bullen,
our Shazamer. Here are urah our hooray? Mister Noel Brown,
Noel how sock?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I just make sounds of my mouth. They pay me
for it for some reason. Do it well though?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I am doing well, And I've got to say that
I don't want to spoiler. No spoilers to your point,
but I had no idea that shazam stood for something
that it's a freaking acronym.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
How cool is that? You know how much we love acronyms.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Everything's in acronym if you're weird enough.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
If you give it value, Yeah, for sure. What are
we talking about today?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Ben? What are we shazaming?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I'm so glad you asked, because for a long time,
like many filthy casual fans of comics and comedy or
I thought, I thought healthy casual.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Isn't that a gamer term? Don't?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
But it sounds like a yeah, mat filthy, So is
that true? Fairwell, let's call it. Maybe this is sort
of like being a fair Weather fan like sort of
like you're not really in the weeds with this stuff.
You're not a day one or you only know the
movies that kind of fan wagon.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So they're so, uh bandwagon, fair Weather, filthy casual, call
me what you wish, fellow ridiculous historians. For quite for
quite some time, I thought that Shazam was the name
of the character. This is untrue. Shazam is the secret
magic word shouted out by the character Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, but also the movies, the character is named Shazam
with the kid that turns into the guy who shouts
the word, and also the name of the magical wizard
who abused him. With all of these back, Okay, the
point being, ben all of this stuff gets real convoluted.
This is like a IP juggling competition that we're going
to talk about today that is a lot longer than
(02:36):
a lot of people might realize.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
How many Captain Marvel's are there?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Nol no idea. Then I've researched this stuff. I mean,
I guess what like four I don't even know what, Lucia,
let's just get right into.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
All right, all right, yeah, you're right, you're right. So
back in March twenty nineteen, with the help of our
research associate Jeff, we got in a bit of a
conversational pickle Shazam, the film about Captain Marvel and Captain
Marvel the other film about another Captain Marvel. We're in
(03:07):
theaters at the same time, through two different companies. They
are unrelated, they do not exist in the same universe,
and they are indeed a consequence, a result, a culmination
of a history, as you said, no, a legally fraught
history that goes back almost a century.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Okay, Yeah, that's the number I was looking for.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
And ip, of course, most folks show because you don't
intellectual property, and that can get really fraught when you know,
something all of a sudden starts to pop off and
get really popular. And oh dear, that surely resembles my
cartoon character that I created. Uh, maybe it's time to
hire some lawyers and just see about that f around
and find out, if you will. Yeah, they aft around,
(03:52):
and they might find out that they are, in fact
in a situation known as copyright infringements.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Right, indeed, so funny thing happens at the comics stores
in June of nineteen thirty eight, you find a thing
called Action Comics number one, Action.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Commoss number of worth with a lot of money, right,
valuable piece. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
To the fellow enthusiasts, you might recognize this as the
print debut of DC Comics Superman. He comes out in
June of nineteen thirty eight, and just a year after
in Wiz Comics number two. I think they made it
in nineteen thirty nine, but it comes out in February
(04:36):
nineteen forty. Whiz Comics number two features guy named Captain
Marvel original name Captain Thunder. He is absolutely as though
we are in a court. Can we get like Max?
Can we get like a Casey on the case Law
and Order comic Court.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Oh, it's surely in the folder. Stummare, there it is there.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It is so your order. Captain Marvel originally apt in Thunder,
is nothing like Superman other than the fact that he
looks exactly like Superman and has identical powers and a
slightly different outfit.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Guys, we're gonna get to this, but I have to
pose it right up front. I sometimes think people get
a little high on their creative horse, maybe giving themselves
more creative credit than they deserve. All of these characters
are just modeled after Greek gods. Man, It's like, oh,
what an individual imbued with super strength who can fly?
(05:34):
Never heard of that before, never read the you know,
Greek mythology on.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
A million percent dude.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
And that even comes in with the whole what the
acronym shazam means, which we're gonna save and get to
in just a minute.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
But I just wanted to put that out there right now.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I think a lot of this is a little bit
of a pissing contest, and we do see where the
law ultimately sides.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
But none of these ideas are particularly unique.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You know, a magical individual who can fly and lift
heavy things.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Joseph Campbell is nodding in agreement from Beyond the Grave,
the author of Hero with a Thousand Faces. No one
has accused human storytelling technology of originality. So let's learn
a little bit about our buddy. Captain Marvel knee Captain
Thunder comes out through an outfit called Fawcet Comics again
(06:25):
publication in nineteen forty and Captain Marvel has a cool
thing that's very appealing to the demographic of Fawcet comics.
He is a twelve year old boy named Billy Batson.
He's an orphan and in his origin story, he follows
a stranger into the subway, and when he goes to
(06:47):
the subway, he meets a mysterious old man, a wizard
named Shazam. That's the actual It's like Frankenstein's Monster.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
A million you know, yes, no exclamation mark though, is right?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So this so this wizard is like, stuff is messed up,
young Billy Batson, and you are the only hope for
all these crazy high stakes that I will not explain
why am just because he happened to be the one
that followed him or does he have some mystical destiny
like you know, he's like you're reading the comic and
you're thinking, oh, I could do that. I should follow
(07:21):
more strangers into the subway.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That is not the takeaway.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's that's apparently that's the application. So okay, So the
wizard imbues and I love that word imbuse or bruise
young orphan Billy with this power whenever he says the
word the magic word. The Wizard's name Shazam. Then he
acquires can we get some like M c U or.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
D c U music, whatever you pick is certainly going
to go along with him.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, and let's uh, let's uh, let's round robin this please. Yeah? Okay,
So what does Shazam stand for?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
The stamina of Atlas, the power of.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
This lighting strike, the courage of Achilles.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And the speed of Mercury.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Do you get it?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I guess it's good that he didn't have the fatal
flaw of Achilles, right right.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
He has his own heels, as we'll find he also U.
Let's let's uh, let's point out that there were a
couple of Greco Roman gods that were ignored in this.
He doesn't have like the bad attitude of Hades, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
He doesn't have the limp of Vulcan.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
But he or Hephaestus, uh Captain Marvel for a time
surpasses Superman in popularity. It's a real Pepsi versus Coca
cola thing. In DC reads this. They do not exist
in a vacuum. And you can tell, as our old
pal research associate Jeff points out, you could tell because
(09:11):
Superman's powers evolve all of a sudden, inexplicably right after
Captain Marvel hits the scene.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Absolutely DC changed their hero to kind of go with
what this seemed like, the kids that were getting down
with before Captain Marvel. We know the famous line that
really does stick with it to this day, the property
Superman could leap.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Tall buildings in a single bound.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But that speed of Mercury, Man, it's got some heat
to it. So the idea that Superman was only propelling
himself over tall buildings with a with some powerful gams,
like a strong leap, but not necessarily the power of flight,
because the speed of Mercury granted Captain Marvel the ability
to fly. So before you knew it, Superman was up
(09:59):
there too, taking these guys. And it's funny, I've always
thought of that expression leap tall buildings in a single bound,
and in my mind I just squashed it together with flight.
But that's not what the original Superman did. He was
just a really good jumper, strong jumper.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And now it's a Now it's an incredible hulk power, right,
Hulk can't fly, but he can leap so well it's
all on smash.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
Also, I just want to jump in here. The buildings
weren't as tall back then. They were, actually they were,
they were really tall.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I think, Max, that that reminds me of the first
time I saw at the Tower of London and I thought, dang,
I guess anything over three stories really was a skyscraper
back then.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And you know some of them had the like the
little needle on top or the antennas just added a
little bit of height.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Jump in here. Actually, I remember when my aunt Jennifer
lived in.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Philadelphia, there was a law or rule or custom, I
don't know which one was that no building could be
higher than the hat of William Penn.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, yep, yep, uh, there's a There was a similar thing,
I think, uh for a while in DC and in
a couple of other cities around the world. Like d
C is a very a very large it's a large,
picturesque metropolis. But you're not going to see a ton
(11:17):
of skyscrapers. You're going to see one weird looking phallic object. Obviously,
the Washington Monument Why is a nopolisk story for another day.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Indeed, I'm sorry, Max, Taller than the gentleman's hat Williams.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I don't understand.
Speaker 6 (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I probably explain it. There's a statue of.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
William Penn on topic I thank you, thank you, a big,
a big statue, a big one. Yeah, and you know
it's William Penn. He had a larger than life.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That neck of the loans.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, in a burst of humility, they call it Pennsylvania.
So there are other key differences between the early Captain
Marvel and the early predecessor Superman. Captain Marvel franchises so quickly,
all of a sudden, you got a whole Dare I say,
Justice League of Marvel's a Marvel family. There's Captain Marvel Junior.
(12:09):
There's Mary Marvel. There's a super cool old man. There's
Talkie Tawny who is a tiger who can talk.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Get it. And there's like there's like a.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Superpowered rabbit or hair if you're in Europe, Captain Marvel buddy,
and everybody loves these stories. Speaking of franchises, speaking of
as you raised the point earlier, Noel, speaking of IP
or intellectual property and derivatives thereof, there is a twelve
(12:42):
part film series of Captain Marvel. There's a radio show.
There's all sorts of swag. A young, a young, up
and coming allegedly malungeon entertainer named Elvis Presley out of
Tennessee is very into Captain Marvel Junior and.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Talking about yourself, right no, no, no, no no, My
have action is a little bit nastier, but yeah, talking
about old Elvis, right, yeah, Elvis Presley uh is said
to have borrowed his look from not Clark Kent, but
Captain Marvel Junior. The whole clean cut, mild mannered vibe
(13:22):
also comes into question once we get into the legal
battle of all of this. And it is interesting too
because it does seem like, you know, while we might
think of superhero Superman as the most iconic kind of
og superhero, it does seem like Captain Marvel got some
things right quicker. The idea of a super crew, you know,
like a superhero kind of squad. It seems like they
(13:45):
were right out of the gate with that. And it
would be a bit longer, I believe, before like the
Justice League came around.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yes, yeah, just so Justice So whatever, keep it, give me,
it's yours, I want to.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
All right.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So, by the mid nineteen forties, the original Captain Marvel
Akshizam as we call him today, by far the most
popular comic book superhero in the country, most popular comic
book character in general. Sorry, Popeye, Tutelou, Tutelou, Yellow Kid,
(14:24):
Betty Booth, Guitarzad. Superman basically comes in a year or
two before and gives birth to what we would call
the superhero genre today, launching the house Yon days of
the Golden Age of comics, and Superman is following up,
you know, pepsine coke again with Captain Marvel. Superman gets
(14:46):
his own radio show, he's in comic strips, he gets
a cartoon, he gets a TV series, but he doesn't
get one thing that Captain Marvel gets, which is the
movie business.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, and you know, it's like the early days of movies,
but it's certainly an early era of this type of franchising, right.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Captain Marvel reaches the film industry first to date, Fellow
ridiculous historians, Captain Marvel is the first superhero ever to
be adapted, to have their story adapted into a motion picture.
And you know, now then I'm thinking of it, Noel Max,
you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me
(15:38):
of that poor kid in the TLC Day's Honey Booboo.
Remember that, Remember honey Booboo? Oh, I thought you meant
like TLC the R and B group. Now I'm talking
about the Learning Channel that eventually just became the amorphus TLC.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yes, of course, honey Booboo. And what was her mom's name,
Mama June, Mama June.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I think that's how they went a lot of Thompson
is the name of the former child star, and people
started calling her honey Booboo because of her catch phrase
that was like her Shazam, and Captain Marvel became known
as Shazam anyway side dope.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
So the studio behind the film was called Republic Pictures.
They were originally actually working with d C, which at
the time was called National Comics Publications to make a
Superman picture, but they already had an existing cartoon deal
with Paramount, which prevented them from signing another type of
(16:40):
property like that at the time. So Republic goes with
Captain Marvel instead, and DC was understandably post and Fawcett
Comics had already published Masterman, which was in and of
itself even more egregious.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I don't know. I don't really fallout.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
On either other side in terms of whether or not
Captain Marvel was an utter rip off of Superman. Sometimes
there's parallel thinking, maybe there was a little bit of
ripping off going on, but Masterman definitely obvious one to
one clone. Masterman also doesn't really roll off the tongue
very well.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
It's like give me my It's like the alliteration, but
it's like give me my weird havana cigar and let
me kick my feet up at the comic book spot
and be like, oh, a Superman, he's a he's he's
eating a lunch. What's another word for super uber It's
too German kolaba Masterman ulva.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Master's not great either.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I'm picturing like a southern gentleman in like a white
suit with his feet up, drinking a mid julib, watching
the field hands at work.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know, Masterman's sound all right, the over survibe, I
feel you. Masterman sounds like in the early seventeen hundreds
it was an obscure crime, possibly true, a crime that
William Penn would have prosecuted or been found guilty of. Right, absolutely,
I love how I love how we're all sort of
(18:06):
nodding with that one, So yeah, agreed, Masterman is an
even more obvious copy of Superman, and DC threatens a lawsuit.
They send like their version of what we would call
C and D a cease and desist. Faucett just says, okay, haha,
you got us, and they pull it. But they but
(18:28):
they're keeping with Captain Marvel, and DC is still really
beefed up about it. They're saying, Captain Marvel again is
just another guy who came after the guy that we
made up.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Isn't it interesting though, how this really does start to
feel almost like a superhero arms race.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, I was theander of that word in the research
as well. Like it is it is people attempting to, yeah,
come up with the the end doll be all like
quintessential super hero and stealing ideas from each other left
and right.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
In June of nineteen forty one, National Comics sues Fawcet
Comics for copyright infringement, and this creates one of the
longest running legal battles in the history of comic books
and lasts over a decade. And National Comics is, by
the way, think of them as like the representative of
(19:31):
DC Comics, and they're saying, look, we came up with
this a year before you guys did, and then you
came up with a guy who looks exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
By the way, in case you're trying to picture the
word faucets and you're picturing a tap dripping water, it's
actually spelled like Pharah Fawcetts. Yeah Fawcett. So, as you said, Ben,
longest running legal battle in the history of comic books
at least, why don't we start with a little break
down of kind of how it started and how it's going.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
For sure, Yeah faucet, Like Farah says, all right, we
get it, Yana. These I'm twiddling an invisible cigar this
whole time. All right, we get it, Yana. These two
characters are very similar, but it's not to the point
of infringement. I mean, think about Popeye, I think about Taza.
(20:24):
They already do all sorts of you know, kind of
superpower stuff. So who really is to blame? And then
National Comics or you know, DC's representatives, they they come
in and they go objection you Ana, here, we have
bin got to bind we gotta bind what's in the binder.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Well, this is kind of where it does start to
you know, I can see the issue where you start
to have these page by page comparisons of different comics,
over one hundred and fifty pages in fact, panels from
they are comics of Superman juxtapose with panels from Captain
Marvel with close details kind of like circle like Exhibit A.
(21:08):
Everything from costumes from the various you know, coutrema like
capes and boots, the various superpowers of course, flying abilities, strength, speed,
bullet invincibility, the ability to withstand explosions and shells and
stuff like that, the idea, the detail of a secret identity,
(21:28):
and they also edit. I think I mentioned this briefly
at the top. They also went so far as to
say that there was some copyright infringement going on in
the fact that they were both clean cut, clean shaven individuals.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, no facial hair. That's a bummer for Max Nolla myself, folks,
No superheroes with facial hair. Also, I love invincibility to bullets,
not necessarily invincibility overall.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You just can't shoot at.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Them, that's right, And I guess I haven't seen the
Panels or the by Psyche comparison. But even some of
these things just on paper, not entirely unique.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I think there are examples of this. I mean when
you just modernize like a hero.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Of course, bullets are going to come into play, because
that's what all the baddies use, the gangsters. But when
they start circling things like costume similarities and very specific
like copy cat items from one comic issue to another,
with enough of those stacked up, got a pretty good
case on their hands, I would argue.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, And the court agreed on to trial nineteen forty eight.
The judge primarily ruled in favor of our friends over
at DC and said, Okay, this Captain Marvel guy is
an infringement on Superman and a lot of this comes
to us courtesy of our friends at Plagiarism Today dot com,
(22:52):
who creates that detail on it.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, we're gonna be really careful to cite them every
chance lest they come after us.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, so let's letter box over there. Yeah, let's also
shout out Jonathan Bailey. And this is a pretty recent
article that comes from May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen, talking
about the larger tale of captain Marvel and don't worry,
we'll get to your favorite marvels, your modern marvels, dare
I say in a moment. But obviously the courts have
(23:21):
to agree on the infringement here. It is kind of
obvious because who reads comic books at this time, people
who make comic books.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
We have not yet reached the kind of mainstreaming of
comics that we know today. You know, we're every single mining,
every single piece of intellectual property from these canons. You know,
this back catalog of stuff to make you know, a
movie or television show or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, it's it's it's still coming from that that newspaper
comic strip origin, right, the idea of a whole book
of funny pages. That's why they're called cop books.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So the issue is there's the comic book issue. Is
there is a there is this halsey on era again
wherein it is kind of mainstreamed in print. But during
the post World War Two, in the early nineteen fifties,
the sales of these superhero comic books they're in the
(24:23):
can they're slumping. People are not making as much money,
and so Fawcet decides, hey, we can't really fight this case. Right,
we're already hemorrhaging money in sales, so they pay four
hundred thousand dollars in damages if we can inflation calculate,
and a dude a booth and a book, that's about
(24:46):
four million dollars today, and.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So certainly not chump change.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Not chump change. But Captain Marvel may have gone out
like a chump Fawcet Comics shut up their whole comic
book division and they bow out. This has intergenerational copyright consequences.
But this is not the end of Captain Marvel.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Meanwhile, actually not meanwhile.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
It takes a little time fast forward, in fact to
nineteen sixty six. Captain Marvel has largely become a dead property.
It wasn't until February of nineteen sixty six that the
pulp magazine Magnates Myron Fasts, which is, if there ever
were a name that felt right for a pulp magazine, Magnate,
(25:39):
Myron Fast has my vote, and Myron Fast publishes Captain Marvel,
which is considered by many in comic book circles.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
It's just three circles to.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Be one of the worst, if not the worst, comic
books ever written.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Which you know, makes sense if you're thinking.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
About what pulp magazines were famous for putting out.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
It was crap a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And our research is associate Jeff is Co citing that.
But folks, that comes from Britannica, the Encyclopedia Britannica is
telling us that Myron Fast as Captain Marvel is one
of the worst.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I'm wondering, I get I'm assuming that Myron Fast and
maybe acquired this intellectual property after the decline or the
you know, I guess disintegration of Faust Comics. I don't
have that detail right here, but that would be the
only thing that would make.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Sense, right, that would be logical. And this Captain Marvel
is released around the same time Marvel Comics is riding high.
They've got Fantastic Four, They've got Spider Man, They've got
X Men. As you know if you follow superhero films
(26:51):
and adaptations, folks, Spider Man and X Men are making
a lot of money. Fantastic four is also on the
way in the next few years.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Interestingly enough, though, if I'm not mistaken, both Spider Man
and X Men are similarly kind of like there's a
weird device disconnects between like two studios that have the
right box so.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Together.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
Well, so Fox doesn't have them anymore. It's not anymore Disney.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Disney bought out that entire part of that studio and
got all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
That's when Disney bought out twentieth Century Fosh.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Shout out Kevin Page, the architect, the mad genius of
the MCU.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
He also, like the Sony Spider Man movies are largely
considered be pretty bad until the Spider Verse movies, the
animated ones, which are I think regarded as some of
the best Spider Man films ever to be made.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And I would tend to agree with that.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
The new ones with Tom Holland there's weird things products, there's.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
A partnership with Marvels, and there are certain characters they're
not allowed to use or not allowed to cross feature
because the whole deal with the Cinematic Universe stuff is
to have appearances and a continuity.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So those are properties that tend.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
To be a little confusing and convoluted, and I think
those deals are going to run out, and then ultimately
it all goes.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
To let me, let me tell you guys what happening.
Let me tell you guys, what happened. So Marvel goes bankrupt.
Marvel as a comic book entity is in the tank,
and in their darker days, they start selling off properties,
their derivative IP, you could call it, to different companies,
and hence you have for a while twentieth Century Fox
(28:38):
owning X Men, and then a different company, Sony owned
Spider Man. It was a fire sale. I don't I
don't even know if we want to do a bend
with fact thing on this.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
That seeking the phone bed and PA's full in knowledge.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
It's just for you right now.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's an unpleasant story, and it explains a lot of
the weird, a weird attempts that we see these different
companies doing, you know, with the Sony Spider Man or
Spider verse, right they're trying to make a Venom verse
where Spider Man doesn't show up. They're trying to make
a morebius film.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Where that one didn't go super well, are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
More fis No, it's more bs.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
That's the Vampire one with Jared Leto that was apparently
I saw it on a plane actually, but I just
sort of tuned out because it was embarrassingly bad and
now there's this new Madam web movie. It is apparently
absolute garbage.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
The comic books were good, but I don't know if
the creators were at the comics.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
But is Madam Webb an official Marvel release or is
there another weird crossover here because it seemed of a
lower quality than the typical I know, Marvel Studio seems
to be struggling a little bit, but Madam Webb looked
like a B movie kind of it's and it is okay,
So it's still in the Spider Verse because Madam Webb
(30:05):
in the comics is uh is affiliated sort of with
the pantheon of Spider Man.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And so they've got this, They've got this whole legal
plaquemire going on, and our pal myron Us Myron, Myron thanks,
he loves his mother. Yeah, Myron, he's got to get
out a skid row, right, shout out the little Shop
of Horrors. It seems right, It seems obvious that he
(30:34):
is trying to uh claim this trademark. And it's kind
of like, in a weird way, it's like a print
version of those B movies that you would see, uh
straight to VHS and the days of Blockbuster, right, remember
those that not quite the same horror film. It wouldn't
be like uh, hell Raiser, it would be like heck
(30:56):
Ruckus hell Bringer.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Well, and then you know, there was a company called
the Something O Jesus, I know what you're talking about,
But they coined the term mockbuster. Mockbuster, that's it, straight
to video things where literally part of their business would
be people confusing their thing for the real thing on
the shelves a blockbuster. That's what my asylum, I think
is what it was called. I want to say it
(31:21):
was called the Asylum. But he stead of snakes on
a plane, they did snakes on a train. But they
were leaning into that, and this whole deal is pre that.
But this is exactly right then, the absolute B movie
version of popular thing.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
He did such a he got in trouble because he
also got too close to the actual properties and characters.
He used Plastic Man, which is a real DC character and.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
A real rip up of mister Fantastic or vice versa. Hey,
I'm not even sure what order they came in, Hey,
law and order saying yeah, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Sustained doctor Fate And then how bad is this he
had a Batman character and he was like, well, we
can't call it Batman, We'll call him the bat Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Perfect ride.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Can we also, once again, no shade. This is all
first to market stuff. You can only come up with
Batman one time. It's not the most creative thing in
the universe. It's a guy who looks like a bat
and he's called Batman.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, I mean, Spider Man has man bat Oh wait,
how do you.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Say the man? Wait?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
But then there was the man bat in the Batman
the animated series, who was still weird mutant bat thing.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, for sure. And there's Batgirl. Oh sorry.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
You can see how this stuff is even confusing for us,
and we're fans of this stuff, so it really does
get pretty convoluted pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And so he uh, he has his own Captain Marvel
that he he makes a side This guy has a
like a Batman Robin relationship. In the Myron Fast stuff
and Myron Fast as Captain Marvel has a sidekick named
Billy Baxton with an X which is just a Batson
(33:15):
pretty close to Billy Batson. So you can see how
that didn't work out After just a few issues. Fast
as Captain Marvel disappears, and Marvel Comics has this look
around the room moment and they say, wow, these low
quality imitators, these grifters, they can do lasting damage to
(33:39):
everything that we represent. We have to go back to court,
we have to lock down this Captain Marvel name. And
so in I think it's like nineteen sixty six, the
publisher of Marvel goes to Myron Fast and says, look,
we'll give you six grand to the rights for Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Okay, again, we don't even have to inflation calculator. You
could probably figure that was probably close to to like,
you know, fifty grand or maybe even one hundred grand
at the time. But when you think about where things
ended up with all the movies and how even minor
characters like that were big have become big money shout
out man exactly, the minorists of characters. That was probably
(34:24):
a little bit of a sweetheart deal there, know.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, And so it's so weird because Marvel, so Myron
Fast turns them down. Marvel goes ahead and says, forgiveness
V permission, We're going to introduce our own Captain Marvel,
a brand new Captain Marvel. And in nineteen sixty seven.
I want to say. They come out with Captain Marvel
(34:49):
on the twelfth issue of a thing they were running
called Marvel Superheroes, and Myron Fast says Marvel, gosh dotted,
I'll sue your pants off if infringing on by trademark
that I stole from you. And they say you're being
a cartoon And so my Ron Fast ultimately settles for
(35:10):
four thousand, five hundred dollars. And we've got a great
quote here at Noel. You'd love to do this one,
he says.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Our Captain Marvel was selling lousy anyway.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I mean, really, the only way to say that is like.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
I was lousy. I was selling lousy. Who cares get
rid of it? For everyone on the trash.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Heap, for everyone listening along at home. Our pal Nol
is also twiddling a fake cigar at this point, and
us that's how publishers talk, right, It's true, they always have,
like a fake cigar. Not much happens for the next
(35:49):
twenty years. The original Captain Marvel is no longer publishing,
The name and the character, more specifically, stop being used
in nineteen sixty eight. That's where we get the current
Captain Marvel. So this modern, this new Captain Marvel is
(36:10):
an alien. They make up a whole backstory, build out
a world for Captain Marvel's race. Captain Marvel, who is
not the current iteration played by Brie Larsen, is a
dude alien from a race called the Cree, or a
species called the Cree.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Which you might recognize from the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
And again, you know, I think like you yourself been,
I have friends who are deep into all of this
stuff and all of this lore and these various iterations
and the Cree have been around for you know, decades
and decades, and you know, really what Marvel Studios have
(36:52):
done is mind all of this intellectual property, sometimes taking
some creative liberties, sometimes being very true to the source material,
but it's essentially just an absolute, you know, pool of
stuff they can pull from to kind of like tell
these stories. And the Cree are a big part of
that as well as like introducing Thanos and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
They got creative give it that drum. Yeah, all right,
So this, uh, this direct predecessor of the current Marvel,
Captain Marvel is mar dash Vel and his Yeah, exactly,
just so, and This was an editorial necessity. They needed
(37:34):
to use the trademark, which is kind of also why
Loki Sony comes out with a Spider Man movie every
so often, because they have to use it to keep it.
So Marvel is uh is kind of checking the boxes
for Marvel. I mean, he he looks a lot like
(37:55):
he has this like a lot of the same superpowers.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
He gets uh, he gets a different uniform. He has
gold wrist bands which you'll later see and stuff like
Captain Quantum and whatever. In Marvel, he's got a starbarst logo.
Uh he.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
He has a different sound effect when he strikes his
wrist together. He doesn't say shazam, but what triggers his
superpowers is the sound effect.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
The tang, which is really just kind of like automatopoeia
for the sound that it might make when the risk
you know, braces or slapped the tang.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, because because they're the Billy Batson in this is
a teenager named Rick Jones who finds these golden wristbands
the negative the megabands megabands.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, that doesn't sound good, it's that oh sorry, because
they're from the negative zone. They're from the.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Negative zone, got it. Yeah, so the the lore is there.
They put it in place, but I would prefer sh
as Am to a Katang. I don't know what do
you guys think?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Absolutely, and the whole negative zone negative all seems a
little bit lazy if we're being honest.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
We're being honest. The fans didn't really dig this, and
the sales reflected that. So Captain Marvel in this iteration
was always sort of on the cusp of being canceled.
And this is where we get to the actual Captain
Marvel that you may know and recognize from the Disney
(39:31):
brun MCU today. Carol Danvers makes her first appearance in
Marvel Superheroes issue thirteen, just after issue twelve, right in
March of nineteen sixty eight, and she originally is hanging
out with these alien cre She's hanging out with Marvel.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
She actually gets abducted by a jealous Cree officer named
Jon Rog, which sounds weirdly cthulhuesque, and Marvel flies in
to rescue her in like you said, Captain Marvel at
number eighteen. Then there's a battle between Marvel and Yon Rag,
and during said battle, a device is exploded an ancient
(40:13):
Creed device called the psyche Magnetron, which is kind of
cool sounding.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
I might use that for I don't know, it could
be a cool band name or something. And it explodes
and creates sort of like a fallout area wherein Marvel and.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Danvers get bathed in this radiation.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Marvell presumably is being okay, being sort of you know,
extra human and all of that. And Danvers, however, transforms.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
She's infused with Cree.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
DNA and she actually gets powers very similar to those
of Marvel.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Dare we call her Captain Marvel? Not quite yet, because
for almost a decade, Danvers is just a second tier
recurring presence in the overall Captain Marvel series. It isn't
until the nineteen seventies when DC has wonder Woman wonder
(41:11):
Woman coming to like the cover of Miss magazine, that
the folks at Marvel look around and they say twiddling
the invisible cigar.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Indeed, hey, why don't we have a why.
Speaker 5 (41:24):
We have a woman's superhero? Women's lib is hot right now?
We got this second wave feminism. We need to get
with it.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
With the picture j Jonah Jamison banging the desk, bring
me a woman, Superhero any woman as quick as you can.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
And then you know they you can kind of see.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Through the ploy here as well, even by the name
they plopped on her with as Miss Marvel.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
You know, it's like throwing a bow on pac.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Man and calling him Miss pac Man, but even more
kind of obnoxious, frankly.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
And so in January of nineteen seventy seven, Nola's right, folks,
Miss Marvel debuts and now our character, Carol Danvers has
a fair uh faucet hairdoo get it? Easter egg? Oh snap, yeah,
and she's traveling to New York City. She's gonna work
as a journalist for a magazine called Woman.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Woman Super Creative.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
It's published by Jay Jodah Jamison.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Who's all about you know, women's lib Yeah, class classes
big time. So, you know, Miss Marvel does never really
quite quite lock into a rhythm, whether it be with
the stories or the art, because that's very important to
kind of establish like sort of a cohesive feel to it.
A rotating cast of artists means that it never really
(42:43):
quite gets into that groove. A new costume that gets
unveiled in nineteen seventy eight, but overall it's a bit
of a dud, and it gets canceled just a few
issues later, an issue number twenty three April of nineteen
seventy nine. But then they decide to bring back Marvel
the Watch. She doesn't get her own imprint or her
own series. They throw her on a team.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Yeah, the Avengers. The moment where Marvel Comics said, we
have Justice League at home. It's true Justice Leake comes
before the Avengers.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
But I think her inclusion is a little bit offensive though,
or there is. She's sort of this token woman that
is treated a disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
There's a storyline where she gets sexually assaulted. It just
in short, it doesn't age well. But the writers, like
artists and writers like Chris Claremont said, hey, we're not
treating this character well. This character has a lot of
potential and depth. And so in October of nineteen eighty one,
(43:46):
Claremont himself tries to fix this and he says, all right,
Carol Denvers has made her way back from space to Earth.
She's escaping the Creed, but she's haunted by it. She
runs into Rogue, the very southern mutant from the X
Men who can steal powers.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
And also can will kill you right, just touch her
hand loog.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah, And so I didn't realize Rogue was ever not
connected with the X Men. I really only knew her,
and I am one of those what did you call it, filthy?
I'm filthy in some way, filthy fans on fair Weather
is what I'll call myself. I really only knew about
a lot of this stuff from like the X Men
animated series or like Batman the animated series. Those were
really excellent, by the way. And there's this new X Men. Yeah,
(44:38):
it's supposed to be fabulous and I really can't wait
to watch it. They really nailed the style and apparently
it's very, very smart. I'm excited to check it out.
But no, I had no idea that Rogue was her
own thing.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Oh well, Rogue is.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Rogue was formerly from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants helmed
by Magneto, and then she joins the X Men. So
she's a bit of an anti hero. But she has
this complicated relationship that actually passes the Bechdel test with
Carol Danvers, and so the reason Rogue has powers there are.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Those two women talking to each other right without talking
about dude.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
So she gets her she gets her powers, super strength
and flight and all that because she is permanently intertwined
with Carol Danvers as Miss Marvel. And when when Rogue
and Danvers get into this situation, Danvers loses all of
her memory, which is sort of Chris Claremont wiping the
(45:39):
slate clean, Tabila, rasa and and so then he has
Clairemont writes Danvers or Miss Marvel as a character who
is recuperating and discovering herself and her identity with the
X Men. It's a great thing, right, And Clairemont does
very well with the X Men series. His run goes
(46:02):
almost twenty years, but it's Captain Marvel still. They want
to hold on to Captain Marvel. How do we shazam
this back to its original success. Maybe we fast forward
to the movies.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Right, where's my Oh? Well?
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Now, now instead of publishing Magnates with print nol, we've
got to twiddle our vapes. Now we're Studio Magnates.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Studio Magnates.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Indeed, and as we've talked about throughout this episode, the
MCU is feeling like it's in a bit of a slump,
but it is still quite big business. And when it
first really came out the original runs of MCU films
from the Ironman franchise and onto the Avengers and Infinity
Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, this is
(46:51):
some very creative use of this intellectual property, very well made.
It's neat to see them pulling in some smaller directors
to come in and do these really really big, big films.
And you know, you've got like James Gunn, for example,
who got his star with Trauma Pictures and Toxic Avengers
and all of that, helming the Guardians of the Galaxy movies,
(47:11):
I think to great effects because there is with the
legacy of these properties, a lot of pulpy fun kind
of trash involves. So he's a guy that kind of
gets that, and that's why I think his are more
successful than maybe some of the others. And it feels
like they've gotten to a place where they sort of
just lost the plot.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
And it is neat that James Gunn, I believe, now.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Is revamping DC who have notoriously been a little more
dour in their films, like with the Batman's films with
Chritopher Nolan, which are obviously very good, but there's not
quite as much fun and lightheartedness as you might find
in some of the Marvel movies. So interesting to see
where that's gonna go. But that being said, Marvel Cinematic
Universe did grow into one of the most successful film
(47:51):
franchises of all time, and hence the mining of every
inch of intellectual property they can from back as far
as the nineteen forties.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah. Yeah, this is where Carol Danvers slash Miss Marvel
slash Captain Marvel goes to the big screen. Everybody total
of your vapes. Breed Larsen, the actor, is cast in
the title role of Captain Marvel after the after the
role gets teased in Avengers Infinity War. So March twenty nineteen,
(48:25):
Captain Marvel comes out. It makes more than one billion
dollars US worldwide. And then in the later that same
year Avengers Endgame comes out, we also get we also
get the introduction of other ancillary characters, just like Shizam,
just like Captain Marvel of old, there's Monica Rambeau who
(48:48):
is who is affiliated with Captain Marvel and has similar powers. Right,
and then because we have promoted Danvers to Captain Marvel,
there's a new Miss Marvel and This is a Pakistani
American teenager, Kamala Kahan. Her powers are way different in
the comics versus in the film or the series adaptations.
(49:15):
It's pretty interesting because what we're seeing is overall the
adaptation of these modern myths. I really appreciate the idea
that you pointed out of this continuity between Greco Roman
gods of old and deities and pantheons, and the way
(49:35):
that those stories echoed down to the world of comics
and entertainment today. It seems that, as our pal Jeff said,
it's a reminder that with superheroes, no death is truly final.
You might be exactly, you might be the next Captain
Marvel Max.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
You never know.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
And also, I would have to argue, does seem to
lower the stakes white a lot, And I would argue
is maybe one of the reasons why some of the
Marvel properties have lost their luster a little bit, because
if you if you don't really have to worry about
what happens to a character because you know there's going
to bring them back through a multiversal timey whimy flip,
then are there are there ever any stakes?
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Really? It just kind of feels a little bit you.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Know, lazy uh, and their ability to continuously cash in
on all these characters without actually having to commit to
any of their decisions.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Interesting to say, is that how you feel about Doctor Who?
Because you said time with Whymy?
Speaker 2 (50:32):
I said Timey whymy?
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Just because it's you know, it does seem to be
a narrative device and it's a little vague as to
how it actually works, and I feel like the mechanics
behind it are a little you know, amorphous, And I
also feel like it's just again like is it really
is a character ever really gone? If they can bring
them back, you know, in the next movie. It just
(50:54):
seems to me to be a little bit of a
I don't know, cash grabby kind of move. I do
think it can use creatively. Obviously, it was stuff like everywhere,
everything everywhere all at once. This time travel stuff and
multiverse stuff is really really cool. And obviously those the
directors of that film and writers, the Daniels are now
in a deal with I believe the Russo Brothers and
(51:16):
and some of the bigger studios. Hopefully they're not going
to get relegated to just making superhero movies. I don't
think they will, not only they would allow themselves to
be used that way. But I do think it's a
technique that can be used well. But also it.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Feels like Marvel's kind of done it to death a
little bit at this point.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
What about James Bond?
Speaker 2 (51:33):
I guess I feel like.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
That's a little different, just because the continuity doesn't matter
quite as much, and it feels like every time they
cast a new Bond they reset the clock.
Speaker 5 (51:41):
And oh like with Spider Man, yeah, a little bit,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
All the Spider Man's Meet also, that was fun. I
did enjoy that.
Speaker 6 (51:51):
Has been so much.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
I don't think it should be No, No, it's fine.
Speaker 6 (51:54):
They put the put in the ads.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Do you guys? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Though, it feels like if there's never really any anything
to worry about, because you know they can just come back,
does it feel like there's a little bit of lowering
of the stakes and you're not really concerned with what
might happen.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
I don't know. Maybe I'm being out.
Speaker 6 (52:08):
Yes, I agree with one hundred percentul.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
And we cannot thank you enough for tuning in. Folks.
We hope fellow comic book nerds, we hope you are
nodding along as we're hitting some of this stuff. Now,
obviously we alighted over some of the more in the
weeds part of this evolution. But I think what we
all agree on here is that a story never really ends.
(52:33):
With that, we can't wait for you to tune in
next week. We have so many more explorations ahead. History
continues to be ridiculous. Big thanks to our super producer
mister Max Williams, and our own lex luthor Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Indeed Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associate extraordinary
Jeff bart Let's and of course.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
You Ben and with you as well. We'll see you
next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always so much
for tuda. Could we get some non spoilery super hero music.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That's my that's my sound effect for it. There it goes.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's our super producer, mister Max Williams. I am Ben Bullen,
our Shazamer. Here are urah our hooray? Mister Noel Brown,
Noel how sock?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I just make sounds of my mouth. They pay me
for it for some reason. Do it well though?
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I am doing well, And I've got to say that
I don't want to spoiler. No spoilers to your point,
but I had no idea that shazam stood for something
that it's a freaking acronym.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
How cool is that? You know how much we love acronyms.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Everything's in acronym if you're weird enough.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
If you give it value, Yeah, for sure. What are
we talking about today?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Ben? What are we shazaming?
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I'm so glad you asked, because for a long time,
like many filthy casual fans of comics and comedy or
I thought, I thought healthy casual.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Isn't that a gamer term? Don't?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
But it sounds like a yeah, mat filthy, So is
that true? Fairwell, let's call it. Maybe this is sort
of like being a fair Weather fan like sort of
like you're not really in the weeds with this stuff.
You're not a day one or you only know the
movies that kind of fan wagon.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So they're so, uh bandwagon, fair Weather, filthy casual, call
me what you wish, fellow ridiculous historians. For quite for
quite some time, I thought that Shazam was the name
of the character. This is untrue. Shazam is the secret
magic word shouted out by the character Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, but also the movies, the character is named Shazam
with the kid that turns into the guy who shouts
the word, and also the name of the magical wizard
who abused him. With all of these back, Okay, the
point being, ben all of this stuff gets real convoluted.
This is like a IP juggling competition that we're going
to talk about today that is a lot longer than
(02:36):
a lot of people might realize.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
How many Captain Marvel's are there?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Nol no idea. Then I've researched this stuff. I mean,
I guess what like four I don't even know what, Lucia,
let's just get right into.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
All right, all right, yeah, you're right, you're right. So
back in March twenty nineteen, with the help of our
research associate Jeff, we got in a bit of a
conversational pickle Shazam, the film about Captain Marvel and Captain
Marvel the other film about another Captain Marvel. We're in
(03:07):
theaters at the same time, through two different companies. They
are unrelated, they do not exist in the same universe,
and they are indeed a consequence, a result, a culmination
of a history, as you said, no, a legally fraught
history that goes back almost a century.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Okay, Yeah, that's the number I was looking for.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
And ip, of course, most folks show because you don't
intellectual property, and that can get really fraught when you know,
something all of a sudden starts to pop off and
get really popular. And oh dear, that surely resembles my
cartoon character that I created. Uh, maybe it's time to
hire some lawyers and just see about that f around
and find out, if you will. Yeah, they aft around,
(03:52):
and they might find out that they are, in fact
in a situation known as copyright infringements.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Right, indeed, so funny thing happens at the comics stores
in June of nineteen thirty eight, you find a thing
called Action Comics number one, Action.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Commoss number of worth with a lot of money, right,
valuable piece. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
To the fellow enthusiasts, you might recognize this as the
print debut of DC Comics Superman. He comes out in
June of nineteen thirty eight, and just a year after
in Wiz Comics number two. I think they made it
in nineteen thirty nine, but it comes out in February
(04:36):
nineteen forty. Whiz Comics number two features guy named Captain
Marvel original name Captain Thunder. He is absolutely as though
we are in a court. Can we get like Max?
Can we get like a Casey on the case Law
and Order comic Court.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Oh, it's surely in the folder. Stummare, there it is there.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It is so your order. Captain Marvel originally apt in Thunder,
is nothing like Superman other than the fact that he
looks exactly like Superman and has identical powers and a
slightly different outfit.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Guys, we're gonna get to this, but I have to
pose it right up front. I sometimes think people get
a little high on their creative horse, maybe giving themselves
more creative credit than they deserve. All of these characters
are just modeled after Greek gods. Man, It's like, oh,
what an individual imbued with super strength who can fly?
(05:34):
Never heard of that before, never read the you know,
Greek mythology on.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
A million percent dude.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
And that even comes in with the whole what the
acronym shazam means, which we're gonna save and get to
in just a minute.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
But I just wanted to put that out there right now.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I think a lot of this is a little bit
of a pissing contest, and we do see where the
law ultimately sides.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
But none of these ideas are particularly unique.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
You know, a magical individual who can fly and lift
heavy things.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Joseph Campbell is nodding in agreement from Beyond the Grave,
the author of Hero with a Thousand Faces. No one
has accused human storytelling technology of originality. So let's learn
a little bit about our buddy. Captain Marvel knee Captain
Thunder comes out through an outfit called Fawcet Comics again
(06:25):
publication in nineteen forty and Captain Marvel has a cool
thing that's very appealing to the demographic of Fawcet comics.
He is a twelve year old boy named Billy Batson.
He's an orphan and in his origin story, he follows
a stranger into the subway, and when he goes to
(06:47):
the subway, he meets a mysterious old man, a wizard
named Shazam. That's the actual It's like Frankenstein's Monster.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
A million you know, yes, no exclamation mark though, is right?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So this so this wizard is like, stuff is messed up,
young Billy Batson, and you are the only hope for
all these crazy high stakes that I will not explain
why am just because he happened to be the one
that followed him or does he have some mystical destiny
like you know, he's like you're reading the comic and
you're thinking, oh, I could do that. I should follow
(07:21):
more strangers into the subway.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
That is not the takeaway.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
That's that's apparently that's the application. So okay, So the
wizard imbues and I love that word imbuse or bruise
young orphan Billy with this power whenever he says the
word the magic word. The Wizard's name Shazam. Then he
acquires can we get some like M c U or.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
D c U music, whatever you pick is certainly going
to go along with him.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, and let's uh, let's uh, let's round robin this please. Yeah? Okay,
So what does Shazam stand for?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
The stamina of Atlas, the power of.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
This lighting strike, the courage of Achilles.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And the speed of Mercury.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Do you get it?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I guess it's good that he didn't have the fatal
flaw of Achilles, right right.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
He has his own heels, as we'll find he also U.
Let's let's uh, let's point out that there were a
couple of Greco Roman gods that were ignored in this.
He doesn't have like the bad attitude of Hades, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
He doesn't have the limp of Vulcan.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
But he or Hephaestus, uh Captain Marvel for a time
surpasses Superman in popularity. It's a real Pepsi versus Coca
cola thing. In DC reads this. They do not exist
in a vacuum. And you can tell, as our old
pal research associate Jeff points out, you could tell because
(09:11):
Superman's powers evolve all of a sudden, inexplicably right after
Captain Marvel hits the scene.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Absolutely DC changed their hero to kind of go with
what this seemed like, the kids that were getting down
with before Captain Marvel. We know the famous line that
really does stick with it to this day, the property
Superman could leap.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Tall buildings in a single bound.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But that speed of Mercury, Man, it's got some heat
to it. So the idea that Superman was only propelling
himself over tall buildings with a with some powerful gams,
like a strong leap, but not necessarily the power of flight,
because the speed of Mercury granted Captain Marvel the ability
to fly. So before you knew it, Superman was up
(09:59):
there too, taking these guys. And it's funny, I've always
thought of that expression leap tall buildings in a single bound,
and in my mind I just squashed it together with flight.
But that's not what the original Superman did. He was
just a really good jumper, strong jumper.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And now it's a Now it's an incredible hulk power, right,
Hulk can't fly, but he can leap so well it's
all on smash.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
Also, I just want to jump in here. The buildings
weren't as tall back then. They were, actually they were,
they were really tall.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I think, Max, that that reminds me of the first
time I saw at the Tower of London and I thought, dang,
I guess anything over three stories really was a skyscraper
back then.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And you know some of them had the like the
little needle on top or the antennas just added a
little bit of height.
Speaker 6 (10:45):
Jump in here. Actually, I remember when my aunt Jennifer
lived in.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Philadelphia, there was a law or rule or custom, I
don't know which one was that no building could be
higher than the hat of William Penn.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, yep, yep, uh, there's a There was a similar thing,
I think, uh for a while in DC and in
a couple of other cities around the world. Like d
C is a very a very large it's a large,
picturesque metropolis. But you're not going to see a ton
(11:17):
of skyscrapers. You're going to see one weird looking phallic object. Obviously,
the Washington Monument Why is a nopolisk story for another day.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Indeed, I'm sorry, Max, Taller than the gentleman's hat Williams.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I don't understand.
Speaker 6 (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I probably explain it. There's a statue of.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
William Penn on topic I thank you, thank you, a big,
a big statue, a big one. Yeah, and you know
it's William Penn. He had a larger than life.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That neck of the loans.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yeah, in a burst of humility, they call it Pennsylvania.
So there are other key differences between the early Captain
Marvel and the early predecessor Superman. Captain Marvel franchises so quickly,
all of a sudden, you got a whole Dare I say,
Justice League of Marvel's a Marvel family. There's Captain Marvel Junior.
(12:09):
There's Mary Marvel. There's a super cool old man. There's
Talkie Tawny who is a tiger who can talk.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Get it. And there's like there's like a.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Superpowered rabbit or hair if you're in Europe, Captain Marvel buddy,
and everybody loves these stories. Speaking of franchises, speaking of
as you raised the point earlier, Noel, speaking of IP
or intellectual property and derivatives thereof, there is a twelve
(12:42):
part film series of Captain Marvel. There's a radio show.
There's all sorts of swag. A young, a young, up
and coming allegedly malungeon entertainer named Elvis Presley out of
Tennessee is very into Captain Marvel Junior and.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Talking about yourself, right no, no, no, no no, My
have action is a little bit nastier, but yeah, talking
about old Elvis, right, yeah, Elvis Presley uh is said
to have borrowed his look from not Clark Kent, but
Captain Marvel Junior. The whole clean cut, mild mannered vibe
(13:22):
also comes into question once we get into the legal
battle of all of this. And it is interesting too
because it does seem like, you know, while we might
think of superhero Superman as the most iconic kind of
og superhero, it does seem like Captain Marvel got some
things right quicker. The idea of a super crew, you know,
like a superhero kind of squad. It seems like they
(13:45):
were right out of the gate with that. And it
would be a bit longer, I believe, before like the
Justice League came around.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yes, yeah, just so Justice So whatever, keep it, give me,
it's yours, I want to.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
All right.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So, by the mid nineteen forties, the original Captain Marvel
Akshizam as we call him today, by far the most
popular comic book superhero in the country, most popular comic
book character in general. Sorry, Popeye, Tutelou, Tutelou, Yellow Kid,
(14:24):
Betty Booth, Guitarzad. Superman basically comes in a year or
two before and gives birth to what we would call
the superhero genre today, launching the house Yon days of
the Golden Age of comics, and Superman is following up,
you know, pepsine coke again with Captain Marvel. Superman gets
(14:46):
his own radio show, he's in comic strips, he gets
a cartoon, he gets a TV series, but he doesn't
get one thing that Captain Marvel gets, which is the
movie business.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, and you know, it's like the early days of movies,
but it's certainly an early era of this type of franchising, right.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Captain Marvel reaches the film industry first to date, Fellow
ridiculous historians, Captain Marvel is the first superhero ever to
be adapted, to have their story adapted into a motion picture.
And you know, now then I'm thinking of it, Noel Max,
you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me
(15:38):
of that poor kid in the TLC Day's Honey Booboo.
Remember that, Remember honey Booboo? Oh, I thought you meant
like TLC the R and B group. Now I'm talking
about the Learning Channel that eventually just became the amorphus TLC.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yes, of course, honey Booboo. And what was her mom's name,
Mama June, Mama June.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I think that's how they went a lot of Thompson
is the name of the former child star, and people
started calling her honey Booboo because of her catch phrase
that was like her Shazam, and Captain Marvel became known
as Shazam anyway side dope.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
So the studio behind the film was called Republic Pictures.
They were originally actually working with d C, which at
the time was called National Comics Publications to make a
Superman picture, but they already had an existing cartoon deal
with Paramount, which prevented them from signing another type of
(16:40):
property like that at the time. So Republic goes with
Captain Marvel instead, and DC was understandably post and Fawcett
Comics had already published Masterman, which was in and of
itself even more egregious.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I don't know. I don't really fallout.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
On either other side in terms of whether or not
Captain Marvel was an utter rip off of Superman. Sometimes
there's parallel thinking, maybe there was a little bit of
ripping off going on, but Masterman definitely obvious one to
one clone. Masterman also doesn't really roll off the tongue
very well.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
It's like give me my It's like the alliteration, but
it's like give me my weird havana cigar and let
me kick my feet up at the comic book spot
and be like, oh, a Superman, he's a he's he's
eating a lunch. What's another word for super uber It's
too German kolaba Masterman ulva.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Master's not great either.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I'm picturing like a southern gentleman in like a white
suit with his feet up, drinking a mid julib, watching
the field hands at work.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know, Masterman's sound all right, the over survibe, I
feel you. Masterman sounds like in the early seventeen hundreds
it was an obscure crime, possibly true, a crime that
William Penn would have prosecuted or been found guilty of. Right, absolutely,
I love how I love how we're all sort of
(18:06):
nodding with that one, So yeah, agreed, Masterman is an
even more obvious copy of Superman, and DC threatens a lawsuit.
They send like their version of what we would call
C and D a cease and desist. Faucett just says, okay, haha,
you got us, and they pull it. But they but
(18:28):
they're keeping with Captain Marvel, and DC is still really
beefed up about it. They're saying, Captain Marvel again is
just another guy who came after the guy that we
made up.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Isn't it interesting though, how this really does start to
feel almost like a superhero arms race.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, I was theander of that word in the research
as well. Like it is it is people attempting to, yeah,
come up with the the end doll be all like
quintessential super hero and stealing ideas from each other left
and right.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
In June of nineteen forty one, National Comics sues Fawcet
Comics for copyright infringement, and this creates one of the
longest running legal battles in the history of comic books
and lasts over a decade. And National Comics is, by
the way, think of them as like the representative of
(19:31):
DC Comics, and they're saying, look, we came up with
this a year before you guys did, and then you
came up with a guy who looks exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
By the way, in case you're trying to picture the
word faucets and you're picturing a tap dripping water, it's
actually spelled like Pharah Fawcetts. Yeah Fawcett. So, as you said, Ben,
longest running legal battle in the history of comic books
at least, why don't we start with a little break
down of kind of how it started and how it's going.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
For sure, Yeah faucet, Like Farah says, all right, we
get it, Yana. These I'm twiddling an invisible cigar this
whole time. All right, we get it, Yana. These two
characters are very similar, but it's not to the point
of infringement. I mean, think about Popeye, I think about Taza.
(20:24):
They already do all sorts of you know, kind of
superpower stuff. So who really is to blame? And then
National Comics or you know, DC's representatives, they they come
in and they go objection you Ana, here, we have
bin got to bind we gotta bind what's in the binder.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Well, this is kind of where it does start to
you know, I can see the issue where you start
to have these page by page comparisons of different comics,
over one hundred and fifty pages in fact, panels from
they are comics of Superman juxtapose with panels from Captain
Marvel with close details kind of like circle like Exhibit A.
(21:08):
Everything from costumes from the various you know, coutrema like
capes and boots, the various superpowers of course, flying abilities, strength, speed,
bullet invincibility, the ability to withstand explosions and shells and
stuff like that, the idea, the detail of a secret identity,
(21:28):
and they also edit. I think I mentioned this briefly
at the top. They also went so far as to
say that there was some copyright infringement going on in
the fact that they were both clean cut, clean shaven individuals.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, no facial hair. That's a bummer for Max Nolla myself, folks,
No superheroes with facial hair. Also, I love invincibility to bullets,
not necessarily invincibility overall.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You just can't shoot at.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Them, that's right, And I guess I haven't seen the
Panels or the by Psyche comparison. But even some of
these things just on paper, not entirely unique.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I think there are examples of this. I mean when
you just modernize like a hero.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Of course, bullets are going to come into play, because
that's what all the baddies use, the gangsters. But when
they start circling things like costume similarities and very specific
like copy cat items from one comic issue to another,
with enough of those stacked up, got a pretty good
case on their hands, I would argue.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, And the court agreed on to trial nineteen forty eight.
The judge primarily ruled in favor of our friends over
at DC and said, Okay, this Captain Marvel guy is
an infringement on Superman and a lot of this comes
to us courtesy of our friends at Plagiarism Today dot com,
(22:52):
who creates that detail on it.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, we're gonna be really careful to cite them every
chance lest they come after us.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, so let's letter box over there. Yeah, let's also
shout out Jonathan Bailey. And this is a pretty recent
article that comes from May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen, talking
about the larger tale of captain Marvel and don't worry,
we'll get to your favorite marvels, your modern marvels, dare
I say in a moment. But obviously the courts have
(23:21):
to agree on the infringement here. It is kind of
obvious because who reads comic books at this time, people
who make comic books.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
We have not yet reached the kind of mainstreaming of
comics that we know today. You know, we're every single mining,
every single piece of intellectual property from these canons. You know,
this back catalog of stuff to make you know, a
movie or television show or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, it's it's it's still coming from that that newspaper
comic strip origin, right, the idea of a whole book
of funny pages. That's why they're called cop books.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So the issue is there's the comic book issue. Is
there is a there is this halsey on era again
wherein it is kind of mainstreamed in print. But during
the post World War Two, in the early nineteen fifties,
the sales of these superhero comic books they're in the
(24:23):
can they're slumping. People are not making as much money,
and so Fawcet decides, hey, we can't really fight this case. Right,
we're already hemorrhaging money in sales, so they pay four
hundred thousand dollars in damages if we can inflation calculate,
and a dude a booth and a book, that's about
(24:46):
four million dollars today, and.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So certainly not chump change.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Not chump change. But Captain Marvel may have gone out
like a chump Fawcet Comics shut up their whole comic
book division and they bow out. This has intergenerational copyright consequences.
But this is not the end of Captain Marvel.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Meanwhile, actually not meanwhile.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
It takes a little time fast forward, in fact to
nineteen sixty six. Captain Marvel has largely become a dead property.
It wasn't until February of nineteen sixty six that the
pulp magazine Magnates Myron Fasts, which is, if there ever
were a name that felt right for a pulp magazine, Magnate,
(25:39):
Myron Fast has my vote, and Myron Fast publishes Captain Marvel,
which is considered by many in comic book circles.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
It's just three circles to.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Be one of the worst, if not the worst, comic
books ever written.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Which you know, makes sense if you're thinking.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
About what pulp magazines were famous for putting out.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
It was crap a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And our research is associate Jeff is Co citing that.
But folks, that comes from Britannica, the Encyclopedia Britannica is
telling us that Myron Fast as Captain Marvel is one
of the worst.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I'm wondering, I get I'm assuming that Myron Fast and
maybe acquired this intellectual property after the decline or the
you know, I guess disintegration of Faust Comics. I don't
have that detail right here, but that would be the
only thing that would make.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Sense, right, that would be logical. And this Captain Marvel
is released around the same time Marvel Comics is riding high.
They've got Fantastic Four, They've got Spider Man, They've got
X Men. As you know if you follow superhero films
(26:51):
and adaptations, folks, Spider Man and X Men are making
a lot of money. Fantastic four is also on the
way in the next few years.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Interestingly enough, though, if I'm not mistaken, both Spider Man
and X Men are similarly kind of like there's a
weird device disconnects between like two studios that have the
right box so.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Together.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
Well, so Fox doesn't have them anymore. It's not anymore Disney.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Disney bought out that entire part of that studio and
got all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
That's when Disney bought out twentieth Century Fosh.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Shout out Kevin Page, the architect, the mad genius of
the MCU.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
He also, like the Sony Spider Man movies are largely
considered be pretty bad until the Spider Verse movies, the
animated ones, which are I think regarded as some of
the best Spider Man films ever to be made.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And I would tend to agree with that.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
The new ones with Tom Holland there's weird things products, there's.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
A partnership with Marvels, and there are certain characters they're
not allowed to use or not allowed to cross feature
because the whole deal with the Cinematic Universe stuff is
to have appearances and a continuity.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So those are properties that tend.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
To be a little confusing and convoluted, and I think
those deals are going to run out, and then ultimately
it all goes.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
To let me, let me tell you guys what happening.
Let me tell you guys, what happened. So Marvel goes bankrupt.
Marvel as a comic book entity is in the tank,
and in their darker days, they start selling off properties,
their derivative IP, you could call it, to different companies,
and hence you have for a while twentieth Century Fox
(28:38):
owning X Men, and then a different company, Sony owned
Spider Man. It was a fire sale. I don't I
don't even know if we want to do a bend
with fact thing on this.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
That seeking the phone bed and PA's full in knowledge.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
It's just for you right now.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
It's an unpleasant story, and it explains a lot of
the weird, a weird attempts that we see these different
companies doing, you know, with the Sony Spider Man or
Spider verse, right they're trying to make a Venom verse
where Spider Man doesn't show up. They're trying to make
a morebius film.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Where that one didn't go super well, are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (29:27):
More fis No, it's more bs.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
That's the Vampire one with Jared Leto that was apparently
I saw it on a plane actually, but I just
sort of tuned out because it was embarrassingly bad and
now there's this new Madam web movie. It is apparently
absolute garbage.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
The comic books were good, but I don't know if
the creators were at the comics.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
But is Madam Webb an official Marvel release or is
there another weird crossover here because it seemed of a
lower quality than the typical I know, Marvel Studio seems
to be struggling a little bit, but Madam Webb looked
like a B movie kind of it's and it is okay,
So it's still in the Spider Verse because Madam Webb
(30:05):
in the comics is uh is affiliated sort of with
the pantheon of Spider Man.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And so they've got this, They've got this whole legal
plaquemire going on, and our pal myron Us Myron, Myron thanks,
he loves his mother. Yeah, Myron, he's got to get
out a skid row, right, shout out the little Shop
of Horrors. It seems right, It seems obvious that he
(30:34):
is trying to uh claim this trademark. And it's kind
of like, in a weird way, it's like a print
version of those B movies that you would see, uh
straight to VHS and the days of Blockbuster, right, remember
those that not quite the same horror film. It wouldn't
be like uh, hell Raiser, it would be like heck
(30:56):
Ruckus hell Bringer.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Well, and then you know, there was a company called
the Something O Jesus, I know what you're talking about,
But they coined the term mockbuster. Mockbuster, that's it, straight
to video things where literally part of their business would
be people confusing their thing for the real thing on
the shelves a blockbuster. That's what my asylum, I think
is what it was called. I want to say it
(31:21):
was called the Asylum. But he stead of snakes on
a plane, they did snakes on a train. But they
were leaning into that, and this whole deal is pre that.
But this is exactly right then, the absolute B movie
version of popular thing.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
He did such a he got in trouble because he
also got too close to the actual properties and characters.
He used Plastic Man, which is a real DC character and.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
A real rip up of mister Fantastic or vice versa. Hey,
I'm not even sure what order they came in, Hey,
law and order saying yeah, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Sustained doctor Fate And then how bad is this he
had a Batman character and he was like, well, we
can't call it Batman, We'll call him the bat Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Perfect ride.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Can we also, once again, no shade. This is all
first to market stuff. You can only come up with
Batman one time. It's not the most creative thing in
the universe. It's a guy who looks like a bat
and he's called Batman.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, I mean, Spider Man has man bat Oh wait,
how do you.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Say the man? Wait?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
But then there was the man bat in the Batman
the animated series, who was still weird mutant bat thing.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, for sure. And there's Batgirl. Oh sorry.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
You can see how this stuff is even confusing for us,
and we're fans of this stuff, so it really does
get pretty convoluted pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And so he uh, he has his own Captain Marvel
that he he makes a side This guy has a
like a Batman Robin relationship. In the Myron Fast stuff
and Myron Fast as Captain Marvel has a sidekick named
Billy Baxton with an X which is just a Batson
(33:15):
pretty close to Billy Batson. So you can see how
that didn't work out After just a few issues. Fast
as Captain Marvel disappears, and Marvel Comics has this look
around the room moment and they say, wow, these low
quality imitators, these grifters, they can do lasting damage to
(33:39):
everything that we represent. We have to go back to court,
we have to lock down this Captain Marvel name. And
so in I think it's like nineteen sixty six, the
publisher of Marvel goes to Myron Fast and says, look,
we'll give you six grand to the rights for Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Okay, again, we don't even have to inflation calculator. You
could probably figure that was probably close to to like,
you know, fifty grand or maybe even one hundred grand
at the time. But when you think about where things
ended up with all the movies and how even minor
characters like that were big have become big money shout
out man exactly, the minorists of characters. That was probably
(34:24):
a little bit of a sweetheart deal there, know.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, And so it's so weird because Marvel, so Myron
Fast turns them down. Marvel goes ahead and says, forgiveness
V permission, We're going to introduce our own Captain Marvel,
a brand new Captain Marvel. And in nineteen sixty seven.
I want to say. They come out with Captain Marvel
(34:49):
on the twelfth issue of a thing they were running
called Marvel Superheroes, and Myron Fast says Marvel, gosh dotted,
I'll sue your pants off if infringing on by trademark
that I stole from you. And they say you're being
a cartoon And so my Ron Fast ultimately settles for
(35:10):
four thousand, five hundred dollars. And we've got a great
quote here at Noel. You'd love to do this one,
he says.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Our Captain Marvel was selling lousy anyway.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I mean, really, the only way to say that is like.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
I was lousy. I was selling lousy. Who cares get
rid of it? For everyone on the trash.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Heap, for everyone listening along at home. Our pal Nol
is also twiddling a fake cigar at this point, and
us that's how publishers talk, right, It's true, they always have,
like a fake cigar. Not much happens for the next
(35:49):
twenty years. The original Captain Marvel is no longer publishing,
The name and the character, more specifically, stop being used
in nineteen sixty eight. That's where we get the current
Captain Marvel. So this modern, this new Captain Marvel is
(36:10):
an alien. They make up a whole backstory, build out
a world for Captain Marvel's race. Captain Marvel, who is
not the current iteration played by Brie Larsen, is a
dude alien from a race called the Cree, or a
species called the Cree.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Which you might recognize from the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
And again, you know, I think like you yourself been,
I have friends who are deep into all of this
stuff and all of this lore and these various iterations
and the Cree have been around for you know, decades
and decades, and you know, really what Marvel Studios have
(36:52):
done is mind all of this intellectual property, sometimes taking
some creative liberties, sometimes being very true to the source material,
but it's essentially just an absolute, you know, pool of
stuff they can pull from to kind of like tell
these stories. And the Cree are a big part of
that as well as like introducing Thanos and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
They got creative give it that drum. Yeah, all right,
So this, uh, this direct predecessor of the current Marvel,
Captain Marvel is mar dash Vel and his Yeah, exactly,
just so, and This was an editorial necessity. They needed
(37:34):
to use the trademark, which is kind of also why
Loki Sony comes out with a Spider Man movie every
so often, because they have to use it to keep it.
So Marvel is uh is kind of checking the boxes
for Marvel. I mean, he he looks a lot like
(37:55):
he has this like a lot of the same superpowers.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
He gets uh, he gets a different uniform. He has
gold wrist bands which you'll later see and stuff like
Captain Quantum and whatever. In Marvel, he's got a starbarst logo.
Uh he.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
He has a different sound effect when he strikes his
wrist together. He doesn't say shazam, but what triggers his
superpowers is the sound effect.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
The tang, which is really just kind of like automatopoeia
for the sound that it might make when the risk
you know, braces or slapped the tang.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, because because they're the Billy Batson in this is
a teenager named Rick Jones who finds these golden wristbands
the negative the megabands megabands.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, that doesn't sound good, it's that oh sorry, because
they're from the negative zone. They're from the.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Negative zone, got it. Yeah, so the the lore is there.
They put it in place, but I would prefer sh
as Am to a Katang. I don't know what do
you guys think?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Absolutely, and the whole negative zone negative all seems a
little bit lazy if we're being honest.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
We're being honest. The fans didn't really dig this, and
the sales reflected that. So Captain Marvel in this iteration
was always sort of on the cusp of being canceled.
And this is where we get to the actual Captain
Marvel that you may know and recognize from the Disney
(39:31):
brun MCU today. Carol Danvers makes her first appearance in
Marvel Superheroes issue thirteen, just after issue twelve, right in
March of nineteen sixty eight, and she originally is hanging
out with these alien cre She's hanging out with Marvel.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
She actually gets abducted by a jealous Cree officer named
Jon Rog, which sounds weirdly cthulhuesque, and Marvel flies in
to rescue her in like you said, Captain Marvel at
number eighteen. Then there's a battle between Marvel and Yon Rag,
and during said battle, a device is exploded an ancient
(40:13):
Creed device called the psyche Magnetron, which is kind of
cool sounding.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
I might use that for I don't know, it could
be a cool band name or something. And it explodes
and creates sort of like a fallout area wherein Marvel and.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Danvers get bathed in this radiation.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Marvell presumably is being okay, being sort of you know,
extra human and all of that. And Danvers, however, transforms.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
She's infused with Cree.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
DNA and she actually gets powers very similar to those
of Marvel.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Dare we call her Captain Marvel? Not quite yet, because
for almost a decade, Danvers is just a second tier
recurring presence in the overall Captain Marvel series. It isn't
until the nineteen seventies when DC has wonder Woman wonder
(41:11):
Woman coming to like the cover of Miss magazine, that
the folks at Marvel look around and they say twiddling
the invisible cigar.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Indeed, hey, why don't we have a why.
Speaker 5 (41:24):
We have a woman's superhero? Women's lib is hot right now?
We got this second wave feminism. We need to get
with it.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
With the picture j Jonah Jamison banging the desk, bring
me a woman, Superhero any woman as quick as you can.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
And then you know they you can kind of see.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
Through the ploy here as well, even by the name
they plopped on her with as Miss Marvel.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
You know, it's like throwing a bow on pac.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Man and calling him Miss pac Man, but even more
kind of obnoxious, frankly.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
And so in January of nineteen seventy seven, Nola's right, folks,
Miss Marvel debuts and now our character, Carol Danvers has
a fair uh faucet hairdoo get it? Easter egg? Oh snap, yeah,
and she's traveling to New York City. She's gonna work
as a journalist for a magazine called Woman.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Woman Super Creative.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
It's published by Jay Jodah Jamison.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Who's all about you know, women's lib Yeah, class classes
big time. So, you know, Miss Marvel does never really
quite quite lock into a rhythm, whether it be with
the stories or the art, because that's very important to
kind of establish like sort of a cohesive feel to it.
A rotating cast of artists means that it never really
(42:43):
quite gets into that groove. A new costume that gets
unveiled in nineteen seventy eight, but overall it's a bit
of a dud, and it gets canceled just a few
issues later, an issue number twenty three April of nineteen
seventy nine. But then they decide to bring back Marvel
the Watch. She doesn't get her own imprint or her
own series. They throw her on a team.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Yeah, the Avengers. The moment where Marvel Comics said, we
have Justice League at home. It's true Justice Leake comes
before the Avengers.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
But I think her inclusion is a little bit offensive though,
or there is. She's sort of this token woman that
is treated a disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
There's a storyline where she gets sexually assaulted. It just
in short, it doesn't age well. But the writers, like
artists and writers like Chris Claremont said, hey, we're not
treating this character well. This character has a lot of
potential and depth. And so in October of nineteen eighty one,
(43:46):
Claremont himself tries to fix this and he says, all right,
Carol Denvers has made her way back from space to Earth.
She's escaping the Creed, but she's haunted by it. She
runs into Rogue, the very southern mutant from the X
Men who can steal powers.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
And also can will kill you right, just touch her
hand loog.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Yeah, And so I didn't realize Rogue was ever not
connected with the X Men. I really only knew her,
and I am one of those what did you call it, filthy?
I'm filthy in some way, filthy fans on fair Weather
is what I'll call myself. I really only knew about
a lot of this stuff from like the X Men
animated series or like Batman the animated series. Those were
really excellent, by the way. And there's this new X Men. Yeah,
(44:38):
it's supposed to be fabulous and I really can't wait
to watch it. They really nailed the style and apparently
it's very, very smart. I'm excited to check it out.
But no, I had no idea that Rogue was her
own thing.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Oh well, Rogue is.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Rogue was formerly from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants helmed
by Magneto, and then she joins the X Men. So
she's a bit of an anti hero. But she has
this complicated relationship that actually passes the Bechdel test with
Carol Danvers, and so the reason Rogue has powers there are.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Those two women talking to each other right without talking
about dude.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
So she gets her she gets her powers, super strength
and flight and all that because she is permanently intertwined
with Carol Danvers as Miss Marvel. And when when Rogue
and Danvers get into this situation, Danvers loses all of
her memory, which is sort of Chris Claremont wiping the
(45:39):
slate clean, Tabila, rasa and and so then he has
Clairemont writes Danvers or Miss Marvel as a character who
is recuperating and discovering herself and her identity with the
X Men. It's a great thing, right, And Clairemont does
very well with the X Men series. His run goes
(46:02):
almost twenty years, but it's Captain Marvel still. They want
to hold on to Captain Marvel. How do we shazam
this back to its original success. Maybe we fast forward
to the movies.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Right, where's my Oh? Well?
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Now, now instead of publishing Magnates with print nol, we've
got to twiddle our vapes. Now we're Studio Magnates.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Studio Magnates.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
Indeed, and as we've talked about throughout this episode, the
MCU is feeling like it's in a bit of a slump,
but it is still quite big business. And when it
first really came out the original runs of MCU films
from the Ironman franchise and onto the Avengers and Infinity
Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, this is
(46:51):
some very creative use of this intellectual property, very well made.
It's neat to see them pulling in some smaller directors
to come in and do these really really big, big films.
And you know, you've got like James Gunn, for example,
who got his star with Trauma Pictures and Toxic Avengers
and all of that, helming the Guardians of the Galaxy movies,
(47:11):
I think to great effects because there is with the
legacy of these properties, a lot of pulpy fun kind
of trash involves. So he's a guy that kind of
gets that, and that's why I think his are more
successful than maybe some of the others. And it feels
like they've gotten to a place where they sort of
just lost the plot.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
And it is neat that James Gunn, I believe, now.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Is revamping DC who have notoriously been a little more
dour in their films, like with the Batman's films with
Chritopher Nolan, which are obviously very good, but there's not
quite as much fun and lightheartedness as you might find
in some of the Marvel movies. So interesting to see
where that's gonna go. But that being said, Marvel Cinematic
Universe did grow into one of the most successful film
(47:51):
franchises of all time, and hence the mining of every
inch of intellectual property they can from back as far
as the nineteen forties.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah. Yeah, this is where Carol Danvers slash Miss Marvel
slash Captain Marvel goes to the big screen. Everybody total
of your vapes. Breed Larsen, the actor, is cast in
the title role of Captain Marvel after the after the
role gets teased in Avengers Infinity War. So March twenty nineteen,
(48:25):
Captain Marvel comes out. It makes more than one billion
dollars US worldwide. And then in the later that same
year Avengers Endgame comes out, we also get we also
get the introduction of other ancillary characters, just like Shizam,
just like Captain Marvel of old, there's Monica Rambeau who
(48:48):
is who is affiliated with Captain Marvel and has similar powers. Right,
and then because we have promoted Danvers to Captain Marvel,
there's a new Miss Marvel and This is a Pakistani
American teenager, Kamala Kahan. Her powers are way different in
the comics versus in the film or the series adaptations.
(49:15):
It's pretty interesting because what we're seeing is overall the
adaptation of these modern myths. I really appreciate the idea
that you pointed out of this continuity between Greco Roman
gods of old and deities and pantheons, and the way
(49:35):
that those stories echoed down to the world of comics
and entertainment today. It seems that, as our pal Jeff said,
it's a reminder that with superheroes, no death is truly final.
You might be exactly, you might be the next Captain
Marvel Max.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
You never know.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
And also, I would have to argue, does seem to
lower the stakes white a lot, And I would argue
is maybe one of the reasons why some of the
Marvel properties have lost their luster a little bit, because
if you if you don't really have to worry about
what happens to a character because you know there's going
to bring them back through a multiversal timey whimy flip,
then are there are there ever any stakes?
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Really? It just kind of feels a little bit you.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Know, lazy uh, and their ability to continuously cash in
on all these characters without actually having to commit to
any of their decisions.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Interesting to say, is that how you feel about Doctor Who?
Because you said time with Whymy?
Speaker 2 (50:32):
I said Timey whymy?
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Just because it's you know, it does seem to be
a narrative device and it's a little vague as to
how it actually works, and I feel like the mechanics
behind it are a little you know, amorphous, And I
also feel like it's just again like is it really
is a character ever really gone? If they can bring
them back, you know, in the next movie. It just
(50:54):
seems to me to be a little bit of a
I don't know, cash grabby kind of move. I do
think it can use creatively. Obviously, it was stuff like everywhere,
everything everywhere all at once. This time travel stuff and
multiverse stuff is really really cool. And obviously those the
directors of that film and writers, the Daniels are now
in a deal with I believe the Russo Brothers and
(51:16):
and some of the bigger studios. Hopefully they're not going
to get relegated to just making superhero movies. I don't
think they will, not only they would allow themselves to
be used that way. But I do think it's a
technique that can be used well. But also it.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Feels like Marvel's kind of done it to death a
little bit at this point.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
What about James Bond?
Speaker 2 (51:33):
I guess I feel like.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
That's a little different, just because the continuity doesn't matter
quite as much, and it feels like every time they
cast a new Bond they reset the clock.
Speaker 5 (51:41):
And oh like with Spider Man, yeah, a little bit,
I guess.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
All the Spider Man's Meet also, that was fun. I
did enjoy that.
Speaker 6 (51:51):
Has been so much.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
I don't think it should be No, No, it's fine.
Speaker 6 (51:54):
They put the put in the ads.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
Do you guys? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Though, it feels like if there's never really any anything
to worry about, because you know they can just come back,
does it feel like there's a little bit of lowering
of the stakes and you're not really concerned with what
might happen.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
I don't know. Maybe I'm being out.
Speaker 6 (52:08):
Yes, I agree with one hundred percentul.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
And we cannot thank you enough for tuning in. Folks.
We hope fellow comic book nerds, we hope you are
nodding along as we're hitting some of this stuff. Now,
obviously we alighted over some of the more in the
weeds part of this evolution. But I think what we
all agree on here is that a story never really ends.
(52:33):
With that, we can't wait for you to tune in
next week. We have so many more explorations ahead. History
continues to be ridiculous. Big thanks to our super producer
mister Max Williams, and our own lex luthor Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
Indeed Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associate extraordinary
Jeff bart Let's and of course.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
You Ben and with you as well. We'll see you
next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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