10 Comic Book Characters Who Were Forced To Change Their Name

There is no superhero whose name has suffered more contention than Captain Marvel.

Which one am I referring to? That's exactly the point! The first Captain Marvel (who was nearly called Captain Thunder and Captain Marvellous), was cooked up by CC Beck and Bill Parker back in 1939. He may have only come back into the limelight recently but there was a time where Captain Marvel's comics were outselling Superman's.

When DC Comics realised they couldn't compete with Fawcett Comics, they took the company to court in 1953, accusing the World's Mightiest Mortal of being a rip-off of Superman. In 1972, DC Comics integrated many Fawcett characters into their series, including Captain Marvel.

There was just one problem. After Fawcett Comics was discontinued, Marvel Comics trademarked "Captain Marvel" and created a superhero with that label in 1967. Even though the DC version was still called Captain Marvel, the company couldn't release comics with that title. As a result, his series was renamed Shazam.

When there were talks of a film adaptation of the Marvel and DC's version of Captain Marvel, DC realised this would cause further confusion with the character and so, officially changed his name to Shazam in 2011.