I will never call Captain Marvel "SHAZAM"

[JBatmanFan05]

It's definitely Captain Marvel for me. Neither Shazam of Capt Thunder can sufficiently replace it. But I understand DC's mistake and why we all have to...make do with it.

DC needs to focus on releasing Golden Age Omnibuses. Doing that great Fawcett work some justice.

[Osiris-Rex]

Both of those shows got name changes after they were retooled. And they were retooled in an attempt to save falling ratings. The titles were no longer working.

Wasn't "Archie Bunker's Place" just a spin-off of "All in the Family". Sort of like how "Frasier" was a spin-off of "Cheers" Other than Carroll O'Conner none of the main "All in the Family" actors were on the show
on a regular basis. They even killed off Edith after a while. I don't think Meathead ever showed up. It was essentially an all new cast of characters.

[MajorHoy]

DC needs to focus on releasing Golden Age Omnibuses. Doing that great Fawcett work some justice.

Problem is, I don't believe DC "owns" all that material; many of the stories themselves may be public domain at this point.

[ed2962]

Wasn't "Archie Bunker's Place" just a spin-off of "All in the Family". Sort of like how "Frasier" was a spin-off of "Cheers" Other than Carroll O'Conner none of the main "All in the Family" actors were on the show
on a regular basis. They even killed off Edith after a while. I don't think Meathead ever showed up. It was essentially an all new cast of characters.

I guess you could say it was six of one and half dozen of the other? I wanna say that for the last season of All in the Family it had become Archie, Edith, and the little girl Stephanie. For Archie Bunkers Place it was them and new characters and the action moved to the bar. It sort of a spin-off and sort of a continuation at the same time.

But yeah, I don't Edith lasted long on the show. I was under the impression that Jean Stapleton was just ready to move on.

[andersonh1]

It's definitely Captain Marvel for me. Neither Shazam of Capt Thunder can sufficiently replace it. But I understand DC's mistake and why we all have to...make do with it.

DC needs to focus on releasing Golden Age Omnibuses. Doing that great Fawcett work some justice.

I'd love to see Golden Age Captain Marvel in omnibus format.

[Jim Kelly]

I can definitely understand where the OP is coming from. I might be more moderate—probably will go see the SHAZAM! movie. And I was almost convinced DC changing the name was the pragmatic thing to do. But now I think DC has miscalculated.

In fact, being a bit bad ass and covertly sticking with Captain Marvel despite the legal danger, would probably work for DC better. Because every item I see about the movie invariably says he’s Captain Marvel, goes into the history of the character.

The IMDb page gives a synopsis of the Captain Marvel story. Even Zachary Levi in his recent Instagram response talked about the “Captain Marvel” costume.

If WB was worried about confusion—they didn’t need to be—social media is taking care of that.

As for DC reaping what they sowed. That only makes sense if DC is a very long-lived person suffering the consequences of his past actions. Despite what some legal minds say, corporations are not people. It’s the individuals who should answer for their own actions.

Harry Donenfeld might have been a questionable character, but he died in a sad and miserable state a long time ago. We need to move on and give the people at DC now a fair shake.

Goodness knows, they have their own bad acts to answer for, but they would have no reason to do good if they were forever damned by past acts of their predecessors.

[Marvelman]

I thought "Captain Thunder" was a nice name.

I agree. I think that name works much better than Shazam. That way BIll could be Captain Thunder and Mary could be Mary Thunder and so on...

But I do understand DC's reasoning on this. When you can't market a character by his own name that's a big problem. But yes, to me too, Billy will always be the real Captain Marvel.

[Jokerz79]

I guess you could say it was six of one and half dozen of the other? I wanna say that for the last season of All in the Family it had become Archie, Edith, and the little girl Stephanie. For Archie Bunkers Place it was them and new characters and the action moved to the bar. It sort of a spin-off and sort of a continuation at the same time.

But yeah, I don't Edith lasted long on the show. I was under the impression that Jean Stapleton was just ready to move on.

Stapleton only agreed to guest spots and by season 2 of was getting harder to keep explaining her absence so Caroll O'Connor brought up the idea of killing Edith which Stapleton had no issue with it and did want to move on and thought it was a good solution but Norman Lear took the idea of killing Edith hard.

[Jim Kelly]

I think it would be funny if they lampshaded the name in the movie. Like Billy tries out several names, but he’s stuck with the SHAZAM name because that’s the magic word everyone hears.

It’s only for purposes of trademark, so Billy can use any name he wants in the movie—they just can’t use those names to advertise it.

I don’t know what they’ll do with Mary and Freddy. Mary Marvel sounds so good, I can’t imagine anything better.

[Joker Venom]

Shazam is such a better name.

It really isn't. It's a lazy, path of least resistance approach. If they felt that they MUST change his name, they could have done better. "Captain Thunder", while not nearly as good as "Captain Marvel", would have been much better. I'm sure a deal could have been worked out with whomever owns that particular trademark, as I don't think there are any Captain Thunder projects going currently. I could be wrong about that, though.

Calling him "Shazam" is DC basically just saying, "Eh, screw it."

[Robotman]

Johns may have been trying to reintroduce the Captain Thunder name by calling him that in Flashpoint. seemed like he was testing the waters. he even introduced the new kids in that story. the mainstream audience saw him as Captain Thunder in the Flashpoint animated movie. DC should have committed to the name change after that.

[Kaijudo]

One thing I don't believe anyone's mentioned in this thread (which is admittedly more in-universe repercussions than legal dilemmas): calling Captain Marvel "Shazam" presents the same problem Captain Marvel Jr. originally had, where his name is also the trigger for his powers. So "Shazam" couldn't identify himself to anyone and Billy couldn't report a story on "Shazam" without one turning into the other. Unless they want to give them more control over when the word actually works (which kinda defeats the purpose of having a cool magic word that activates your powers).

[Cmbmool]

Captain Fawcett would have been an interesting name change.

Still even I have to admit I can understand the problem with two different Captain Marvel, but even I don’t like the idea of changing the character name to Shazam.

He was the first and original and he should’ve remained that way if it DC wasn’t lazy at the time.

Also even I’m tired of the New 52 version of the character. I like it when it was two separate characters and. Not the idea of a grown man with the mind of a child. I mean I have enough trouble with that idea already.

[Cmbmool]

Stapleton only agreed to guest spots and by season 2 of was getting harder to keep explaining her absence so Caroll O'Connor brought up the idea of killing Edith which Stapleton had no issue with it and did want to move on and thought it was a good solution but Norman Lear took the idea of killing Edith hard.

Wow I didn’t know that. Especially given the legacy of the series on TV.

[Cmbmool]

Eh, if DC and Marvel can both have characters named Miss America, Drax, Atom Smasher, Dr. Doom, Scarecrow, Changeling, Magneto, Bumblebee, Malice, Static, Sandman, Yellowjacket, etc. and the world hasn't exploded in a matter/anti-matter explosion, I don't see why they can't both have a Captain Marvel...

It all depends on how the company uses their characters in their current storylines.