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The Original Captain Marvel Legality

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topic icon Author Topic: The Original Captain Marvel Legality  (Read 2306 times)

treadcomics

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The Original Captain Marvel Legality
« on: March 10, 2017, 09:32:06 PM »

I am working on a project about Earth's Mightest Moral ... the original Captain Marvel. I need the expertise of the forum to help with a fact check.

I understand the whole legal issue after the court case and how Fawcett paid D.C. 400G and suspended publishing in the 50.

Captain Marvel later appears in DC under a license since Fawcet couldn't publish him.

It's later stated D.C. Buys out the Fawcett shell.

I can find physically no evidence of this beside the story.

Looking for back up data... at dates, cash amounts, legal papers anything!

Thanks
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The Australian Panther

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Re: The Original Captain Marvel Legality
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2017, 12:51:12 AM »

Two things you haven't mentioned and may be aware of ( so if I'm teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs, my apologies)
1/ The British side of things. The british publisher changed the name to Marvelman, Marvelman Jr. ect. and kept it going for quite some time. Sometime after that Alan Moore (or somone he was working for) got the rights and revised the characters.
That brings up 2/
Marvel comics.
Marvel Comics somehow realized that the name Captain Marvel was out of copyright, grabbed it and created their own character. If you go back to the Roy Thomas and Gil Kane version,  the relationship with the Fawcett character is quite obvious. So DC can call the character captain marvel (I think) but the book they publish has always been called SHAZAM. Thye have announced an upcoming SHAZAM film.

Marvel have caused Alan Moore no end of trouble with legal issues due to their owning the name 'Captain Marvel, their company being called Marvel comics and Moore's character being called MarvelMan.

Moore will never work for Marvel Comics and has expressed not much love (to put it mildly) for Stan Lee. Search For Alan Moore on Stan Lee on Google. Worth it.

Marvel currently has the publishing rights to Moore's Marvelman and published most of the issues recently.
I don't think Alan Moore benefits at all.He has a habit of washing his hands and walking away from this kind of issue. And he has had a lot of them to walk away from. 

I'm interested in the answer to the question you asked.

How are you going to publish the information? I'd like to see it when you have finished your research.               
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SuperScrounge

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Re: The Original Captain Marvel Legality
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2017, 02:39:41 AM »


Marvel Comics somehow realized that the name Captain Marvel was out of copyright,           


I remember reading somewhere that it was the publication of M.F. Enterprises Captain Marvel* that let Stan realize the trademark on the name had lapsed. However I'm not sure how Marvel got the trademark if M.F. had published several books with the title.

* I thought we had some scans here, but I couldn't find them, so here's the Wikipedia page on the book Captain Marvel (M. F. Enterprises)
« Last Edit: March 11, 2017, 02:49:14 AM by SuperScrounge »
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treadcomics

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Re: The Original Captain Marvel Legality
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2017, 12:41:10 AM »

marvel was able to trademark the Captain marvel name because Fawcett never challenged it because they couldn't publish Cap due to the court judgment in National (DC) vs Fawcett....

DC lincensed Cap in the 70s... but I am looking for like contracts or exact dates and money.... and what no one can seem to find is when DC purchased outright all the Fawcett characters and when and how much.
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paw broon

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Re: The Original Captain Marvel Legality
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2017, 04:23:46 PM »

I know it's not what you need but just to clear up Australian Panther's input, L. Miller & Sons, London, had been publishing b&w reprints of Captain Marvel titles in the UK and when the American titles stopped, they simply adapted their own titles to, Marvelman, Young Marvelman and, a bit later Marvelman Family which featured Kid Marvelman in place of Mary Marvel. The titles ran for many years as weeklies, although Marvelman Family only lasted 30 issues. Latterly MM and YMM went monthly and featured reprints of earlier stories.
By 1963 they were gone in part due to American comics appearing in newsagents from around '59/'60. Couldn't compete.
Needless to say, we can't host Miller's Marvelman here.  They are worth searching out as you'll find early work by Don Lawrence plus work by James Bleach and Mick Anglo to name a few.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2017, 07:59:53 AM by paw broon »
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SuperScrounge

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Re: The Original Captain Marvel Legality
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2017, 05:06:21 AM »


marvel was able to trademark the Captain marvel name because Fawcett never challenged it because they couldn't publish Cap due to the court judgment in National (DC) vs Fawcett....


I wasn't talking about Fawcett's expired trademark, I was talking about whatever Trademark M.F. Enterprises had when they published a comic called Captain Marvel in 1966 (same name, but different character). It would have been ludricrous for Fawcett to have claimed trademark on a title they hadn't used since 1953.

Anyway looking in Les Daniel's book "Marvel Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics" I see that it was mentioned that Marvel was in "extended legal and business negotiations" for the name Captain Marvel, and they started publishing their version in 1967. I assume the negotiations were with Myron Fass of M.F. Enterprises rather than Fawcett, since it would have just been the name they were trying to get.


DC lincensed Cap in the 70s... but I am looking for like contracts or exact dates and money.... and what no one can seem to find is when DC purchased outright all the Fawcett characters and when and how much.


The book "Comic Book Collections For Libraries" lists it as 1991.

Wikipedia lists the year 1994 as the buyout.

I thought I read somewhere that Jerry Ordway was part of the decision to buy the Fawcett characters, so if you can find some contact info on him you could try asking.

Another guy who is good at tracking down comic book information is Brian Cronin who does Comic Book Legends at Comic Book Resources. you can send him an email at brianc@cbr.com

Good luck.
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