MOVIES/COMICS: Fred MacMurray Was Captain Marvel, Sort Of
In 1939, comic book artist C. C. Beck used Fred MacMurray, now a Disney Legend (see more about him below), as his model for the famous superhero Captain Marvel, who was later renamed Shazam! by DC Comics. Captain Marvel outsold Superman in comic books in the 1940’s. This caused DC to sue Fawcett because Captain Marvel was too similar to their character Superman. DC bought out Fawcett Comics. In the meantime, Timely Comics (1939-1947), re-named Magazine Management (1947-1961), and then marvel Marvel Comics in1961, was planning on creating a character called Captain Marvel using their copyrighted name of Marvel. DC wanted to go head to head with them and still use Captain Marvel, but they ended up calling the comics Shazam, which is what the 12-year old Billy Batson has to should out to turn into Captain Marvel. The comics from DC were called Shazam but the character in the comics was still called Captain Marvel. Around 2011, DC just ended up changing his name completely over to Shazam.
Now, coming up in 2019, we have the movie Captain Marvel coming out from Disney/Marvel and it will be part of the MCU, a fact that was hinted at the end of Infinity War, and we have Shazam from DC. Both movies will be released only 4 weeks apart from each other in March and April, with Shazam being the latter.
If you liked this bit of history, check out my book with over 3,700 fun facts and trivia centered around Disneyland and Disney Movies HERE.
To help clear things up even further, watch this short video.
Here are some of Fred's Disney credits.
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