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Why Are There So Many Captain Marvels? · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuda. Could we get some non spoilery super hero music.
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Speaker 2: That's my that's my sound effect for it. There it goes.
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Speaker 1: That's our super producer, mister Max Williams. I am Ben Bullen,
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Speaker 1: our Shazamer. Here are urah our hooray? Mister Noel Brown,
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Speaker 1: Noel how sock?
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Speaker 2: I just make sounds of my mouth. They pay me
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Speaker 2: for it for some reason. Do it well though?
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Speaker 3: I am doing well, And I've got to say that
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Speaker 3: I don't want to spoiler. No spoilers to your point,
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Speaker 3: but I had no idea that shazam stood for something
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Speaker 3: that it's a freaking acronym.
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Speaker 2: How cool is that? You know how much we love acronyms.
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Speaker 1: Everything's in acronym if you're weird enough.
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Speaker 3: If you give it value, Yeah, for sure. What are
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Speaker 3: we talking about today?
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Speaker 2: Ben? What are we shazaming?
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Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked, because for a long time,
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Speaker 1: like many filthy casual fans of comics and comedy or
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Speaker 1: I thought, I thought healthy casual.
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Speaker 2: Isn't that a gamer term? Don't?
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Speaker 3: But it sounds like a yeah, mat filthy, So is
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Speaker 3: that true? Fairwell, let's call it. Maybe this is sort
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Speaker 3: of like being a fair Weather fan like sort of
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Speaker 3: like you're not really in the weeds with this stuff.
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Speaker 3: You're not a day one or you only know the
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Speaker 3: movies that kind of fan wagon.
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Speaker 1: So they're so, uh bandwagon, fair Weather, filthy casual, call
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Speaker 1: me what you wish, fellow ridiculous historians. For quite for
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Speaker 1: quite some time, I thought that Shazam was the name
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Speaker 1: of the character. This is untrue. Shazam is the secret
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Speaker 1: magic word shouted out by the character Captain Marvel.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, but also the movies, the character is named Shazam
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Speaker 3: with the kid that turns into the guy who shouts
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Speaker 3: the word, and also the name of the magical wizard
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Speaker 3: who abused him. With all of these back, Okay, the
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Speaker 3: point being, ben all of this stuff gets real convoluted.
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Speaker 3: This is like a IP juggling competition that we're going
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Speaker 3: to talk about today that is a lot longer than
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Speaker 3: a lot of people might realize.
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Speaker 1: How many Captain Marvel's are there?
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Speaker 3: Nol no idea. Then I've researched this stuff. I mean,
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Speaker 3: I guess what like four I don't even know what, Lucia,
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Speaker 3: let's just get right into.
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Speaker 1: All right, all right, yeah, you're right, you're right. So
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Speaker 1: back in March twenty nineteen, with the help of our
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Speaker 1: research associate Jeff, we got in a bit of a
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Speaker 1: conversational pickle Shazam, the film about Captain Marvel and Captain
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Speaker 1: Marvel the other film about another Captain Marvel. We're in
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Speaker 1: theaters at the same time, through two different companies. They
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Speaker 1: are unrelated, they do not exist in the same universe,
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Speaker 1: and they are indeed a consequence, a result, a culmination
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Speaker 1: of a history, as you said, no, a legally fraught
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Speaker 1: history that goes back almost a century.
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Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, that's the number I was looking for.
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Speaker 3: And ip, of course, most folks show because you don't
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Speaker 3: intellectual property, and that can get really fraught when you know,
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Speaker 3: something all of a sudden starts to pop off and
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Speaker 3: get really popular. And oh dear, that surely resembles my
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Speaker 3: cartoon character that I created. Uh, maybe it's time to
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Speaker 3: hire some lawyers and just see about that f around
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Speaker 3: and find out, if you will. Yeah, they aft around,
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Speaker 3: and they might find out that they are, in fact
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Speaker 3: in a situation known as copyright infringements.
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Speaker 1: Right, indeed, so funny thing happens at the comics stores
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Speaker 1: in June of nineteen thirty eight, you find a thing
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Speaker 1: called Action Comics number one, Action.
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Speaker 2: Commoss number of worth with a lot of money, right,
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Speaker 2: valuable piece. Yeah yeah.
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Speaker 1: To the fellow enthusiasts, you might recognize this as the
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Speaker 1: print debut of DC Comics Superman. He comes out in
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Speaker 1: June of nineteen thirty eight, and just a year after
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Speaker 1: in Wiz Comics number two. I think they made it
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Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine, but it comes out in February
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Speaker 1: nineteen forty. Whiz Comics number two features guy named Captain
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Speaker 1: Marvel original name Captain Thunder. He is absolutely as though
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Speaker 1: we are in a court. Can we get like Max?
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Speaker 1: Can we get like a Casey on the case Law
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Speaker 1: and Order comic Court.
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Speaker 2: Oh, it's surely in the folder. Stummare, there it is there.
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Speaker 1: It is so your order. Captain Marvel originally apt in Thunder,
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Speaker 1: is nothing like Superman other than the fact that he
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Speaker 1: looks exactly like Superman and has identical powers and a
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Speaker 1: slightly different outfit.
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Speaker 3: Guys, we're gonna get to this, but I have to
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Speaker 3: pose it right up front. I sometimes think people get
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Speaker 3: a little high on their creative horse, maybe giving themselves
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Speaker 3: more creative credit than they deserve. All of these characters
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Speaker 3: are just modeled after Greek gods. Man, It's like, oh,
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Speaker 3: what an individual imbued with super strength who can fly?
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Speaker 3: Never heard of that before, never read the you know,
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Speaker 3: Greek mythology on.
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Speaker 2: A million percent dude.
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Speaker 3: And that even comes in with the whole what the
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Speaker 3: acronym shazam means, which we're gonna save and get to
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Speaker 3: in just a minute.
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Speaker 2: But I just wanted to put that out there right now.
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Speaker 3: I think a lot of this is a little bit
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Speaker 3: of a pissing contest, and we do see where the
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Speaker 3: law ultimately sides.
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Speaker 2: But none of these ideas are particularly unique.
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Speaker 3: You know, a magical individual who can fly and lift
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Speaker 3: heavy things.
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Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell is nodding in agreement from Beyond the Grave,
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Speaker 1: the author of Hero with a Thousand Faces. No one
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Speaker 1: has accused human storytelling technology of originality. So let's learn
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Speaker 1: a little bit about our buddy. Captain Marvel knee Captain
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Speaker 1: Thunder comes out through an outfit called Fawcet Comics again
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Speaker 1: publication in nineteen forty and Captain Marvel has a cool
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Speaker 1: thing that's very appealing to the demographic of Fawcet comics.
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Speaker 1: He is a twelve year old boy named Billy Batson.
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Speaker 1: He's an orphan and in his origin story, he follows
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Speaker 1: a stranger into the subway, and when he goes to
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Speaker 1: the subway, he meets a mysterious old man, a wizard
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Speaker 1: named Shazam. That's the actual It's like Frankenstein's Monster.
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Speaker 2: A million you know, yes, no exclamation mark though, is right?
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Speaker 1: So this so this wizard is like, stuff is messed up,
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Speaker 1: young Billy Batson, and you are the only hope for
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Speaker 1: all these crazy high stakes that I will not explain
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Speaker 1: why am just because he happened to be the one
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Speaker 1: that followed him or does he have some mystical destiny
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Speaker 1: like you know, he's like you're reading the comic and
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Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, I could do that. I should follow
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Speaker 1: more strangers into the subway.
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Speaker 2: That is not the takeaway.
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Speaker 1: That's that's apparently that's the application. So okay, So the
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Speaker 1: wizard imbues and I love that word imbuse or bruise
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Speaker 1: young orphan Billy with this power whenever he says the
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Speaker 1: word the magic word. The Wizard's name Shazam. Then he
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Speaker 1: acquires can we get some like M c U or.
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Speaker 3: D c U music, whatever you pick is certainly going
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Speaker 3: to go along with him.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's uh, let's uh, let's round robin this please. Yeah? Okay,
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Speaker 1: So what does Shazam stand for?
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Speaker 2: The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules.
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Speaker 5: The stamina of Atlas, the power of.
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Speaker 2: This lighting strike, the courage of Achilles.
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Speaker 3: And the speed of Mercury.
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Speaker 1: Do you get it?
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Speaker 2: I get it.
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Speaker 3: I guess it's good that he didn't have the fatal
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Speaker 3: flaw of Achilles, right right.
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Speaker 1: He has his own heels, as we'll find he also U.
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Speaker 1: Let's let's uh, let's point out that there were a
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Speaker 1: couple of Greco Roman gods that were ignored in this.
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Speaker 1: He doesn't have like the bad attitude of Hades, you
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Speaker 1: know what I mean.
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Speaker 2: He doesn't have the limp of Vulcan.
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Speaker 1: But he or Hephaestus, uh Captain Marvel for a time
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Speaker 1: surpasses Superman in popularity. It's a real Pepsi versus Coca
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Speaker 1: cola thing. In DC reads this. They do not exist
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Speaker 1: in a vacuum. And you can tell, as our old
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Speaker 1: pal research associate Jeff points out, you could tell because
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Speaker 1: Superman's powers evolve all of a sudden, inexplicably right after
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Speaker 1: Captain Marvel hits the scene.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely DC changed their hero to kind of go with
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Speaker 3: what this seemed like, the kids that were getting down
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Speaker 3: with before Captain Marvel. We know the famous line that
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Speaker 3: really does stick with it to this day, the property
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Speaker 3: Superman could leap.
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Speaker 2: Tall buildings in a single bound.
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Speaker 3: But that speed of Mercury, Man, it's got some heat
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Speaker 3: to it. So the idea that Superman was only propelling
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Speaker 3: himself over tall buildings with a with some powerful gams,
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Speaker 3: like a strong leap, but not necessarily the power of flight,
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Speaker 3: because the speed of Mercury granted Captain Marvel the ability
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Speaker 3: to fly. So before you knew it, Superman was up
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Speaker 3: there too, taking these guys. And it's funny, I've always
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Speaker 3: thought of that expression leap tall buildings in a single bound,
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Speaker 3: and in my mind I just squashed it together with flight.
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Speaker 3: But that's not what the original Superman did. He was
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Speaker 3: just a really good jumper, strong jumper.
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Speaker 1: And now it's a Now it's an incredible hulk power, right,
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Speaker 1: Hulk can't fly, but he can leap so well it's
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Speaker 1: all on smash.
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Speaker 6: Also, I just want to jump in here. The buildings
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Speaker 6: weren't as tall back then. They were, actually they were,
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Speaker 6: they were really tall.
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Speaker 1: I think, Max, that that reminds me of the first
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Speaker 1: time I saw at the Tower of London and I thought, dang,
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Speaker 1: I guess anything over three stories really was a skyscraper
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Speaker 1: back then.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
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Speaker 3: And you know some of them had the like the
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Speaker 3: little needle on top or the antennas just added a
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Speaker 3: little bit of height.
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Speaker 6: Jump in here. Actually, I remember when my aunt Jennifer
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Speaker 6: lived in.
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Speaker 4: Philadelphia, there was a law or rule or custom, I
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Speaker 4: don't know which one was that no building could be
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Speaker 4: higher than the hat of William Penn.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, yep, uh, there's a There was a similar thing,
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Speaker 1: I think, uh for a while in DC and in
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Speaker 1: a couple of other cities around the world. Like d
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Speaker 1: C is a very a very large it's a large,
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Speaker 1: picturesque metropolis. But you're not going to see a ton
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Speaker 1: of skyscrapers. You're going to see one weird looking phallic object. Obviously,
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Speaker 1: the Washington Monument Why is a nopolisk story for another day.
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Speaker 3: Indeed, I'm sorry, Max, Taller than the gentleman's hat Williams.
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Speaker 2: I don't understand.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I probably explain it. There's a statue of.
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Speaker 4: William Penn on topic I thank you, thank you, a big,
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Speaker 4: a big statue, a big one. Yeah, and you know
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Speaker 4: it's William Penn. He had a larger than life.
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Speaker 2: That neck of the loans.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, in a burst of humility, they call it Pennsylvania.
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Speaker 1: So there are other key differences between the early Captain
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Speaker 1: Marvel and the early predecessor Superman. Captain Marvel franchises so quickly,
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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you got a whole Dare I say,
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Speaker 1: Justice League of Marvel's a Marvel family. There's Captain Marvel Junior.
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Speaker 1: There's Mary Marvel. There's a super cool old man. There's
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Speaker 1: Talkie Tawny who is a tiger who can talk.
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Speaker 2: Get it. And there's like there's like a.
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Speaker 1: Superpowered rabbit or hair if you're in Europe, Captain Marvel buddy,
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Speaker 1: and everybody loves these stories. Speaking of franchises, speaking of
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Speaker 1: as you raised the point earlier, Noel, speaking of IP
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Speaker 1: or intellectual property and derivatives thereof, there is a twelve
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Speaker 1: part film series of Captain Marvel. There's a radio show.
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Speaker 1: There's all sorts of swag. A young, a young, up
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Speaker 1: and coming allegedly malungeon entertainer named Elvis Presley out of
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Speaker 1: Tennessee is very into Captain Marvel Junior and.
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Speaker 3: Talking about yourself, right no, no, no, no no, My
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Speaker 3: have action is a little bit nastier, but yeah, talking
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Speaker 3: about old Elvis, right, yeah, Elvis Presley uh is said
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Speaker 3: to have borrowed his look from not Clark Kent, but
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Speaker 3: Captain Marvel Junior. The whole clean cut, mild mannered vibe
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Speaker 3: also comes into question once we get into the legal
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Speaker 3: battle of all of this. And it is interesting too
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Speaker 3: because it does seem like, you know, while we might
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Speaker 3: think of superhero Superman as the most iconic kind of
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Speaker 3: og superhero, it does seem like Captain Marvel got some
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Speaker 3: things right quicker. The idea of a super crew, you know,
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Speaker 3: like a superhero kind of squad. It seems like they
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Speaker 3: were right out of the gate with that. And it
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Speaker 3: would be a bit longer, I believe, before like the
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Speaker 3: Justice League came around.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, just so Justice So whatever, keep it, give me,
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Speaker 1: it's yours, I want to.
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Speaker 2: All right.
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Speaker 1: So, by the mid nineteen forties, the original Captain Marvel
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Speaker 1: Akshizam as we call him today, by far the most
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Speaker 1: popular comic book superhero in the country, most popular comic
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Speaker 1: book character in general. Sorry, Popeye, Tutelou, Tutelou, Yellow Kid,
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Speaker 1: Betty Booth, Guitarzad. Superman basically comes in a year or
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Speaker 1: two before and gives birth to what we would call
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Speaker 1: the superhero genre today, launching the house Yon days of
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Speaker 1: the Golden Age of comics, and Superman is following up,
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Speaker 1: you know, pepsine coke again with Captain Marvel. Superman gets
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Speaker 1: his own radio show, he's in comic strips, he gets
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Speaker 1: a cartoon, he gets a TV series, but he doesn't
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Speaker 1: get one thing that Captain Marvel gets, which is the
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Speaker 1: movie business.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, it's like the early days of movies,
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Speaker 3: but it's certainly an early era of this type of franchising, right.
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Speaker 1: Captain Marvel reaches the film industry first to date, Fellow
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Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, Captain Marvel is the first superhero ever to
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Speaker 1: be adapted, to have their story adapted into a motion picture.
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Speaker 1: And you know, now then I'm thinking of it, Noel Max,
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Speaker 1: you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me
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Speaker 1: of that poor kid in the TLC Day's Honey Booboo.
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Speaker 1: Remember that, Remember honey Booboo? Oh, I thought you meant
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Speaker 1: like TLC the R and B group. Now I'm talking
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Speaker 1: about the Learning Channel that eventually just became the amorphus TLC.
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Speaker 3: Yes, of course, honey Booboo. And what was her mom's name,
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Speaker 3: Mama June, Mama June.
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Speaker 1: I think that's how they went a lot of Thompson
16:02
Speaker 1: is the name of the former child star, and people
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Speaker 1: started calling her honey Booboo because of her catch phrase
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Speaker 1: that was like her Shazam, and Captain Marvel became known
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Speaker 1: as Shazam anyway side dope.
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Speaker 3: So the studio behind the film was called Republic Pictures.
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Speaker 3: They were originally actually working with d C, which at
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Speaker 3: the time was called National Comics Publications to make a
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Speaker 3: Superman picture, but they already had an existing cartoon deal
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Speaker 3: with Paramount, which prevented them from signing another type of
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Speaker 3: property like that at the time. So Republic goes with
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Speaker 3: Captain Marvel instead, and DC was understandably post and Fawcett
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Speaker 3: Comics had already published Masterman, which was in and of
16:55
Speaker 3: itself even more egregious.
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Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't really fallout.
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Speaker 3: On either other side in terms of whether or not
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Speaker 3: Captain Marvel was an utter rip off of Superman. Sometimes
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Speaker 3: there's parallel thinking, maybe there was a little bit of
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Speaker 3: ripping off going on, but Masterman definitely obvious one to
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Speaker 3: one clone. Masterman also doesn't really roll off the tongue
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Speaker 3: very well.
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Speaker 1: It's like give me my It's like the alliteration, but
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Speaker 1: it's like give me my weird havana cigar and let
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Speaker 1: me kick my feet up at the comic book spot
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Speaker 1: and be like, oh, a Superman, he's a he's he's
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Speaker 1: eating a lunch. What's another word for super uber It's
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Speaker 1: too German kolaba Masterman ulva.
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Speaker 2: Master's not great either.
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Speaker 3: I'm picturing like a southern gentleman in like a white
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Speaker 3: suit with his feet up, drinking a mid julib, watching
17:43
Speaker 3: the field hands at work.
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Speaker 1: You know, Masterman's sound all right, the over survibe, I
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Speaker 1: feel you. Masterman sounds like in the early seventeen hundreds
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Speaker 1: it was an obscure crime, possibly true, a crime that
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Speaker 1: William Penn would have prosecuted or been found guilty of. Right, absolutely,
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Speaker 1: I love how I love how we're all sort of
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Speaker 1: nodding with that one, So yeah, agreed, Masterman is an
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Speaker 1: even more obvious copy of Superman, and DC threatens a lawsuit.
18:17
Speaker 1: They send like their version of what we would call
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Speaker 1: C and D a cease and desist. Faucett just says, okay, haha,
18:25
Speaker 1: you got us, and they pull it. But they but
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Speaker 1: they're keeping with Captain Marvel, and DC is still really
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Speaker 1: beefed up about it. They're saying, Captain Marvel again is
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Speaker 1: just another guy who came after the guy that we
18:42
Speaker 1: made up.
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Speaker 3: Isn't it interesting though, how this really does start to
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Speaker 3: feel almost like a superhero arms race.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was theander of that word in the research
18:50
Speaker 1: as well. Like it is it is people attempting to, yeah,
18:58
Speaker 1: come up with the the end doll be all like
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Speaker 1: quintessential super hero and stealing ideas from each other left
19:07
Speaker 1: and right.
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Speaker 2: I mean.
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Speaker 1: In June of nineteen forty one, National Comics sues Fawcet
19:15
Speaker 1: Comics for copyright infringement, and this creates one of the
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Speaker 1: longest running legal battles in the history of comic books
19:23
Speaker 1: and lasts over a decade. And National Comics is, by
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Speaker 1: the way, think of them as like the representative of
19:31
Speaker 1: DC Comics, and they're saying, look, we came up with
19:34
Speaker 1: this a year before you guys did, and then you
19:37
Speaker 1: came up with a guy who looks exactly the same.
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Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent.
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Speaker 3: By the way, in case you're trying to picture the
19:44
Speaker 3: word faucets and you're picturing a tap dripping water, it's
19:48
Speaker 3: actually spelled like Pharah Fawcetts. Yeah Fawcett. So, as you said, Ben,
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Speaker 3: longest running legal battle in the history of comic books
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Speaker 3: at least, why don't we start with a little break
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Speaker 3: down of kind of how it started and how it's going.
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Speaker 1: For sure, Yeah faucet, Like Farah says, all right, we
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Speaker 1: get it, Yana. These I'm twiddling an invisible cigar this
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Speaker 1: whole time. All right, we get it, Yana. These two
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Speaker 1: characters are very similar, but it's not to the point
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Speaker 1: of infringement. I mean, think about Popeye, I think about Taza.
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Speaker 1: They already do all sorts of you know, kind of
20:27
Speaker 1: superpower stuff. So who really is to blame? And then
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Speaker 1: National Comics or you know, DC's representatives, they they come
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Speaker 1: in and they go objection you Ana, here, we have
20:43
Speaker 1: bin got to bind we gotta bind what's in the binder.
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Speaker 3: Well, this is kind of where it does start to
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Speaker 3: you know, I can see the issue where you start
20:52
Speaker 3: to have these page by page comparisons of different comics,
20:57
Speaker 3: over one hundred and fifty pages in fact, panels from
21:00
Speaker 3: they are comics of Superman juxtapose with panels from Captain
21:03
Speaker 3: Marvel with close details kind of like circle like Exhibit A.
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Speaker 3: Everything from costumes from the various you know, coutrema like
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Speaker 3: capes and boots, the various superpowers of course, flying abilities, strength, speed,
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Speaker 3: bullet invincibility, the ability to withstand explosions and shells and
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Speaker 3: stuff like that, the idea, the detail of a secret identity,
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Speaker 3: and they also edit. I think I mentioned this briefly
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Speaker 3: at the top. They also went so far as to
21:33
Speaker 3: say that there was some copyright infringement going on in
21:36
Speaker 3: the fact that they were both clean cut, clean shaven individuals.
21:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, no facial hair. That's a bummer for Max Nolla myself, folks,
21:45
Speaker 1: No superheroes with facial hair. Also, I love invincibility to bullets,
21:50
Speaker 1: not necessarily invincibility overall.
21:54
Speaker 2: You just can't shoot at.
21:55
Speaker 3: Them, that's right, And I guess I haven't seen the
21:59
Speaker 3: Panels or the by Psyche comparison. But even some of
22:02
Speaker 3: these things just on paper, not entirely unique.
22:05
Speaker 2: I think there are examples of this. I mean when
22:07
Speaker 2: you just modernize like a hero.
22:09
Speaker 3: Of course, bullets are going to come into play, because
22:12
Speaker 3: that's what all the baddies use, the gangsters. But when
22:15
Speaker 3: they start circling things like costume similarities and very specific
22:21
Speaker 3: like copy cat items from one comic issue to another,
22:26
Speaker 3: with enough of those stacked up, got a pretty good
22:28
Speaker 3: case on their hands, I would argue.
22:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the court agreed on to trial nineteen forty eight.
22:35
Speaker 1: The judge primarily ruled in favor of our friends over
22:39
Speaker 1: at DC and said, Okay, this Captain Marvel guy is
22:45
Speaker 1: an infringement on Superman and a lot of this comes
22:48
Speaker 1: to us courtesy of our friends at Plagiarism Today dot com,
22:52
Speaker 1: who creates that detail on it.
22:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna be really careful to cite them every
22:57
Speaker 3: chance lest they come after us.
23:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's letter box over there. Yeah, let's also
23:03
Speaker 1: shout out Jonathan Bailey. And this is a pretty recent
23:05
Speaker 1: article that comes from May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen, talking
23:09
Speaker 1: about the larger tale of captain Marvel and don't worry,
23:14
Speaker 1: we'll get to your favorite marvels, your modern marvels, dare
23:17
Speaker 1: I say in a moment. But obviously the courts have
23:21
Speaker 1: to agree on the infringement here. It is kind of
23:25
Speaker 1: obvious because who reads comic books at this time, people
23:30
Speaker 1: who make comic books.
23:31
Speaker 3: We have not yet reached the kind of mainstreaming of
23:34
Speaker 3: comics that we know today. You know, we're every single mining,
23:38
Speaker 3: every single piece of intellectual property from these canons. You know,
23:42
Speaker 3: this back catalog of stuff to make you know, a
23:45
Speaker 3: movie or television show or whatever.
23:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's still coming from that that newspaper
23:54
Speaker 1: comic strip origin, right, the idea of a whole book
23:57
Speaker 1: of funny pages. That's why they're called cop books.
24:00
Speaker 2: Right.
24:01
Speaker 1: So the issue is there's the comic book issue. Is
24:06
Speaker 1: there is a there is this halsey on era again
24:10
Speaker 1: wherein it is kind of mainstreamed in print. But during
24:14
Speaker 1: the post World War Two, in the early nineteen fifties,
24:18
Speaker 1: the sales of these superhero comic books they're in the
24:23
Speaker 1: can they're slumping. People are not making as much money,
24:27
Speaker 1: and so Fawcet decides, hey, we can't really fight this case. Right,
24:33
Speaker 1: we're already hemorrhaging money in sales, so they pay four
24:36
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in damages if we can inflation calculate,
24:42
Speaker 1: and a dude a booth and a book, that's about
24:46
Speaker 1: four million dollars today, and.
24:49
Speaker 2: So certainly not chump change.
24:51
Speaker 1: Not chump change. But Captain Marvel may have gone out
24:57
Speaker 1: like a chump Fawcet Comics shut up their whole comic
25:01
Speaker 1: book division and they bow out. This has intergenerational copyright consequences.
25:11
Speaker 1: But this is not the end of Captain Marvel.
25:16
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, actually not meanwhile.
25:18
Speaker 3: It takes a little time fast forward, in fact to
25:21
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six. Captain Marvel has largely become a dead property.
25:26
Speaker 3: It wasn't until February of nineteen sixty six that the
25:30
Speaker 3: pulp magazine Magnates Myron Fasts, which is, if there ever
25:35
Speaker 3: were a name that felt right for a pulp magazine, Magnate,
25:39
Speaker 3: Myron Fast has my vote, and Myron Fast publishes Captain Marvel,
25:44
Speaker 3: which is considered by many in comic book circles.
25:47
Speaker 2: It's just three circles to.
25:49
Speaker 3: Be one of the worst, if not the worst, comic
25:52
Speaker 3: books ever written.
25:54
Speaker 2: Which you know, makes sense if you're thinking.
25:55
Speaker 3: About what pulp magazines were famous for putting out.
25:58
Speaker 2: It was crap a lot of times.
26:01
Speaker 1: And our research is associate Jeff is Co citing that.
26:04
Speaker 1: But folks, that comes from Britannica, the Encyclopedia Britannica is
26:11
Speaker 1: telling us that Myron Fast as Captain Marvel is one
26:16
Speaker 1: of the worst.
26:17
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, I get I'm assuming that Myron Fast and
26:21
Speaker 3: maybe acquired this intellectual property after the decline or the
26:25
Speaker 3: you know, I guess disintegration of Faust Comics. I don't
26:29
Speaker 3: have that detail right here, but that would be the
26:30
Speaker 3: only thing that would make.
26:31
Speaker 1: Sense, right, that would be logical. And this Captain Marvel
26:36
Speaker 1: is released around the same time Marvel Comics is riding high.
26:42
Speaker 1: They've got Fantastic Four, They've got Spider Man, They've got
26:47
Speaker 1: X Men. As you know if you follow superhero films
26:51
Speaker 1: and adaptations, folks, Spider Man and X Men are making
26:56
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Fantastic four is also on the
27:00
Speaker 1: way in the next few years.
27:02
Speaker 3: Interestingly enough, though, if I'm not mistaken, both Spider Man
27:06
Speaker 3: and X Men are similarly kind of like there's a
27:11
Speaker 3: weird device disconnects between like two studios that have the
27:15
Speaker 3: right box so.
27:18
Speaker 2: Together.
27:19
Speaker 6: Well, so Fox doesn't have them anymore. It's not anymore Disney.
27:24
Speaker 4: Disney bought out that entire part of that studio and
27:27
Speaker 4: got all that stuff.
27:28
Speaker 6: That's when Disney bought out twentieth Century Fosh.
27:30
Speaker 1: Shout out Kevin Page, the architect, the mad genius of
27:35
Speaker 1: the MCU.
27:36
Speaker 3: He also, like the Sony Spider Man movies are largely
27:39
Speaker 3: considered be pretty bad until the Spider Verse movies, the
27:43
Speaker 3: animated ones, which are I think regarded as some of
27:45
Speaker 3: the best Spider Man films ever to be made.
27:49
Speaker 2: And I would tend to agree with that.
27:51
Speaker 4: The new ones with Tom Holland there's weird things products, there's.
27:56
Speaker 3: A partnership with Marvels, and there are certain characters they're
28:00
Speaker 3: not allowed to use or not allowed to cross feature
28:03
Speaker 3: because the whole deal with the Cinematic Universe stuff is
28:05
Speaker 3: to have appearances and a continuity.
28:07
Speaker 2: So those are properties that tend.
28:09
Speaker 3: To be a little confusing and convoluted, and I think
28:12
Speaker 3: those deals are going to run out, and then ultimately
28:14
Speaker 3: it all goes.
28:15
Speaker 1: To let me, let me tell you guys what happening.
28:17
Speaker 1: Let me tell you guys, what happened. So Marvel goes bankrupt.
28:20
Speaker 1: Marvel as a comic book entity is in the tank,
28:24
Speaker 1: and in their darker days, they start selling off properties,
28:29
Speaker 1: their derivative IP, you could call it, to different companies,
28:33
Speaker 1: and hence you have for a while twentieth Century Fox
28:38
Speaker 1: owning X Men, and then a different company, Sony owned
28:42
Speaker 1: Spider Man. It was a fire sale. I don't I
28:45
Speaker 1: don't even know if we want to do a bend
28:47
Speaker 1: with fact thing on this.
28:50
Speaker 5: That seeking the phone bed and PA's full in knowledge.
28:56
Speaker 2: It's just for you right now.
29:02
Speaker 1: It's an unpleasant story, and it explains a lot of
29:05
Speaker 1: the weird, a weird attempts that we see these different
29:10
Speaker 1: companies doing, you know, with the Sony Spider Man or
29:14
Speaker 1: Spider verse, right they're trying to make a Venom verse
29:18
Speaker 1: where Spider Man doesn't show up. They're trying to make
29:22
Speaker 1: a morebius film.
29:24
Speaker 2: Where that one didn't go super well, are you kidding?
29:27
Speaker 1: No?
29:27
Speaker 2: More fis No, it's more bs.
29:29
Speaker 3: That's the Vampire one with Jared Leto that was apparently
29:31
Speaker 3: I saw it on a plane actually, but I just
29:33
Speaker 3: sort of tuned out because it was embarrassingly bad and
29:35
Speaker 3: now there's this new Madam web movie. It is apparently
29:39
Speaker 3: absolute garbage.
29:41
Speaker 1: The comic books were good, but I don't know if
29:43
Speaker 1: the creators were at the comics.
29:45
Speaker 3: But is Madam Webb an official Marvel release or is
29:48
Speaker 3: there another weird crossover here because it seemed of a
29:51
Speaker 3: lower quality than the typical I know, Marvel Studio seems
29:54
Speaker 3: to be struggling a little bit, but Madam Webb looked
29:56
Speaker 3: like a B movie kind of it's and it is okay,
30:02
Speaker 3: So it's still in the Spider Verse because Madam Webb
30:05
Speaker 3: in the comics is uh is affiliated sort of with
30:09
Speaker 3: the pantheon of Spider Man.
30:11
Speaker 1: And so they've got this, They've got this whole legal
30:15
Speaker 1: plaquemire going on, and our pal myron Us Myron, Myron thanks,
30:22
Speaker 1: he loves his mother. Yeah, Myron, he's got to get
30:26
Speaker 1: out a skid row, right, shout out the little Shop
30:28
Speaker 1: of Horrors. It seems right, It seems obvious that he
30:34
Speaker 1: is trying to uh claim this trademark. And it's kind
30:38
Speaker 1: of like, in a weird way, it's like a print
30:41
Speaker 1: version of those B movies that you would see, uh
30:46
Speaker 1: straight to VHS and the days of Blockbuster, right, remember
30:49
Speaker 1: those that not quite the same horror film. It wouldn't
30:53
Speaker 1: be like uh, hell Raiser, it would be like heck
30:56
Speaker 1: Ruckus hell Bringer.
30:58
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah.
30:59
Speaker 3: Well, and then you know, there was a company called
31:02
Speaker 3: the Something O Jesus, I know what you're talking about,
31:05
Speaker 3: But they coined the term mockbuster. Mockbuster, that's it, straight
31:10
Speaker 3: to video things where literally part of their business would
31:12
Speaker 3: be people confusing their thing for the real thing on
31:16
Speaker 3: the shelves a blockbuster. That's what my asylum, I think
31:19
Speaker 3: is what it was called. I want to say it
31:21
Speaker 3: was called the Asylum. But he stead of snakes on
31:23
Speaker 3: a plane, they did snakes on a train. But they
31:26
Speaker 3: were leaning into that, and this whole deal is pre that.
31:31
Speaker 3: But this is exactly right then, the absolute B movie
31:35
Speaker 3: version of popular thing.
31:37
Speaker 1: He did such a he got in trouble because he
31:40
Speaker 1: also got too close to the actual properties and characters.
31:44
Speaker 1: He used Plastic Man, which is a real DC character and.
31:48
Speaker 3: A real rip up of mister Fantastic or vice versa. Hey,
31:51
Speaker 3: I'm not even sure what order they came in, Hey,
31:54
Speaker 3: law and order saying yeah, you're right, you're right.
32:00
Speaker 1: Sustained doctor Fate And then how bad is this he
32:05
Speaker 1: had a Batman character and he was like, well, we
32:08
Speaker 1: can't call it Batman, We'll call him the bat Yeah.
32:13
Speaker 2: Perfect ride.
32:14
Speaker 3: Can we also, once again, no shade. This is all
32:17
Speaker 3: first to market stuff. You can only come up with
32:20
Speaker 3: Batman one time. It's not the most creative thing in
32:24
Speaker 3: the universe. It's a guy who looks like a bat
32:27
Speaker 3: and he's called Batman.
32:29
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Spider Man has man bat Oh wait,
32:32
Speaker 1: how do you.
32:33
Speaker 2: Say the man? Wait?
32:34
Speaker 3: But then there was the man bat in the Batman
32:37
Speaker 3: the animated series, who was still weird mutant bat thing.
32:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And there's Batgirl. Oh sorry.
32:45
Speaker 3: You can see how this stuff is even confusing for us,
32:47
Speaker 3: and we're fans of this stuff, so it really does
32:49
Speaker 3: get pretty convoluted pretty quick.
32:51
Speaker 1: And so he uh, he has his own Captain Marvel
32:56
Speaker 1: that he he makes a side This guy has a
33:01
Speaker 1: like a Batman Robin relationship. In the Myron Fast stuff
33:06
Speaker 1: and Myron Fast as Captain Marvel has a sidekick named
33:10
Speaker 1: Billy Baxton with an X which is just a Batson
33:15
Speaker 1: pretty close to Billy Batson. So you can see how
33:19
Speaker 1: that didn't work out After just a few issues. Fast
33:23
Speaker 1: as Captain Marvel disappears, and Marvel Comics has this look
33:28
Speaker 1: around the room moment and they say, wow, these low
33:33
Speaker 1: quality imitators, these grifters, they can do lasting damage to
33:39
Speaker 1: everything that we represent. We have to go back to court,
33:43
Speaker 1: we have to lock down this Captain Marvel name. And
33:48
Speaker 1: so in I think it's like nineteen sixty six, the
33:52
Speaker 1: publisher of Marvel goes to Myron Fast and says, look,
33:57
Speaker 1: we'll give you six grand to the rights for Captain Marvel.
34:02
Speaker 3: Okay, again, we don't even have to inflation calculator. You
34:05
Speaker 3: could probably figure that was probably close to to like,
34:07
Speaker 3: you know, fifty grand or maybe even one hundred grand
34:10
Speaker 3: at the time. But when you think about where things
34:13
Speaker 3: ended up with all the movies and how even minor
34:15
Speaker 3: characters like that were big have become big money shout
34:19
Speaker 3: out man exactly, the minorists of characters. That was probably
34:24
Speaker 3: a little bit of a sweetheart deal there, know.
34:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it's so weird because Marvel, so Myron
34:32
Speaker 1: Fast turns them down. Marvel goes ahead and says, forgiveness
34:37
Speaker 1: V permission, We're going to introduce our own Captain Marvel,
34:41
Speaker 1: a brand new Captain Marvel. And in nineteen sixty seven.
34:46
Speaker 1: I want to say. They come out with Captain Marvel
34:49
Speaker 1: on the twelfth issue of a thing they were running
34:52
Speaker 1: called Marvel Superheroes, and Myron Fast says Marvel, gosh dotted,
34:58
Speaker 1: I'll sue your pants off if infringing on by trademark
35:03
Speaker 1: that I stole from you. And they say you're being
35:06
Speaker 1: a cartoon And so my Ron Fast ultimately settles for
35:10
Speaker 1: four thousand, five hundred dollars. And we've got a great
35:13
Speaker 1: quote here at Noel. You'd love to do this one,
35:16
Speaker 1: he says.
35:18
Speaker 3: Our Captain Marvel was selling lousy anyway.
35:22
Speaker 2: I mean, really, the only way to say that is like.
35:23
Speaker 5: I was lousy. I was selling lousy. Who cares get
35:27
Speaker 5: rid of it? For everyone on the trash.
35:29
Speaker 1: Heap, for everyone listening along at home. Our pal Nol
35:32
Speaker 1: is also twiddling a fake cigar at this point, and
35:35
Speaker 1: us that's how publishers talk, right, It's true, they always have,
35:39
Speaker 1: like a fake cigar. Not much happens for the next
35:49
Speaker 1: twenty years. The original Captain Marvel is no longer publishing,
35:54
Speaker 1: The name and the character, more specifically, stop being used
35:58
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight. That's where we get the current
36:04
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel. So this modern, this new Captain Marvel is
36:10
Speaker 1: an alien. They make up a whole backstory, build out
36:16
Speaker 1: a world for Captain Marvel's race. Captain Marvel, who is
36:21
Speaker 1: not the current iteration played by Brie Larsen, is a
36:26
Speaker 1: dude alien from a race called the Cree, or a
36:30
Speaker 1: species called the Cree.
36:32
Speaker 3: Which you might recognize from the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
36:37
Speaker 3: And again, you know, I think like you yourself been,
36:40
Speaker 3: I have friends who are deep into all of this
36:43
Speaker 3: stuff and all of this lore and these various iterations
36:46
Speaker 3: and the Cree have been around for you know, decades
36:49
Speaker 3: and decades, and you know, really what Marvel Studios have
36:52
Speaker 3: done is mind all of this intellectual property, sometimes taking
36:57
Speaker 3: some creative liberties, sometimes being very true to the source material,
37:00
Speaker 3: but it's essentially just an absolute, you know, pool of
37:04
Speaker 3: stuff they can pull from to kind of like tell
37:06
Speaker 3: these stories. And the Cree are a big part of
37:08
Speaker 3: that as well as like introducing Thanos and stuff like that.
37:11
Speaker 1: They got creative give it that drum. Yeah, all right,
37:15
Speaker 1: So this, uh, this direct predecessor of the current Marvel,
37:21
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel is mar dash Vel and his Yeah, exactly,
37:29
Speaker 1: just so, and This was an editorial necessity. They needed
37:34
Speaker 1: to use the trademark, which is kind of also why
37:38
Speaker 1: Loki Sony comes out with a Spider Man movie every
37:43
Speaker 1: so often, because they have to use it to keep it.
37:45
Speaker 1: So Marvel is uh is kind of checking the boxes
37:51
Speaker 1: for Marvel. I mean, he he looks a lot like
37:55
Speaker 1: he has this like a lot of the same superpowers.
37:59
Speaker 2: Uh.
38:00
Speaker 1: He gets uh, he gets a different uniform. He has
38:04
Speaker 1: gold wrist bands which you'll later see and stuff like
38:08
Speaker 1: Captain Quantum and whatever. In Marvel, he's got a starbarst logo.
38:13
Speaker 1: Uh he.
38:15
Speaker 2: Uh.
38:16
Speaker 1: He has a different sound effect when he strikes his
38:20
Speaker 1: wrist together. He doesn't say shazam, but what triggers his
38:25
Speaker 1: superpowers is the sound effect.
38:28
Speaker 3: The tang, which is really just kind of like automatopoeia
38:32
Speaker 3: for the sound that it might make when the risk
38:35
Speaker 3: you know, braces or slapped the tang.
38:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, because because they're the Billy Batson in this is
38:42
Speaker 1: a teenager named Rick Jones who finds these golden wristbands
38:47
Speaker 1: the negative the megabands megabands.
38:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't sound good, it's that oh sorry, because
38:52
Speaker 2: they're from the negative zone. They're from the.
38:54
Speaker 1: Negative zone, got it. Yeah, so the the lore is there.
38:57
Speaker 1: They put it in place, but I would prefer sh
39:00
Speaker 1: as Am to a Katang. I don't know what do
39:02
Speaker 1: you guys think?
39:03
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and the whole negative zone negative all seems a
39:06
Speaker 3: little bit lazy if we're being honest.
39:08
Speaker 1: We're being honest. The fans didn't really dig this, and
39:14
Speaker 1: the sales reflected that. So Captain Marvel in this iteration
39:19
Speaker 1: was always sort of on the cusp of being canceled.
39:23
Speaker 1: And this is where we get to the actual Captain
39:27
Speaker 1: Marvel that you may know and recognize from the Disney
39:31
Speaker 1: brun MCU today. Carol Danvers makes her first appearance in
39:37
Speaker 1: Marvel Superheroes issue thirteen, just after issue twelve, right in
39:44
Speaker 1: March of nineteen sixty eight, and she originally is hanging
39:48
Speaker 1: out with these alien cre She's hanging out with Marvel.
39:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:52
Speaker 3: She actually gets abducted by a jealous Cree officer named
39:56
Speaker 3: Jon Rog, which sounds weirdly cthulhuesque, and Marvel flies in
40:02
Speaker 3: to rescue her in like you said, Captain Marvel at
40:05
Speaker 3: number eighteen. Then there's a battle between Marvel and Yon Rag,
40:09
Speaker 3: and during said battle, a device is exploded an ancient
40:13
Speaker 3: Creed device called the psyche Magnetron, which is kind of
40:16
Speaker 3: cool sounding.
40:17
Speaker 2: I like that.
40:18
Speaker 3: I might use that for I don't know, it could
40:20
Speaker 3: be a cool band name or something. And it explodes
40:24
Speaker 3: and creates sort of like a fallout area wherein Marvel and.
40:28
Speaker 2: Danvers get bathed in this radiation.
40:31
Speaker 3: Marvell presumably is being okay, being sort of you know,
40:34
Speaker 3: extra human and all of that. And Danvers, however, transforms.
40:39
Speaker 2: She's infused with Cree.
40:41
Speaker 3: DNA and she actually gets powers very similar to those
40:45
Speaker 3: of Marvel.
40:47
Speaker 1: Dare we call her Captain Marvel? Not quite yet, because
40:52
Speaker 1: for almost a decade, Danvers is just a second tier
41:00
Speaker 1: recurring presence in the overall Captain Marvel series. It isn't
41:04
Speaker 1: until the nineteen seventies when DC has wonder Woman wonder
41:11
Speaker 1: Woman coming to like the cover of Miss magazine, that
41:16
Speaker 1: the folks at Marvel look around and they say twiddling
41:20
Speaker 1: the invisible cigar.
41:21
Speaker 2: Indeed, hey, why don't we have a why.
41:24
Speaker 5: We have a woman's superhero? Women's lib is hot right now?
41:29
Speaker 5: We got this second wave feminism. We need to get
41:32
Speaker 5: with it.
41:32
Speaker 1: With the picture j Jonah Jamison banging the desk, bring
41:36
Speaker 1: me a woman, Superhero any woman as quick as you can.
41:40
Speaker 2: And then you know they you can kind of see.
41:43
Speaker 3: Through the ploy here as well, even by the name
41:45
Speaker 3: they plopped on her with as Miss Marvel.
41:48
Speaker 2: You know, it's like throwing a bow on pac.
41:50
Speaker 3: Man and calling him Miss pac Man, but even more
41:54
Speaker 3: kind of obnoxious, frankly.
41:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
41:55
Speaker 1: And so in January of nineteen seventy seven, Nola's right, folks,
42:00
Speaker 1: Miss Marvel debuts and now our character, Carol Danvers has
42:05
Speaker 1: a fair uh faucet hairdoo get it? Easter egg? Oh snap, yeah,
42:10
Speaker 1: and she's traveling to New York City. She's gonna work
42:13
Speaker 1: as a journalist for a magazine called Woman.
42:17
Speaker 2: Woman Super Creative.
42:18
Speaker 1: It's published by Jay Jodah Jamison.
42:23
Speaker 3: Who's all about you know, women's lib Yeah, class classes
42:27
Speaker 3: big time. So, you know, Miss Marvel does never really
42:31
Speaker 3: quite quite lock into a rhythm, whether it be with
42:34
Speaker 3: the stories or the art, because that's very important to
42:37
Speaker 3: kind of establish like sort of a cohesive feel to it.
42:40
Speaker 3: A rotating cast of artists means that it never really
42:43
Speaker 3: quite gets into that groove. A new costume that gets
42:47
Speaker 3: unveiled in nineteen seventy eight, but overall it's a bit
42:51
Speaker 3: of a dud, and it gets canceled just a few
42:54
Speaker 3: issues later, an issue number twenty three April of nineteen
42:57
Speaker 3: seventy nine. But then they decide to bring back Marvel
43:00
Speaker 3: the Watch. She doesn't get her own imprint or her
43:02
Speaker 3: own series. They throw her on a team.
43:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Avengers. The moment where Marvel Comics said, we
43:10
Speaker 1: have Justice League at home. It's true Justice Leake comes
43:14
Speaker 1: before the Avengers.
43:15
Speaker 3: But I think her inclusion is a little bit offensive though,
43:19
Speaker 3: or there is. She's sort of this token woman that
43:22
Speaker 3: is treated a disrespectful.
43:25
Speaker 1: There's a storyline where she gets sexually assaulted. It just
43:29
Speaker 1: in short, it doesn't age well. But the writers, like
43:34
Speaker 1: artists and writers like Chris Claremont said, hey, we're not
43:38
Speaker 1: treating this character well. This character has a lot of
43:41
Speaker 1: potential and depth. And so in October of nineteen eighty one,
43:46
Speaker 1: Claremont himself tries to fix this and he says, all right,
43:52
Speaker 1: Carol Denvers has made her way back from space to Earth.
43:57
Speaker 1: She's escaping the Creed, but she's haunted by it. She
44:00
Speaker 1: runs into Rogue, the very southern mutant from the X
44:06
Speaker 1: Men who can steal powers.
44:08
Speaker 3: And also can will kill you right, just touch her
44:13
Speaker 3: hand loog.
44:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I didn't realize Rogue was ever not
44:17
Speaker 3: connected with the X Men. I really only knew her,
44:20
Speaker 3: and I am one of those what did you call it, filthy?
44:22
Speaker 3: I'm filthy in some way, filthy fans on fair Weather
44:26
Speaker 3: is what I'll call myself. I really only knew about
44:28
Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff from like the X Men
44:30
Speaker 3: animated series or like Batman the animated series. Those were
44:33
Speaker 3: really excellent, by the way. And there's this new X Men. Yeah,
44:38
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be fabulous and I really can't wait
44:40
Speaker 3: to watch it. They really nailed the style and apparently
44:42
Speaker 3: it's very, very smart. I'm excited to check it out.
44:44
Speaker 3: But no, I had no idea that Rogue was her
44:46
Speaker 3: own thing.
44:47
Speaker 2: Oh well, Rogue is.
44:49
Speaker 1: Rogue was formerly from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants helmed
44:53
Speaker 1: by Magneto, and then she joins the X Men. So
44:57
Speaker 1: she's a bit of an anti hero. But she has
45:01
Speaker 1: this complicated relationship that actually passes the Bechdel test with
45:08
Speaker 1: Carol Danvers, and so the reason Rogue has powers there are.
45:12
Speaker 2: Those two women talking to each other right without talking
45:15
Speaker 2: about dude.
45:16
Speaker 1: So she gets her she gets her powers, super strength
45:20
Speaker 1: and flight and all that because she is permanently intertwined
45:23
Speaker 1: with Carol Danvers as Miss Marvel. And when when Rogue
45:29
Speaker 1: and Danvers get into this situation, Danvers loses all of
45:35
Speaker 1: her memory, which is sort of Chris Claremont wiping the
45:39
Speaker 1: slate clean, Tabila, rasa and and so then he has
45:45
Speaker 1: Clairemont writes Danvers or Miss Marvel as a character who
45:49
Speaker 1: is recuperating and discovering herself and her identity with the
45:54
Speaker 1: X Men. It's a great thing, right, And Clairemont does
45:59
Speaker 1: very well with the X Men series. His run goes
46:02
Speaker 1: almost twenty years, but it's Captain Marvel still. They want
46:08
Speaker 1: to hold on to Captain Marvel. How do we shazam
46:12
Speaker 1: this back to its original success. Maybe we fast forward
46:16
Speaker 1: to the movies.
46:17
Speaker 2: Right, where's my Oh? Well?
46:19
Speaker 1: Now, now instead of publishing Magnates with print nol, we've
46:26
Speaker 1: got to twiddle our vapes. Now we're Studio Magnates.
46:30
Speaker 2: Studio Magnates.
46:31
Speaker 3: Indeed, and as we've talked about throughout this episode, the
46:35
Speaker 3: MCU is feeling like it's in a bit of a slump,
46:38
Speaker 3: but it is still quite big business. And when it
46:41
Speaker 3: first really came out the original runs of MCU films
46:44
Speaker 3: from the Ironman franchise and onto the Avengers and Infinity
46:48
Speaker 3: Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, this is
46:51
Speaker 3: some very creative use of this intellectual property, very well made.
46:55
Speaker 3: It's neat to see them pulling in some smaller directors
46:58
Speaker 3: to come in and do these really really big, big films.
47:01
Speaker 3: And you know, you've got like James Gunn, for example,
47:05
Speaker 3: who got his star with Trauma Pictures and Toxic Avengers
47:08
Speaker 3: and all of that, helming the Guardians of the Galaxy movies,
47:11
Speaker 3: I think to great effects because there is with the
47:14
Speaker 3: legacy of these properties, a lot of pulpy fun kind
47:18
Speaker 3: of trash involves. So he's a guy that kind of
47:20
Speaker 3: gets that, and that's why I think his are more
47:23
Speaker 3: successful than maybe some of the others. And it feels
47:25
Speaker 3: like they've gotten to a place where they sort of
47:26
Speaker 3: just lost the plot.
47:27
Speaker 2: And it is neat that James Gunn, I believe, now.
47:29
Speaker 3: Is revamping DC who have notoriously been a little more
47:33
Speaker 3: dour in their films, like with the Batman's films with
47:37
Speaker 3: Chritopher Nolan, which are obviously very good, but there's not
47:39
Speaker 3: quite as much fun and lightheartedness as you might find
47:42
Speaker 3: in some of the Marvel movies. So interesting to see
47:45
Speaker 3: where that's gonna go. But that being said, Marvel Cinematic
47:48
Speaker 3: Universe did grow into one of the most successful film
47:51
Speaker 3: franchises of all time, and hence the mining of every
47:56
Speaker 3: inch of intellectual property they can from back as far
47:59
Speaker 3: as the nineteen forties.
48:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is where Carol Danvers slash Miss Marvel
48:07
Speaker 1: slash Captain Marvel goes to the big screen. Everybody total
48:12
Speaker 1: of your vapes. Breed Larsen, the actor, is cast in
48:16
Speaker 1: the title role of Captain Marvel after the after the
48:21
Speaker 1: role gets teased in Avengers Infinity War. So March twenty nineteen,
48:25
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel comes out. It makes more than one billion
48:29
Speaker 1: dollars US worldwide. And then in the later that same
48:33
Speaker 1: year Avengers Endgame comes out, we also get we also
48:38
Speaker 1: get the introduction of other ancillary characters, just like Shizam,
48:44
Speaker 1: just like Captain Marvel of old, there's Monica Rambeau who
48:48
Speaker 1: is who is affiliated with Captain Marvel and has similar powers. Right,
48:55
Speaker 1: and then because we have promoted Danvers to Captain Marvel,
49:00
Speaker 1: there's a new Miss Marvel and This is a Pakistani
49:03
Speaker 1: American teenager, Kamala Kahan. Her powers are way different in
49:08
Speaker 1: the comics versus in the film or the series adaptations.
49:15
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting because what we're seeing is overall the
49:21
Speaker 1: adaptation of these modern myths. I really appreciate the idea
49:26
Speaker 1: that you pointed out of this continuity between Greco Roman
49:31
Speaker 1: gods of old and deities and pantheons, and the way
49:35
Speaker 1: that those stories echoed down to the world of comics
49:39
Speaker 1: and entertainment today. It seems that, as our pal Jeff said,
49:45
Speaker 1: it's a reminder that with superheroes, no death is truly final.
49:50
Speaker 1: You might be exactly, you might be the next Captain
49:52
Speaker 1: Marvel Max.
49:54
Speaker 2: You never know.
49:55
Speaker 3: And also, I would have to argue, does seem to
49:58
Speaker 3: lower the stakes white a lot, And I would argue
50:01
Speaker 3: is maybe one of the reasons why some of the
50:04
Speaker 3: Marvel properties have lost their luster a little bit, because
50:06
Speaker 3: if you if you don't really have to worry about
50:09
Speaker 3: what happens to a character because you know there's going
50:11
Speaker 3: to bring them back through a multiversal timey whimy flip,
50:15
Speaker 3: then are there are there ever any stakes?
50:17
Speaker 2: Really? It just kind of feels a little bit you.
50:20
Speaker 3: Know, lazy uh, and their ability to continuously cash in
50:24
Speaker 3: on all these characters without actually having to commit to
50:27
Speaker 3: any of their decisions.
50:28
Speaker 1: Interesting to say, is that how you feel about Doctor Who?
50:31
Speaker 1: Because you said time with Whymy?
50:32
Speaker 2: I said Timey whymy?
50:33
Speaker 3: Just because it's you know, it does seem to be
50:36
Speaker 3: a narrative device and it's a little vague as to
50:40
Speaker 3: how it actually works, and I feel like the mechanics
50:43
Speaker 3: behind it are a little you know, amorphous, And I
50:45
Speaker 3: also feel like it's just again like is it really
50:49
Speaker 3: is a character ever really gone? If they can bring
50:52
Speaker 3: them back, you know, in the next movie. It just
50:54
Speaker 3: seems to me to be a little bit of a
50:56
Speaker 3: I don't know, cash grabby kind of move. I do
50:59
Speaker 3: think it can use creatively. Obviously, it was stuff like everywhere,
51:02
Speaker 3: everything everywhere all at once. This time travel stuff and
51:05
Speaker 3: multiverse stuff is really really cool. And obviously those the
51:09
Speaker 3: directors of that film and writers, the Daniels are now
51:13
Speaker 3: in a deal with I believe the Russo Brothers and
51:16
Speaker 3: and some of the bigger studios. Hopefully they're not going
51:19
Speaker 3: to get relegated to just making superhero movies. I don't
51:21
Speaker 3: think they will, not only they would allow themselves to
51:24
Speaker 3: be used that way. But I do think it's a
51:26
Speaker 3: technique that can be used well. But also it.
51:28
Speaker 2: Feels like Marvel's kind of done it to death a
51:30
Speaker 2: little bit at this point.
51:31
Speaker 1: What about James Bond?
51:33
Speaker 2: I guess I feel like.
51:34
Speaker 3: That's a little different, just because the continuity doesn't matter
51:37
Speaker 3: quite as much, and it feels like every time they
51:39
Speaker 3: cast a new Bond they reset the clock.
51:41
Speaker 5: And oh like with Spider Man, yeah, a little bit,
51:45
Speaker 5: I guess.
51:46
Speaker 2: All the Spider Man's Meet also, that was fun. I
51:49
Speaker 2: did enjoy that.
51:51
Speaker 6: Has been so much.
51:52
Speaker 2: I don't think it should be No, No, it's fine.
51:54
Speaker 6: They put the put in the ads.
51:55
Speaker 2: Do you guys? You know what I'm saying.
51:56
Speaker 3: Though, it feels like if there's never really any anything
51:59
Speaker 3: to worry about, because you know they can just come back,
52:01
Speaker 3: does it feel like there's a little bit of lowering
52:04
Speaker 3: of the stakes and you're not really concerned with what
52:06
Speaker 3: might happen.
52:06
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe I'm being out.
52:08
Speaker 6: Yes, I agree with one hundred percentul.
52:10
Speaker 1: And we cannot thank you enough for tuning in. Folks.
52:15
Speaker 1: We hope fellow comic book nerds, we hope you are
52:19
Speaker 1: nodding along as we're hitting some of this stuff. Now,
52:22
Speaker 1: obviously we alighted over some of the more in the
52:26
Speaker 1: weeds part of this evolution. But I think what we
52:29
Speaker 1: all agree on here is that a story never really ends.
52:33
Speaker 1: With that, we can't wait for you to tune in
52:35
Speaker 1: next week. We have so many more explorations ahead. History
52:39
Speaker 1: continues to be ridiculous. Big thanks to our super producer
52:43
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, and our own lex luthor Jonathan Strickland.
52:47
Speaker 3: Indeed Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associate extraordinary
52:52
Speaker 3: Jeff bart Let's and of course.
52:54
Speaker 2: You Ben and with you as well. We'll see you
52:56
Speaker 2: next time, folks.
53:04
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
53:08
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.