How did they sue the company that created the character to bankruptcy?
They sued on the grounds that the character was a copy of Superman. When the bottom fell out of the superhero market in the 1950s, it left the company on financially unstable ground they never really managed to recover from.
GMArcturus posted...
Nope. It is completely illegal for DC to use the name Captain Marvel. Completely, absolutely and positively illegal.
They can use the name.
It's a trademark issue, not a copyright issue. DC holds copyright on the character of Captain Marvel, which means that the name and likeness can be used in comics and other media. But Marvel owns the trademark on the name Captain Marvel (which they acquired in the late 1960s, before DC acquired the rights to the Shazam/Captain Marvel character), which means DC cannot use the name for marketing or brand identity purposes.
In other words, DC can have a comic with a character called Captain Marvel in it, but they can't actually call the comic Captain Marvel (this is why, in the 90s, they had a comic book called "The Power of Shazam"). They could have Captain Marvel as a character in a movie, but they wouldn't be able to call the movie Captain Marvel (this is why the upcoming movie is just called Shazam).
DC basically got sick and tired of dealing with this years ago, and because it makes everything more confusing, they just decided to officially change the name of the character to Shazam after the New 52 reboot. It also resulted in them dropping the names of Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr because they no longer make any sense.
Realistically, though, they're probably better off not having characters with the same name as their rival company anyway, because most of the audience is going to assume that they're Marvel universe characters, and get confused that they're not crossing over with the Avengers.
As I said too I understand the initial Superman rip odd lawsuit failed but they won one based on some stories being too similar
Really big dick move by DC as I understand they where just mad cause captain marvel/Shazam outsold Superman comics for a little while.
And now that they have him they barely use him and have made him out to be a Superman fan boy when they do. Also even though he has beat supes, supes has beaten him more and on paper Shazam should be able to beat him the majority not the time.
DC got salty as fuck. ---
Cid- "looks like that overgrown lobster just got served!" Bartz-"with cheese biscuts AND mashed potatoes!"