Forum: Author Hangout

I remember, decades ago, a movie serial "Captain Marvel,"and in Episode 1 there was a character named Shazam, an old man with a long white beard who gave the boy, Billy Batson, the powers of turning himself into a powerful (flying, no less!) man - Captain Marvel, and he do so by saying "Shazam!" out loud. The character Shazam said the word Shazam was an acronym for a variety of powers obtained by pagan gods. As I recall, the "Z" in the name meant the power came from Zeus. I don't remember any of the others.
I know Captain Marvel, the comics, lost a court case early on, and were prohibited from publishing. There were, I believe, a variety of name changes and ownership of the comics and trademark (by a different company, I think) of the name Captain Marvel, and the comics had to stop publishing for nearly a quarter century.
Today's Captain Marvel, if I understand correctly, is NOT the same Captain Marvel from decades ago, neither comics nor the old serial. The new movie, Shazam!, now in theaters, I've heard, IS based on that old original boy-magically-becomes-man Captain Marvel character, and is NOT based on the old man named Shazam in the original.
Does my memory match reality? Is the new Shazam! the same (or nearly the same) as the old Billy Batson-Captain Marvel (unlike the female Captain Marvel in a movie this year or last.)
The old original Captain Marvel was set in, IIRC, the Valley of the Tombs in Siam, where Captain Marvel defended white tomb raiders from attacks by natives. I also recall an "angry" volcano, but I forget precisely what roused the ire of the volcano.

The "Captain Marvel" thing is a whole IP mess involving three different comics companies.

Captain Marvel/Billy Batson was created in the '40s by Fawcett Comics, and Captain Marvel comics were very popular for 15 years or so, until DC sued Fawcett for copyright violation, alleging that Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman. Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel, and Billy languished until the '70s, when DC acquired the property, with the intention of publishing new comics about Captain Marvel/Billy Batson.

But in the meantime, Marvel Comics had created their own "Captain Marvel", a Kree named Mar-Vell, and held an active trademark on "Captain Marvel". They've continued to keep the title active in order to maintain the trademark, but it's passed on to a number of different characters since Mar-Vell, most recently Carol Danvers (formerly known as Ms. Marvel). (Whom I know mainly from the period of X-Men when Rogue had drained Ms. Marvel a little too hard and had more or less permanently acquired Carol's powers and had her personality living in the back of her head.)

Captain Marvel/Billy Batson is a completely different (and older) character than Captain Marvel/Mar-Vell or any of his successors, including Carol Danvers, so DC was able to start publishing new comics about Captain Marvel/Billy Batson, but they couldn't title them Captain Marvel, because that would be a violation of the Marvel Comics trademark. So the Billy Batson comics were entitled Shazam!, from his magic word - but Billy's actual supranym was still Captain Marvel until fairly recently, when, to reduce confusion, DC actually renamed Billy "Shazam" in a continuity reboot.

So the movie Shazam! is a DC movie, about Billy Batson, who was the original Captain Marvel, but is now known as Shazam.

The movie Captain Marvel is a Marvel Comics movie, about a completely different character, not connected to the original Captain Marvel in any way, named Carol Danvers, known as Captain Marvel.

Superman has a major issue with magic.

Since all of Shazam's abilities are magical, you can see the problem.

but who remembers the Shazam tv show from the 70's. with the old guy and the kid riding around the country in an RV?