They always were two completely different characters. One, concieved in the 40's by Fawcett Publications with the power of several characters from myth/history. The other, the greatest soldier from a space farring empire who has adopted Earth as his home planet to protect, given the nega-bands to provide him with strength, flight etc. (nowhere near as close as Supes, or his Marvel counterparts, he had wussy stats, like 10 tons) later changed to manipulation of photons, i.e. energy. And after ingratiating himself with some cosmic goombah, he gained cosmic awareness. All this stuff was passed on to his son and daughter.
Yes. SHAZAM, Billy Batson, Captain Marvel etc. were all originally owned by Fawcett Publications. QC/DC whatever they were called at the time sued Fawcett, saying CM was a rip off of Supes. The times were different, they won the case and the loses were so great that Fawcett went out of business, but not before selling SHAZAM off to DC. This was not the only time this happened. I believe the original Wonder Man was put out of action this way, back in the 40's long before Marvel resurrected the name for our ol' buddy Simon.
Talk about the major screw. "Yeah, we're taking all of your money, then your characters, then we're going to make ludicrous amounts of money using your characters. Have a nice life."
Of course, these were different times, and it would now be impossible for such a thing to go through. In fact, under new European and African Union laws, social heritage are now considered to have some sort of etheral copywrite about them. Awhile ago Iraq tried to sue Marvel Enterprises, saying the Hulk was a ripoff of Gilgamesh, from the epic story aptly named Gilgamesh, which is a large part of Iraqi (and other nations around that area's) social identity as far as myths and stuff go. Now we all know the Hulk is a beefed up crossing of Frankenstein's monster and Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde. So George Dubya invaded Iraq, because of weapons of mass destruction, and he really liked the Hulk movie and wouldn't stand for their slanderous lies. Anyways, it fell through.
No problem.
The reason Marvel was able to get away with the title, Captain Marvel, is because DC hadn't published a comic by the name of Captain Marvel in however many number of years. Their lease on the name was up, and first come first serve, Marvel grabbed it up. These things aren't set in stone and after awhile they expire, the characters' likenesses stay copywrit, but the name is back to public domain. This happens a lot with Transformers, which is why you have a few characters with the same names but no relations. Hasbro/Takara is just trying to keep a hold on the names so no one can get them. Currently, I think, Marvel still has the rights to use Onslaught as a name for a fictional character, thus Hasrbo/Takara cannot use it at the moment.
Back in the day--late 30's/40's the laws were more stringent (or actually, they just had not been fully established) regarding copywrites. A character that displayed the same traits as Superman, no matter his origin or other attributes of the character and his or her supporting universe, would come under some serious legal heat. Later on, as the universe of such characters expanded, the laws became less strict and wholly unenforcable.
Originally posted by juggernaut74
What did you mean when you said Marvels was a lame clone of Superman. I must have misunderstood you.
Mercilous stated that he was a clone of Superman. I just meant that if he was, he was lame one then because he got his ass kicked by Thanos. Besides, virtually every character who is super-strong, can fly, and travels in space is compared to Superman. He was the original after all.
I think everyone in here only says that Thor will win due to the huge lack of popularity and knowledge of Shazam from what ive read he was a pretty important character some comics such as Kingdom were he was one of the being who gave power to Gog so did Zues, the last gaurdian of the universe, and Highfather. In the end Gog had more power then all of them combined and he was pretty tough from what i hear.
I say Thor wins. (That it is Cap'n Marvel and not the wizard.)Thor has way more experiance as a fighter than a young Billy Batson could handle.
Cpt. Marvel may have "The wisdom of Soloman" but the wisdom of a mortal Biblical character isn't enough to counter the countless battles of gods, devils and cosmic beings that Thor has put in their place.
Thor can go in and out of dimensions, keep Marvel away with many different tornados and lightning bolts.
Marvel may get a lucky shot or two using the speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules, but Thor is nigh invulnerable and those shots won't defeat him.
marvel vs DC comic shouldn't count in an argument sinse the winners were voted in and the writers made each charcter "equal to their opponent."
But DC vs Marvel fights should not count anyway. The wins were voted in by fans.While Marvel has the edge in speed and flight, that won't stop Hurricanes, tornadoes and lightning bolts, dimensional portals AND being pounded by a very powerful hammer.
The captain may get a lucky shot or two, but Thor is near invulnerable and has enough powers to stop Marvel from getting a bunch of punches in.
I'm not saying those are going to "do him in," but they can keep CM from speed blitzing Thor.More or less they'll keep CM busy while Thor goes in and out of dimensions and pounds away with his hammer.
It won't be an easy fight, but Thor has the edge in battle experience and powers.
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i realy think shazam has a better chance at beating thor then tyhor does against him. shazam is faster and just as strong when is comes to combat. shazam main weakness is also probably his greatest strength. the reason i say this is cuss say both thor and shazam are both bloody snd weak and thor shazam turns into belly. all he has to say is shaam is his gonna be as good as new. and it could end up be bloody weak thor vs brand new shazam. or shazam could just takes thor hammer from the start and just end it.