DC couldn't use the title Captain Marvel for any Captain Marvel comics due to Marvel taking the trademark after Fawcett went under but before DC bought it up and will never let it go, so every comic the character was in had to be called Shazam!. Eventually they just gave up and renamed him Shazam with the New 52 reboot because that's what most people thought he was called anyway.
Cassandra Cain took the name Black Bat briefly, but then DC realized it was a name they couldn't entirely own or make distinct since Dynamite used the public domain character Black Bat,and the name was fairly generic and not carried by history enough to keep it. So they made her Orphan durring Rebirth, which people hated. So now she just shares the name Batgirl with Babs and Steph
>Orphan
>even though her parents are alive and want to be in contact with her
Worst batgirl appropriating Robin story beats she hasn't earned yet again
I hate the fact that they called her Orphan in Young Justice, which which is particularly idiotic since no hero at the time was using the title. Barbara was Oracle, and Steph was still using Spoiler. So they could have easily given her the Batgirl title. Shit, with the way they set up her origin and the connection between the two, they should have done that.
1) Presumably they were going to ease or Steph into the role of Batgirl.
2) It's pretty clear Weisman read Tynion's Detective run and was influenced by it. Hence Orphan and Spoiler's presence.
black bat was OK
Lemar Hoskins became the fourth sidekick of Captain America to take on the title of Bucky. There was just one problem, writer Mark Gruenwald was blissfully unaware that "Buck" was seen as an offensive term to African Americans, and was only notified when a shit-ton of fan letters came in. After only three or four issues, Lemar Hoskins changed his super-hero identity (after the slang term was brought to his attention in-universe) to Battlestar, which he has retained ever since.
Was any in-universe explanation given for the change?
As the other Anon said, somebody in-universe told Lemar about how a black man called Bucky has unfortunate implications, so he immediately changed to Battlestar.
I don't think the Holocaust/Nemesis rename had any explanation, but the character called Genocide was actually the 616 version of Holocaust, so they were technically different characters and no explanation was needed there.
Handled passably well there, though Battle Star is kind of a crap name to begin with.
Imagine the outrage if this happened today, even if handled as tastefully as Gruenwald did.
buck broken
Holocaust has changed his name twice for reasons you can probably guess. The first name change was Nemesis (although the action figure called him Dark Nemesis) which is the one that seems to have stuck, although for a time they tried calling him Genocide, but Marvel presumably decided that one was pushing it as well.
>Other suggested names: Kristallnacht and Shoah
Genocide was a separate character to Holocaust/Nemesis, Remender meant for him to be the 616 version of him, but they can't be iterations of the same person, Holocaust is older than Genocide's mother was.
Marvel had an old Fantastic Four villain named Miracle Man who was one of the victims of the Scourge around the time this happened.
IIRC Rob Liefeld changed it from Bedrock to Badrock to pre-empt any possible complaints. On paper he should have won any legal battle, "bedrock" is a real word, they didn't make it up for the Flintstones. But Hanna-Barbera could outspend him in legal fees if it came to it, just renaming the character may have been the safest, smartest move.
Marvel briefly renamed Black Panther to Black Leopard to avoid association with the Black Panther Party.
And amusingly, Marvelman, the blatant rip-off of Captain Marvel, would also be forced to change his name, to Miracleman. And even more amusingly Marvel would later buy Miracleman.
>Eventually they just gave up and renamed him Shazam with the New 52 reboot
officially he became Shazam in 2009, years before New 52, but they'd even gone as far as calling his tv show Shazam in the 1970s
Marvelman didn't debut until after Fawcett went out of business - there was nothing to rip off, though he was drawn by the same guy who'd been doing filler Captain Marvel stories for UK publication, where the weekly rather than monthly schedule meant more material was needed to meet demand
Marvelman then ran for another 13 years, as long as Captain Marvel had been in print for, as its own thing
Marvelman/Miracleman only happened because after L. Miller and Son stopped publishing Marvelman, nobody bothered to check who owned the copyrights until decades later, by which time the property had been unlawfully sold to a series of other publishers starting about a decade after it originally went out of print; it was only because Todd "creator rights" McFarlane tried to claim he owned anything that was published in Spawn whether he'd created it or not and got sued by Neil Gaiman over the character of Angela that it was discovered McFarlane - who by then had acquired the rights - didn't actually own shit, since when L Miller and Son went out of business the rights reverted to Mick Anglo
Gaiman got Marvel to buy the rights to all Marvelman/Miracleman works and lent his name (and Angela) to a Thor run as part of a deal to get everybody back in print in an amicable way; Mick Anglo I think got paid at long last
Bedrock from Youngblood has his name changed to Badrock due to complaints from Hanna-Barbera.
Remember when Deathstroke's full title was "Deathstroke the Terminator"?
Hell, remember when Deathstroke's name was "Deathstroke"? Literally the only people who refer to him by his original name are the people who actually grew up reading New Teen Titans. Most Millennials and all Zoomers just know him as Slade.
What are you on? He's only ever been just "Slade" in the Teen Titans cartoon. Everywhere and everyone else still calls him Deathstroke
He's saying that most people outside of the comics tend to only call him Slade because they grew up with the Teen Titans cartoon and not the comics. If you showed anyone younger than 35 a picture of Deathstroke, they'd almost always say "Oh, that's Slade."
I think you're both severely overestimating the impact and reach of the Teen Titans cartoon. That and by extension Teen Titans Go, according to wikipedia is the only piece of media where he's simply referred to as Slade. Every adaptation he's appeared in since, whether it's live action, more cartoons, or video games, he's always been Deathstroke and I guarantee you that most people know him as such.
t. 19yo zoomer who's never watched the TT cartoon
Is it not anymore?
Yeah it's weird going back to the original NTT and seeing him barely ever be called anything besides Terminator
It's a shame, too, since it's a better name than Deathstroke or Slade.
Yeah, if it wasn't for the James Cameron movie, I'm sure that the 2003 TV show would have just called him the Terminator.
I actually think the name "Shazam" is better anyway...
Not a big DC guy, so how does he get away with calling himself Shazam, when that's the magic word that triggers his transformation? If he's talking to someone and says "Greetings, I'm Shazam!" does he turn back into Billy, or does it know the context in which he's saying it?
They found away around that. See with any word, it requires context and intent behind it, otherwise it's just a meaningless noise coming from your mouth. "SHAZAM!" is Billy's word of power, which allows him to channel his magical might which comes from The Rock of Eternity (the source of all magic in creation). With that word of power, Billy can do many things such as transform, summon lightning, and various other spells had he been given actual mystical training.
So in short, saying "SHAZAM!" requires intent, and can mean godlike power if properly trained
Yes. The original Black Adam story is entirely predicated on the fact that simply saying "Shazam" causes the lightening bolt to come down. Hell, Captain Marvel Jr.'s power word WAS "Captain Marvel" and had to call himself "CM3" because introducing himself would automatically turn him back into Freddy Freeman. This has been a very prominent part of their lore.
Hell, one of my favorite Marvel Family stories is when Capt. Marvel changes the word needed for Black Adam to transform, only for him to accidentally say it because Billy changed the word to be the name of his favorite local milkshake flavor.
If what
says is true, that's wholly an invention of the New 52 era.
There were funny moments in the 1940s where Billy or Cap would carelessly say the word and change no matter what they were doing.
There were funny moments in the 1940s where Billy or Cap would carelessly say the word and change no matter what they were doing.
I think the biggest problem with using "Shazam" as the name of the character is for him to use it, you have to lose the classic "tricking him into saying it will un-transform him" aspect of the character. The "Captain Sparklefingers" gag of making up ridiculous names only goes so far.
I like Cap when he's drawn with a captain's outfit so I dislike how when he's called Shazam he's drawn like a corny wizard with a hood.
It makes zero sense being that it’s already the name of the wizard and saying it is his weakness.
They didn’t find a way around it they thought it was dumb and decided to change it. There’s a difference. homosexuals like you are why they get away with this shit.
Well i think not.
The point is that it’s the name of the wizard already. Plus Shazamily or whatever horrible spelling it is doesn’t sound as good or classic like the Marvel Family.
And then you have the other characters. You can’t call them Mary Marvel or Captain Marvel Jr anymore so now they have lame names like Lady Shazam or just using their real names, it sucks the fun out of everything.
Marvel decided that Scalphunter might be problematic so they won't be using that name anymore, he goes by Greycrow now. Technically Greycrow is his real name, but you know what I mean.
It helps that Greycrow is portrayed as a more sympathetic character now who is genuinely remorseful for his crimes.
Aren't there two of them now? One that Nightcrawler converted to Catholicism and convinced to repent, and then a second who's clone was activated with the rest of the Marauders after Magneto nearly killed the repentant one for his role in the Morlock genocide?
>build female transformer
>she immediately starts getting offended and demanding other people change their names
Arcee is actually trans in IDW continuity, it's a very long and convoluted story.
I mean, they are called the Transformers
I see what you did there, pally.
>badass villain with badass name
>make him repentant antihero because minorities can't be villains
>change his name because it's "problematic"
We have to go back.
>change his name because it's "problematic"
I know you're moronic but "Scalphunter" is a terrible name if you're trying to make him a repentant hero it's a pure villain name like Dr.Doom or Apocalypse. That being said it's lazy as frick and cliched to have a Native character just go by their Native last name as a codename
Different guy, but Scalphunter is both a cool name for a hero and a native guy.
>Try to show the world you're a better man
>Use a code name that implies you mutilate people and keep their parts as trophies
>I know you're moronic but "Scalphunter" is a terrible name if you're trying to make him a repentant hero
He's a good villain. The X-books turning all of their mutant villains into repentant heroes is more moronic than you think I am. A lot more moronic and it needs to stop.
>all of their mutant villains into repentant heroes
Most of them are far from repentant besides you're moronic for doing the whole "muh woke" crap instead of realizing "Scalphunter" doesn't sound like a hero name
>Most of them are far from repentant
Some are, some aren't, but they're all on the same side as the X-Men regardless, and this has to stop.
>instead of realizing "Scalphunter" doesn't sound like a hero name
And "Marauders" or "Hellions" don't sound like names for superhero teams, but here we are. He shoudn't be a hero in the first place. This idea shouldn't have made it past a first pitch.
This happens with Transformers all the time due to the toys having characters change names a lot (often for trademark reasons) and the comics and cartoons have to reflect it, but the one most relevant to this topic is Slag becoming Slug due to "slag" being offensive in British English, and the reason given for the name change in IDW was that it was apparently offensive in-universe too.
>robot dinosaur named after low grade runoff metal byproduct is now named after an unrelated gastropod because some angl*id complained
Bri'ish, not even once.
actually it may be referring to prostitutes or was it "skag"?
Actually its a reference to shotgun slugs. So it still fits.
Does he turn into a shotgun? Metal is nigh universally relevant to Cybertronians, shotgun shells are a much more specific thing and not at all fitting for a triceratops. But he might actually turn into a shotgun so I have to ask.
>it was apparently offensive in-universe too.
To be fair I can see how "melted trash metal" might be offensive to Transformers
Beast Wars also established "slag" is a curse word for Transformers, but that's fallen by the wayside for the same reasons in favor of "scrap".
>Bumblebee has a new toy called Goldbug, gotta change him, let's have him get rebuilt after he's damaged or something
>Bumblebee has a toy called Bumblebee again, gotta change him back, let's have Ratchet reformat him just because
iirc Goldbug wasn't even the "new" version of Bumblebee, they just made him the new version because Bumblebee was really popular and they wanted to reassure kids that he was still around after they offed most of the original Autobot roster in the movie
It is kind of funny how surprised Hasbro was at how audiences actually cared about the characters of the Transformers and didn't just see them as interchangeable toys.
It was a lesson a lot of companies had to learn at the time. He-Man shed almost his entire cast going into New Adventures, and it's notoriously unpopular to this day. Of course, the lesson was perhaps learned too well, and now you can barely escape the core cast of any classic media rebooted for the new era.
I think the point is that anon thinks he shouldn't have been redeemed in the first place.
The Goldbug toy's tech specs card states "Has the mind of the Autobot Bumblebee, but new, improved body."
It's not a decision made afterwards in the comics or cartoons.
The Transformer who was a new version of an old character, but the tech specs card didn't say so was Galvatron, as his toy was released in advance of the 1986 movie, and they wanted to keep it a surprise that Megatron becomes Galvatron.
isn't the word Slag in Transformers just the Cybertronian equivalent of Frick?
Max Mercury was originally a 1940s Quality Comics character named Quicksilver. After a few reprints in the 1970s, he was renamed to avoid confusion with the Marvel Quicksilver.
Max has the better costume ngl
Two Face's identity was originally Harvey Kent. It was changed to Dent because Superman was already named Kent.
The Infinity Gems were renamed the Infinity Stones in the comics because MCU, using Secret Wars as a justification for why they suddenly changed color too.
Calling Captain Marvel as Shazam , is like calling He-man as Grayskul.
It doesnt make sense .
btw , where is Mary Shazam ?
Mary Marvel just goes by Mary and Captain Marvel Jr. just goes by Freddy.
Even more moronic than making it so intent changes the word being a weakness. The Benetton kids being added is awful too.
Didn't Johns name drop King Shazam for Freddy in the story he and Gary Frank did? Did he not use it in the 2019 book?
Mary is going by both Shazam and Lady Shazam atm
In DCUO she debuted for the current Black Adam and goes by just Mary by everyone, with a Shazamily tag under her name so that people who recognize who she’s supposed to be.
>because that's what most people thought he was called anyway
Untrue
Anecdotal, but my uncle who actually read Captain Marvel as a kid thought that the name had always been Shazam and was surprised when I told them it'd been changed.
Anymore characters?
Monica Rambeau was created as Captain Marvel because Marvel needed a Captain Marvel or else DC would get the trademark back, even though Monica had no association with Mar-Vell and somehow didn't even know he existed. When they introduced Genis, he became the new Captain Marvel, so Monica had to be changed to Photon, only for then Genis to also steal the name Photon for some reason, so she had to be changed to Spectrum, which she stuck with even after Genis died. But then the MCU decided to give her the name Photon because it sounds better than Spectrum, so the comics have since made her Photon again.
Speaking of Monica "Back when I lead the Avengers..." Rambeau, the Beyond Corporation becoming a legitimate entity and threat in the mainstream comics instead of being a fantastic tribute to the wackier stuff from Marvel's heyday was a massive downgrade. Cape Comics becoming humourless and pretending that all the weird Silver Age shit never happened has sucked the joy out of the medium.
>By way of denmark
For those that don't get it, that's a transexual joke; Denmark was where the first major sex change surgery took place.
>only for then Genis to also steal the name Photon for some reason
IIRC it was just Fabian Nicieza trying to make it a running joke that Genis kept unintentionally stealing her superhero names.
>Marvel needed a Captain Marvel or else DC would get the trademark back
that's firstly not how trademarks work and secondly not what could have happened - neither DC nor any company it was previously has ever owned the trademark to "Captain Marvel" so they couldn't "get it back"; they didn't even buy up Fawcett Comics - which ceased trading in 1953 when National (DC) forced it out of business - just its back catalog, starting with a rental agreement to reprint old titles in 1972 and ending with an outright purchase of the characters and titles in 1977
more specifically trademarks need to be renewed periodically but in order to do that, all you need to do is use that trademark in ordinary commerce: Marvel could just as easily have reprinted a Captain Marvel TPB every year to satisfy that condition of ordinary commerce, and as long as they could prove that every year somebody put new work into it - new cover art, a new foreword, a backup story with original art and script set prior to Mar-Vell's death, as complex or as simple as you like - it would be easy to prove that it was "new" work and not just a book that had sat on shelves for 10 years
but the renewal period for trademarks is 10 years, well his original appearance (and date of original trademark) would be 1967, so when he died in 1982 (released January, cover date April) there would have been 5 years to run on the trademark before anybody could challenge it; instead the new Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, debuted in August 1982, just 7 months later, clearly an intentional succession rather than a hurried stop-gap to prevent DC stealing a march on them
>there would have been 5 years to run on the trademark before anybody could challenge it; instead the new Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, debuted in August 1982, just 7 months later, clearly an intentional succession rather than a hurried stop-gap to prevent DC stealing a march on them
To be fair, even if they had years in which to get it done, I can believe Marvel's legal team ordered them to make a new Captain Marvel ASAP.
I've got one, the reason why Connor Kent ditched the name Superboy and a costume is because a lawsuit from the Seigel family.
oh my
We all need a name.
Scar didn't need one
You have a point.
Names. What did i heard that one before?
name them then.