WEBVTT - Episode 51: The History of Shazam 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:15.360 Right, everyone, welcome to another episode of nerdfficent Um. Your host, 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:17.960 if you wide away and sitting across from me as always, 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:23.200 is Danny Fernandez. How are you doing today, I'm doing good, Iffy, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.600 I'm feeling Why do you giggle because you're like clutching 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.479 yourself as you said, Yes, because we're joined by someone 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.840 that I'm really excited about, me too, very excited. Yeah, great, 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.000 good friend of ours. Host over at Collider Heroes you 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.320 do Callisto six at geek and Sundry was on Valiant 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:45.320 for a spell Wednesday club at G and S for 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.640 a bit, and she's now at d C Daily. Yeah, 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.520 and she was on an RPG show with us as well. So, 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:56.880 ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together wherever you are 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.920 in your office, cubicle, on the train, or just sitting 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:05.520 on the sidewalk. For Amy Dallin, I am being astonishingly welcomed, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.160 just welcomed, beyond my ability to cope so much for 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.319 having me. Yes, So I think you and I met 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:17.319 when we did that show together, Vanquished, Yeah, Vanquished. It 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.240 was a Valiant It was after the Valiant comics, but 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.039 you you also worked I think at that time you 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.520 were working at a comic book shop. As what I mean, 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.440 how did you get into when did you first pick 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.440 up a like? What was your first memory of comics? 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.200 When you got into comics? So I I do work 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.199 at a shop. I have worked there for many years. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.880 But I think, like the comic thing with me goes 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.399 back mostly as far as I can remember, it was. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.240 You know, I think we all read whatever was around. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.000 It's like one of my weird side missions is to 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.560 remind everyone that they already read comics. Because if you 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.840 read Archie, or if you read newspaper comics, or if 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.640 you grew up on Asterix and Tintin, like, those are 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.560 all comics. Comics have been in your brain. But I 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.920 definitely hit like the X Men the animated series, and 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.320 Batman the animated series, like and then just off to 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:10.920 the races after that. So yeah, comics comics quickly followed. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.760 I grew up on Calvin and Hobbes, Jim and the 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.320 Sunday funnies. Like my dad and I used to have 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.480 a like coffee. He would take me out on Sunday mornings. 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.320 We would go and get coffee, like me and him, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.760 and he would give me that that section of the newspaper. 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.959 It was always my favorite that in Far Side. Yeah, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.600 that's that's what I would read as I wanted to 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.119 read comics. Comics quote unquote so bad. But my dad, 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.200 you know, never was putting money out for it. He 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:39.720 was like, you usually read books. And I was like, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.839 the parents just know, reading comics is reading. Don't fall 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.320 into my dad's trap. You could have a son that's 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:50.360 a doctor instead of a comedian. Uh. But I do 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.959 remember it was Sunday funnies for me. And then one 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.919 time when I was in a thrifty remember those uh, 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.280 and they had they were selling comics and they I 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.600 was able to grab Bloodshot and those were like the 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.680 two I grab. Because of course it was the nineties 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.640 and I was a young boy, so I was like murder. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.440 That was the like as a kid, we'd be on 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:13.200 road trips and it would be you'd just be like 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.720 a gas station. It would be like a three pack 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.120 of random comics, one issue of Magnus Robot Fighter and 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:20.919 one issue and you would just be like, I'll figure 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:22.480 it out. I don't know who these people are, but 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.760 I will, you know. And it was there was some 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:26.760 of that joy of just like whatever you happened to 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.760 come across. We were all just so hungry for Yeah. 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:30.800 Also there was that short stint where they had the 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.480 Spider Man comic in the Sunday Funnies and that's I 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.320 lived for it. But but it would like it wasn't 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.200 consistent whatever, probably because my dad wasn't getting the same paper, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:43.800 but like sometimes it would be there, and that's what 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.000 initially was like, I need to find Spider me. Yeah. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:48.920 It's so funny because we don't really consider I think, 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.760 like Garfield and Peanuts and stuff to be comics, but 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.040 they are. They absolutely are, and they grow out of 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:56.720 the same traditions. Like in some ways, newspaper comics came first, 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.120 and then they were like, what if we bind them 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.760 up in magazines, maybe that'll work, and the you know, 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.560 the whole thing fit into itself, and now web comics 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.960 are kind of inheriting both legacies. It's yeah, it's super fascinating. 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.880 It's crazy to see how much the web comic industry 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.840 has blown up, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I have a 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.599 friend Austin Murrie. She does a web comic Soul on Hold, 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.679 and she has like over like a hundred thousand people 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:21.680 ready to read it. And I was like, man, I 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.240 didn't know the community was booming because I tried to 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.440 do web comics when I was in high school. It 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.160 was called Evolution Manga's yeah, because I was a weep, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.680 so I was like, we're not making comics, we're making manga. Yeah. 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.400 It was real cool too, because like the site I 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.280 mentioned before, Polly Carbon Bbs, there was one guy from 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.359 the site who I knew from there who did comics 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:42.920 and I was like, hey, just send them to me. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.920 And I was just gonna upload pages to this website 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.760 because I learned how to make websites. And they're still there. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.040 I mean, don't go to you can google Evolution mangas. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.800 Make sure all your blockers are up because it is 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.440 one of the because it's so funny because websites are 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.279 almost like buildings if you just leave them online. Like 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.640 that site has been live since I was in high school. 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.080 It's still live to this day, and now it's just 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.400 infected and slow. It's just like a building that if 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.880 it was unattended for all these years, it's just that. Yeah. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.599 Did you hear about how my Space finally deleted and 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.040 everyone's like thank god. I mean there's a ton of 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.200 people that were really upset because they had you know, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.560 I guess high school photos and things on there. But 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.840 I think like us were like cool, cool, don't have 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.040 to worry about that ever again. And my angsty like 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:42.240 my chemical romance, you know, bio and something corporate Jack's 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.080 mannequin that was my That was my Oh yeah, like 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:50.000 so cal Rot because I grew up here, um and 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.880 in uh in Orange County and then later in Texas. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.479 But yeah, so that was my angsty. Like Warped Tour 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.719 years you're saying is gone now, I'm so sad. No, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.920 I mean, but the that meat that that like that 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.039 rock isn't as prevalent, I would say today as it 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.400 used to be. And I definitely don't go to the 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:13.640 although we did go to Warp Tour. If you remember 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.479 last year, right, we went to Warp Tour because Valiant, 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.720 who we had our show with, was sponsoring Warp Tour. 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:24.880 It was really cool how comics and music crossed over 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.760 in that way that it became like more mainstream with 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.520 them because they Valiant had a bunch of their characters 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.240 and stuff at Warped Tour and they were on all 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.000 of their all of their um, yeah, their flyers and stuff. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.600 So I did go recently, so full circle it was 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.520 all relevant working. Isn't that weird? Super full circle? I 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.160 guess I wanted to know, how did you move from 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.160 just liking comics to doing what you do now? I mean, 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:51.840 if he and I had an episode about how we 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:53.760 got into it, But how did you make that jump 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.920 to like being at Geek and Sunjury or working at 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.040 a comic bookstore, Like what made it turn from just 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:03.200 a hobby to your career? That that's a really good 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.320 question because it was always that, like that thing that 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.280 I was doing instead of whatever I was supposed to 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.200 be doing. Obviously, um, I did not major in comics, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.080 but I you know, I had always been interested in 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.880 entertainment stuff. And I moved out here after school, uh, 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.680 and I needed just like a day job, and it 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:23.600 was just that, you know, you always had that like, oh, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:25.960 I'd love to work in a bookstore, comic bookstore. And 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:27.760 I got lucky and I asked at the right store 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.760 on the right day, a lovely place called House of 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:36.200 Secrets in Burbank, and it just it like that love 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:37.640 and that joy kind of took over. And at the 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:39.440 same time I was studying entertainment and I was studying 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.360 communication and all this stuff, and just the sort of 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.640 right weird sequence of Domino's fell that I got to 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:48.400 know some of the folks over a Geek and Sundry 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.000 and they were launching this was this is ancient internet 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.680 history now, but they were launching a vlogs channel, like 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.480 a side channel, which would be people sort of making 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.640 videos about their own interests. And I had never made 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.560 videos before, but at that point had accumulated like a 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.280 lot of hours of talking about Nerds stuff because we 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.000 can't be stopped. We all accidentally developed that skill because 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.080 we're like, okay, we got ten minutes at lunch break, 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.080 and I'm gonna convince you that this is awesome. You know. 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.920 It's it's a muscle that to some extent, we all 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.040 hone because we are unstoppable monsters of loving things. And 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.560 uh So, somehow that that all just came together, and 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.680 I learned enough about making videos to start shooting some 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.680 stuff in my bedroom and talking about comics, and then 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.559 just one thing led to another, and now I've gotten 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.360 to do a whole lot of explaining Nerds stuff and 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:37.240 things I care about. Two folks and we've landed in 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:38.960 this bizarre world where we all met each other playing 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.920 an RPG show and it's all very unrealistic but really 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.920 really fun. Super unrealistic, you know, Like that's one of 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:46.880 the things where it's like, at this point in our careers, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:48.960 if we were to go back to our younger selves 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.960 and try and explain what we're doing now, they'd be like, 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.800 you're a liar charlatan who's trying to get me to 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.640 not focus on school so that I can so you 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:05.840 can take my life. Uh yeah, Yet, speaking of taking life, 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:12.640 Shazam takes life in theaters in the coming days, in 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.000 the coming days, And now we're here to talk about 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.600 the origins the comic book. And if you've never heard 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.760 of Shazam and you're going in blind, guess what we're 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.800 gonna give you. You know, a little info about Shazam 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.360 and me and Amy talked about this during my Collider's 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.440 Heroes appearances. If there's something you really wanted to just 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.760 talk about regarding Shazam, uh And I think that's a 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.600 fun way to start off, which is the lawsuit. Yes, okay, 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.320 so that thing I mentioned about, like, how can I 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:46.840 make this interesting? I am fascinated by this because the 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.560 short version is that Shazam used to out sill Superman 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.800 DC suit out of existence. Then eventually they bought the 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:55.960 rights and now they can't use the name, and it's 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.600 just like the full version of that, and like, as 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.400 a side note, out of left field indirectly inspired one 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.400 of the greatest temporarily lost works in comics, because Alan 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.160 Moore's Miracle Man is traced back to this exact same 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.840 legal nonsense. Uh So, I don't know how, how, how 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.240 how deep into this can we go. We touched just 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.160 a tiny bit. We touched on it in our Captain 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.440 Marvel episode because there's no way to not talk about 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.240 it because it was originally Captain Marvel. So Tiffany and 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.559 I touched on it a tiny bit. But um, yeah, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.200 so essentially he was at Fawcett Comics, right, so that 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.760 was his when he originally that was where we trace 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.480 everything back to. But it is essentially they were copying Superman, 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.960 Is that correct? Ish? It's one of those like we 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.080 we can't exactly pull them up and ask them, but 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.679 they're so how much are folks listening? Maybe should be 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.840 some familiarity with the Golden Age of comics. Uh. So 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.960 comics as we know them, like binding them up in 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.880 magazines and telling serialized stories kind of come into their 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.880 own other come into existence in the late nineteen thirties, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.520 and like the Big Guy, the one out the gate. Uh, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.640 the somehow just immediately set it off with Iron was 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:10.280 Superman in Action Comics number one. Uh. And that's by 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.960 whatever cover date February. I want to say, Uh, there 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.720 have already been like, he's immediately a sensation. He's selling 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.760 like crazy. Oddly enough, they designed him to be a 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.679 newspaper strip. Uh, it didn't sell, so they pasted it 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.400 together and made a comic out of it. Uh. But 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.679 he's immediately sensation. And people do legitimately start running to 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:30.760 be like, we need a Superman, get us a Superman. 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.120 And you can interpret that to mean literally copy Superman, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.760 which some people definitely did, or you could mean we 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.120 would like a hit comic. Make it about a strong guy. 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.440 And somewhere in the middle of that you get Fawcett Comics, 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.000 who set out to create. If you look at the 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.800 covers of the the first issues as we know them, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.120 it's it's a strong guy in a cape throwing a 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.760 car there's there's a lot of common ground there, but 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.959 it is funny because to us as readers now, these 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.960 characters are huge July dissimilar. There's really not like for 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.880 a comic book reader in twenty nineteen, there's basically nothing 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.560 in common between I am the last son of an 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.160 alien race who has powers because of our son and 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.120 saves the world as an adult named Clark Kent, and 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.000 also Superman and uh, the the other version, which is 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.800 I am a twelve to sixteen year old homeless newspaper 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.280 selling kid who shouts a magic word that a wizard 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.280 gave me and turns into Like for us, those are 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.959 totally different concepts, but if you put your brain back 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.760 in like nineteen thirty eight to nineteen forty, they were 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.720 sort of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we just invented this. 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.240 I'm wearing long underwear and I'm incredibly strong and pretty 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.320 much bulletproof and do similar things and d c. Like 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.480 as soon as they had Superman, they had to start 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.040 fighting all of these knockoffs, some of the some of 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.920 which were definitely a hundred percent knockoffs because there were 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.200 a lot of shady people in comics and you know, 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.840 still continue to be, but especially back then, they were 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.120 all like bootlegging half the time. Uh, that's a whole 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.839 thing with paper supplies actually came in with like liquor 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:05.760 boot legging. Anyway, comics are shady, and d C from 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.400 the very start was fending off imitations. So even though 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.480 Shazam to us seems very very different, they they like 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:15.800 one of their first cases came up before this particular 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.360 judge with this crazy name Billings learned hand was the 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.040 judge in one of these first cases that was like, 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.760 clearly an infringement. Strong guy does all this stuff you're 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.400 doing Superman, You're not allowed to do that. And uh. 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.000 In nineteen forty one, I want to say, d C 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.959 filed suit against Fawcett for their substantially similar Captain Marvel 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.880 character or what seemed at the time like you know, 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.880 a substantially similar one who, by the way, over as 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.240 I'm sure y'all are also going to get into at 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:46.600 some point, starts out selling Superman, was the most top 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:51.000 selling comic for its time, becomes wildly popular, gets a 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.880 whole extended family, basically invents the extended family of superheroes 0:13:55.960 --> 0:14:00.320 before super right. Uh, and there's all these reasons that 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.240 you might be like not happy that this other magazine 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.840 exactly would piss me off so much. If I created 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.240 Superman and someone bootlegged him and then it out sold me, 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.800 that would be that would be Anyways, they made up 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.160 because they're both at the same franchise now, so that's cool, 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.000 but it always please continue. But like you know, the 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.680 legal stuff takes forever, right, So the suits filed in 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.040 like nineteen forty one and a decision doesn't come down 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.960 until like nineteen and you can look into this. It 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:38.120 is this totally bizarre technicality about whether DC shared the 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.560 rights with this company that was helped publishing a newspaper 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.160 comic and therefore had forfeited something about the copyright. So 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.360 the weird thing is that first result comes down and 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:52.000 Faucet wins. There's this weird technicality that sort of says like, oh, actually, 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.800 we're throwing this out because of whatever. So obviously d 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.520 C appeals or the company that we now know as 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.960 d C, which was probably National Periodical at the time. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.160 That's the problem. Comic book company names change all the time. Uh, 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.520 So they appeal and they land in front of Judge 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:12.080 Billings learned hand the same dude, who by this time, 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.800 like eight or twelve years earlier, had been on one 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.880 of the very first Superman infringement cases. Ends up the 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:22.360 appeals guy who's looking at this like a newly renewed fight, 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.080 and he basically says that technicality thing was dumb. It's 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.920 obvious that they weren't that this thing doesn't cause them 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.840 to lose their copyright. And I do, looking at what 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.840 you all presented, it seems clear that some level of 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.160 copying existed. But essentially what he said is, I'm taking 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.120 it back down to the other courts, and to settle this, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.280 you need to find the specific examples, and that would 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:49.200 mean both companies going through the entire history by this time, 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.560 the like twelve to fourteen years of publishing of each 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.120 of these to be like the first time you bounced 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.160 a bullet up your chest, the first time you jumped 0:15:57.200 --> 0:15:59.080 real high the first time, and to sort of fight 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.480 it out count by count. Now, since he had also 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.200 said basically, you did establish that some level of copying existed, 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.360 Fawcett but was sort of like, this doesn't look great 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.280 for us, because he's basically saying you're gonna lose at 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.360 least some of this fight if you go back down 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:18.600 to the lower courts and settle it all right. Uh, 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.640 And by this time, it is the early nineteen fifties 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.880 and superheroes go out of style, so already the circulation 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:30.080 is falling. Already, everybody's like this superhero bubble is bursting, 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.560 and uh, we're not sure it's ever coming back. Now, 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.720 comic book fans know that it's coming back. There's gonna 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:38.400 be a thing called the Silver Age. It's only a 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.280 couple of years away. It's gonna inject new life into 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.800 comics and totally reinvent thing. Spider Man is gonna get here, 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.000 How Jordan and Barry Allen are going to get here? Uh? 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.040 The X Men and the Fantastic Four. It's all about 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.760 to blow up. But in the early fifties it looked 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.480 like that part was dying, so essentially fast goes Okay, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:56.360 So it looks like we're gonna lose if we fight 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.520 this out, and uh, these magazines aren't selling like they 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.680 used to, so let's just basically call it a day. 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.399 They they had to pay the rumor is four hundred 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.280 thousand dollars plus costs to d C and agreed to 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.159 stop publishing their Captain Marvel character. Didn't that put them 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.600 out of business? I believe that they, like they either 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.919 stopped doing I don't. I don't know. I feel like 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.199 Fawcett Comics stopped being a thing, and I don't know, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:26.800 to us, they had to fire there too. Yeah, Fawcett 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.199 shut down its comics division in the autumn of nineteen 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:33.080 fifty three and fired its comic book staff. Yeah so, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.360 and then two of them, Auto Binder and Kurt Shaffing 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.320 Burger ended up at d C, Yes, being prominent members 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.880 of the creative team for the Superman related comics from 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.760 nineteen fifty four through the nineteen sixties. It's just funny 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.639 that it's like, well, we got fired. Now we're going 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.000 to work on the thing that we were going up against. 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.680 But yeah, so that that sounds like it shut them 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.280 at least their comics part. Uh So. In the meantime, 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.280 all these so so Billy Batson a ka Shazam as 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.960 I'm now finally used to calling him because spoiler alert, 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:07.760 that's just his name now due to complicated shenanigans that 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.280 will follow all of his like supporting cast and family 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.240 like Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. And all that stuff. 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.080 You you eventually got Supergirl, Uh, I think co created 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.000 by Auto Binder, who had worked on all of the 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:25.879 Captain Marvel stuff. Uh, you get like all this talent 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.119 is still there. They're still working on comics. Superman grows 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.000 the rest of his family, so they they sort of 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.720 the borrowing legacy is completed there and uh they yeah, 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.320 they survive on in It's fascinating because those original comics 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.239 that you're talking about, it says shah Zam across the 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.280 comic book, and then underneath that it says the original 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.840 Captain Marvel. Now, I think that is the branding that 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.760 they went with in the early seventies when d c 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.520 C got the rights, right Yeah. Uh and so so 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.840 like a lot of things happened to Captain Marvel because 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.200 he missed the sixties. It's one of those things to 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.919 comic book fans talk about a lot where essentially he 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.200 didn't have a silver age, he had a golden age. 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.600 And then when he showed back up, we were in bronze, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.199 which is according to the way fans divide up the 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:15.199 eras of comics, they sort of have different hallmarks, and 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.760 Bronze was when they took the the relatability and imagination 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:21.800 and promise of the sixties and they got sort of 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.359 a little grittier with it. In the Bronze Age, you 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.399 get the punisher. In the Bronze Age, it's often marked 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.800 by often you mark the beginning of the Bronze Age 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:33.119 by the death of Gwen Stacy. But Shazam, this like 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:38.439 beautiful childlike big red cheese of a character had no 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.760 sort of transitional period. So DC got the rights to 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.639 him and brought him back, but it never took off 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.720 the way they wanted it to. And it's like, I 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:47.960 was just thinking about this earlier, and I don't know 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.280 how to connect these dots, But we always talk about 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.000 that and him sort of missing that, and then we 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.359 also talk about that there's so many different approaches for 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.000 handling the character who is sometimes a kid and sometimes 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.240 an adult. And it's weird to me that he now 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.960 echoes his own history because he had no middle period. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.679 He only had kid and adult. He missed a whole phase. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.480 You might have covered this on the Captain Marvel episode. 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.600 So where does Captain Marvel come in? Like, why did 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.679 they go with Captain Marvel after all that Well, I 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.080 think that that so he was originally Captain Marvel. I 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:19.959 think they liked the name of it, to be honest, 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.600 and with a part of the Marvel family. It was, 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:24.840 you know, before Marvel was Marvel, So I think it 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.560 was just the word Marvel just sounded cool, like, oh, 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.239 Captain Marvel, and yeah, what what you're getting at there? 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.000 I think is the other thing what he missed while 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.600 he was gone is that the company that had been 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.919 Atlas and Timely rebranded itself as Marvel Comics and became 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.960 just the biggest thing in the universe. So that's the 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.000 other thing that happened in the sixties while he was 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.800 off the scene is that suddenly Marvel was strongly associated 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.080 with comics, but it meant something totally different, and like 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.080 there's so there's this weird speaking of comics being shady. 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.080 There's this other random, tiny company that noticed in the 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.600 mid sixties that nobody was using the Captain Marvel name, 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.320 and they started this this frankly terrible looking superhero whose 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:05.680