Also in January of 1940 Gaines All American Comics Company got into the superhero business. Flash Comics #1 would debut 3 successful heroes. Those heroes were The Flash, Hawkman and Johnny Thunder. As a result, a lot more super heroes were created. In All American Comics Green Lantern would debut in #16, The Atom in #19 and Dr. Mid-Nite in #25. In Adventure Comics appeared The Hourman in #48 and Starman in #61. The Sandman also was a regular feature from #40 on. More Fun Comics also contributed a number of them. In #52 The Spectre appeared, #55 had Dr. Fate, #71 had Johnny Quick, #73 had Aquaman and Green Arrow and #101 had Superboy. Most of these heroes are still appearing in comics today.

          Not all publishers were doing superheroes. Fiction House came out Planet Comics #1 in January of 1940. This comic showed the industry that readers also liked typical sci-fi stories with spaceships, ray guns and gross looking aliens out to invade planet earth. This would be the first newsstand comic to devote itself to Sci-Fi stories. In later years when superheroes were out of flavour Sci-Fi became a popular genre. Fiction House would also put out Jungle Comics and Fight Comics in the same month.

          In February of 1940, Fawcett Comics would burst on the market with Whiz Comics #2 (there was no #1 issue). This character would feature a variety of heroes both super and normal. All of them would end up getting their own dedicated comic book title. This is the only comic book to have that level of success. The most well known and popular of these characters would be it’s lead feature Captain Marvel. The character was created by Bill Parker and Charles Clarence Beck (better known as C.C. Beck.) This hero was a little boy named Billy Batson whom after saying the magic word Shazam he would turn into a full fledge adult with big muscles and super powers. Shazam stood for the mythological characters that he got his powers from.

Solomon - Wisdom
Hercules - Strength
Atlas - Stamina
Zeus - Power
Achilles - Courage
Mercury - Speed

          The creators would tap into every boy’s dream and the comic would be rewarded with high sales. Captain Marvel even surpassed Superman in sales. The character was originally going to be a group of heroes each with an individual power but the publisher of Fawcett, Ralph Daigh wanted to merge them into one character. Captain Marvel was also going to be called Captain Thunder and the comic would be Flash Comics, but Fawcett discovered that other comic publishers already owned the trademarks on those names. Instead they made an ashcan (a small black and white comic) called Thrill Comics #1 with the Captain Thunder character in it and used it to register the trademark with the government. They discovered another publisher was doing Thrilling Comics and decided to change it to Whiz. Physically the character was based on actor Fred MacMurray. When Editor / Writer Bill Parker joined the army the writing duties would be given to Otto Binder, a noted Science Fiction author at the time. He would go on to write most of the Captain Marvel stories and create many of the more memorable stories and villains.

          C.C. Beck would eventually have to create a comic shop as the demand for Captain Marvel stories increased. Among the first hires would be Pete Constanza who assisted Beck and did the majority of the work on Captain Marvel stories. Different about this series was the light hearted nature of the art and stories. The artwork had a smooth cartoon like style to them. They were simple and fun to read. Helping along with that were the stories that didn’t take themselves seriously. Villains would often call Captain Marvel "The Big Red Cheese" but he didn’t mind. That’s when Captain Marvel was in the stories at all, most of the time the plot was centered on Billy Batson with Captain Marvel being the climax of the story. The villains were quite unique as well. While most heroes battled gangsters of sorts, Captain Marvel fought a talking worm named Mr. Mind with super intellect. With Captain Marvel doing so well, Fawcett did spin offs of the character. Out came Captain Marvel Jr. who was often drawn by Emanuel "Mac" Raboy a slow and meticulous artist. He was hired away from the Chesler comic shop, who was doing some other Fawcett material at the time. Raboy was also a serious woodcut artist, having pieces in Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other "Marvel" characters include Mary Marvel (a female version of Captain Marvel) Uncle Marvel (a powerless old fat man in a Marvel suit, played for laughs) and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny (a talking superhero rabbit). The other characters from Whiz Comics #2 to get their own series were: Ibis the Invincible, Golden Arrow, Spy Smasher, Scoop Smith, Lance O’ Casey and Dan Dare.

          Fawcett Publications was a family company. It was owned by Wilford H. "Billy" Fawcett but his sons Roger, Buzz, Gordon and Rosco K. Fawcett also worked in it as well. Wilford started his Fawcett publishing empire with a raunchy joke magazine called Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang in 1919. Just shortly after Whiz Comics #2 came out Wilford died on Feb. 7th of 1940. From there the sons took over the company. Both Bill Parker and C. C. Beck were on staff as editor and artists which is why they were chosen to start up the comic book line. Captain Marvel would become the best selling Superhero comic in this era, but this did not sit well with Superman’s owners. By 1941 National would sue Fawcett saying Captain Marvel was an infringement on their trademarked Superman character. National’s case was that Captain Marvel had essentially the same powers and the same idea for a villain. Fawcett’s Dr. Sivana was a bald mad scientist, as was Lex Luthor. Both debuting issues show the hero with a car over their heads. National also said that elements in their Superman stories would soon show up in Captain Marvel stories. C. C. Beck strongly disagree’s with the last argument as he didn’t even like superhero comic books and did not read them. When he was first told to do a superhero comic he read some and hated them, thinking that they were of bad quality. He was very proud about Captain Marvel’s art and storytelling style being different and was disappointed when other artists outside of his shop copied what was being done in other comics. That said, according to Rosco Fawcett one of the artists working on Captain Marvel traced some Superman drawings and inserted Captain Marvel in place of Superman. When that came out in court it was very difficult to defend the infringement case. Faced with a possibility of having to pay National all the profits they made on Captain Marvel since Whiz Comics #2, they opted to settle out of court in 1953 for $400,000 and to promise to never publish the character again. Later National would hire some of the people that worked on Captain Marvel and put them on Superman. They would also get the license to the Captain Marvel characters and eventually buy him outright. Today the character makes regular appearances under DC, but has only a shadow of his former popularity.

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