By speaking the magic word "SHAZAM" Billy Batson can transform himself into a costumed adult with the powers of superhuman strength

We just added four classic 'golden age' Whiz comics to our online store so we thought it best to provide a brief history of Captain Marvel:

Captain Marvel, also known as Shazam, is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker created the character in 1939. Captain Marvel first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (cover-dated Feb. 1940), published by Fawcett Comics. He is the alter ego of Billy Batson, a boy who, by speaking the magic word "SHAZAM" (acronym of six "immortal elders": Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury), can transform himself into a costumed adult with the powers of superhuman strength, speed, flight and other abilities.

Based on book sales, the character was the most popular superhero of the 1940s, outselling even Superman. Fawcett expanded the franchise to include other "Marvels", primarily Marvel Family associates Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr., who can harness Billy's powers as well. Captain Marvel was also the first comic book superhero to be adapted into film, in a 1941 Republic Pictures serial titled Adventures of Captain Marvel.

Fawcett ceased publishing Captain Marvel-related comics in 1953, partly because of a copyright infringement suit from DC Comics, alleging that Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman. In 1972, DC licensed the Marvel Family characters from Fawcett, and returned them to publication. By 1991, DC had acquired all rights to the characters. DC has since integrated Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family into their DC Universe and has attempted to revive the property several times, with mixed success. Due to trademark conflicts over another character named "Captain Marvel" owned by Marvel Comics, DC has branded and marketed the character using the trademark Shazam! since his 1972 reintroduction. This has, in turn, led many to assume that "Shazam" was the character's name. DC later officially renamed the character "Shazam" when relaunching its comic book properties in 2011.

The character has been featured in two television series adaptations, one live action and one animated, by Filmation, and an upcoming New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Shazam! feature film scheduled for release in 2019 as part of the DC Extended Universe, with Zachary Levi and Asher Angel portraying the title role. Captain Marvel was ranked as the 55th greatest comic book character of all time by Wizard magazine. IGN also ranked Captain Marvel as the 50th greatest comic book hero of all time, stating that the character will always be an enduring reminder of a simpler time. UGO Networks ranked him as one of the top heroes of entertainment, saying, "At his best, Shazam has always been compared to Superman with a sense of crazy, goofy fun".

Now check these out:

Whiz #147 Fawcett Publications July 1952 Grade Fine

Whiz #148 Fawcett Publications August 1952 Grade Fine

Whiz #149 Fawcett Publications September 1952 Grade Fine

Whiz #145 Fawcett Publications May 1952 Grade Fine

Shazam: Does every DC movie need to include Wonder Woman from now on?

It looks like DC is convinced any new film would flop terribly unless it includes Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot):

From Collider

DC Comics’ Shazam! (a.k.a. Captain Marvel) isn’t exactly a straightforward superhero when compared to his Justice League counterparts. Superman’s an alien from a dead planet, Batman’s a tormented billionaire, and Wonder Woman’s an Amazonian warrior princess; “Shazam” is an acronym/code word/name of a mysterious wizard that harnesses the power of six immortal elders in order to transform young, homeless Billy Batson into the costumed superhero, Captain Marvel. It’s a little unwieldy, but what makes the character fun and interesting is that he’s essentially a superhero that encompasses the innocence and imagination of a child with the appearance and abilities of a superhuman adult. There’s a lot of rich storytelling material here.

Luckily Zachary Levi gets this aspect of the character, a good thing, too, since he’s going to portray the hero in DC/Warner Bros.’ film. While promoting the two-part season finale of Tangled: The Series (which airs on The Disney Channel Saturday, January 13th at 8am), Levi spoke with ET about his excitement for the superhero role. The film’s April 5, 2019 release date will mark 20 years to the month that Levi has been auditioning in Hollywood, a milestone he marked in the interview along with praise for the film’s cast, script, and director David F. Sandberg.

“Wonder Woman, because she’s awesome. I think getting a cameo from anybody would be super cool, but I just think Gal Gadot is so effervescent. She has such a charm. And she seems like a really cool broad. Like, she was in the Israeli army. She’s a mom. And I’m like, ‘You seem like you’re grounded and cool, and you’re Wonder Woman, and you rock.’ And I think it would be really funny to have the 14-year-old Billy Batson inside of Shazam that’s really awkward around this beautiful Amazonian. I just think that would be really awesome.”

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How Man Of Steel Stopped The Shazam! Movie

From Cinemablend

It was all the way back in 2006 that director Peter Segal became attached to direct the DC Comics movie Shazam!, a superhero film about the character best known as Captain Marvel. The project made a good amount of progress building towards production, landing John August to pen the script and Dwayne Johnson to play the villainous Black Adam, but despite its efforts the film wound up falling in Hollywood's dreaded development hell anyway. Given how popular comic book movies are nowadays, it's strange to think that a project as high profile as Shazam! could fall apart, but now the director has revealed to Coming Soon exactly what happened behind the scenes.

While Black Adam may have been Captain Marvel's big screen foe, the character's biggest enemy behind the scenes of Hollywood is Superman. According to Segal, Captain Marvel has always had a problem co-existing with the Man of Steel, as the two characters have very similar powers. As a result, any time that a movie about him has been in development it has been undercut by the guy in red and blue tights. Said the filmmaker,

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