![]() That’s a polite way of saying the series looked cheap. Shazam! found the company venturing into the world of live-action while holding on to some of the techniques it picked up from animation. It wasn’t long before a TV series followed, produced by Filmation, a company responsible for animated versions of Superman, Aquaman, and Batman, as well as series featuring Archie, the animated Star Trek, and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. The revived story explained that Shazam and his supporting cast had been stuck in “suspendium” for a while, but here he was, red cape and everything. This peculiar arrangement (and a trademark complaint from the by then established Marvel) led to the reestablishment of Captain Marvel as Shazam same character, different name. It wasn’t until 1972 that Fawcett decided to revive the character by licensing Captain Marvel to the only company it legally could: DC Comics. So Fawcett, after years of litigation, settled out of court, ultimately ceasing production of Captain Marvel’s comics. The company that would later become DC Comics objected to his resemblance to a certain other speedy, blessed-with-the-gift-of-flight, Herculean hero (Superman). Sivana, a copyright-infringement lawsuit launched by National Comics ended his run. But after almost 15 years of getting struck by lightning in order to accrue the power he needed to annihilate bad guys like Dr. ![]() the boy who could become a superpowered adult man by speaking his magic acronym (Shazam is comprised of the first letters of the names of six “immortal elders”) - was born at Fawcett Comics in 1939. Without a supervillain or a portal to another world in sight, Billy and Mentor had to settle for solving smaller-scale, but socially relevant, problems.Ī few circumstances converged to make this Shazam! possible, starting with the return of our superhero to the comics pages. The live-action Saturday-morning series Shazam! ran for three strange seasons between 19 - the only era during which a TV show would have thought to pair Billy and an older man known only as “Mentor,” stick them inside a Dodge motor home, and send them on an aimless journey helping one troubled young person after another. There’s a project between those bookends, however, that’s just as revealing of the life span of a superhero. What was once a higher selling comic book than Superman will take the form of a visibly expensive, impishly funny movie, Shazam!, a far cry from the last time Batson made it to the big screen: the beloved, limited budget 1941 film serial The Adventures of Captain Marvel. Shazam is set to make his 21st-century cinematic debut this weekend, after having risen from a legal wasteland to join the very company that tried to wipe him out of existence. Like his superhuman comrades, his narrative has shifted slightly over the years, but Shazam remains the cape-wearing, red-jumpsuit-clad alter ego of Billy Batson, a kid who can take on the powers of various gods and mythic heroes just by saying a magic word: “Shazam!” Then there’s Shazam, the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel, who in light of other high-profile characters repossessed a name so many people thought he went by in the first place. The occasional revamp and alternate-universe adventure aside, Superman is still the Last Son of Krypton, Peter Parker is still the victim of a radioactive spider bite, and so on. The world of superheroes has undergone some profound changes over the years, yet the demigods populating it have remained more or less the same. Why were they traveling around in a motor home again?
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