[Pravus Prime]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBlueMarvel

What I do know is that Shazam was formerly a property owned by some other comic company (not D.C.). D.C., upset at the similarities between Shazam and Superman, sued said company to the point of preventing them from continuing to publish any more books featuring the character.

Not quite.

Whiz comics published Captain Marvel.
National Comics (Later DC)
Timely Comics (Later Marvel) are the three companies involved here.

When Captain Marvel starting outselling Superman on a regular basis, National sued them, claiming that Captain Marvel was a rip-off of Superman. They lost the case. They then started amping up Superman and stealing elements from Captain Marvel (the first hero on moving picture!). Superman could fly now, Supergirl appeared, Superboy got his own title, and Lex Luthor became a bald scientist who was a recurring villain, all to match Caps magic powers, Mary Marvels major role in the Marvel family, Captain Marvel Juniors popularity, and because Dr. Sivanna was a very popular villain.

National tried again to sue Whiz, but again, lost the case in days. However, the judge did point out that while the characters were not rip-offs, the formatting of some issues could be taken as a new case.

By the 1950's, there was a major shift in comics, prior to then, Superheroes were a genre within comics, not the majority. True Crime/Intrigue/Spy, Historical, and War comics were all other major genres at the time as well, each selling as well or even better up until that point. Post-war however, Superheroes were the only selling comics as the industry went into a rather hefty decline. This shift in sales caused many small time comic companies (or subdivisions) to fold, as they didn't have any popular superheroes to keep them afloat in this new era. Whiz was losing money on all their titles except Captain Marvel. When the next lawsuit arrived about the formatting of some of their issues, they realized that they were screwed. In the end, Whiz went out of business in 1953.

National would reorganize from the shift as well, dumping many of their titles and reforming as DC, publishing virtually only Superhero comics and getting bigger as a result of flexing with the times.

Timely would re-organize as well, into Marvel a few years later, doing virtually the same thing. In 1968 they managed to secure the copyright to Captain Marvel (Which hadn't been used in 15 years and thus was free to be taken). In 1972 DC would gain a license to use Whiz characters, then outright bought them in 1994, but because of Marvel having Captain Marvel, was forced to use Shazam!.

National never won a single case despite trying several times arguing that Captain Marvel was a Superman rip-off, what they managed to do was gain a settlement on the similarities in formatting and that was enough to drive the final nail into Whiz comics financial woes to put them out of business at the time. The only other comic they published (and only briefly) was a run on Dennis the Menace.

As for Angela, I still don't understand that. Mostly because I don't get why Marvel even wanted Angela unless it was part of some bigger negotiation "package".