Shazam!

I was recently told that there is a serious movement afoot to make a feature film about the very early superhero character, Captain Marvel. Not the one from Marvel Comics, but the original character once published by Fawcett Publications. DC Comics sued them in the 1950s because the book (and all of its spinoff titles) had become more popular than Superman. DC argued that Fawcett had intentionally copied Superman and so they took the matter to court. They won. Why? Because, under oath, the team of writers and artists who had put their heads together to come up with what were then called "costumed characters" admitted that they had been instructed to do just that: come up with something as similar to Superman as they could make it.

The loss of the lawsuit put Fawcett out of business. At the time they were one of the most successful and popular comic book publishers on the planet. One month their books were on the stands making tons of money, and the next they were gone. DC's win, in essence, gave them ownership of Fawcett's titles and characters. Their wish was to quash Captain Marvel, and that's exactly what they did, burying the superhero for well over a decade.

But that's not what I wanted to cover here, very briefly. The thing I wanted to mention is that one of the creators in that room--the artist CC Beck--was known for using movie stars upon which to pattern the physical appearances of his characters. For whatever reason, at that time he considered that the then-youthful Fred MacMurray was the perfect physical type to be a superhero.

And so, he illustrated Captain Marvel (SHAZAM!) to resemble MacMurray.

The inspiration.

All in color for a dime.