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Is that a character that already existed?

Yes, that's Bananaman, from various British comic books.

Afternoon

Hi h.a.!

Does he make crime slip on banana peels?

No, but eating bananas makes him stronger!

so like Popeye, but bananas instead of spinach?

Yes. But also with a little bit of Shazam, because he is a child when he's not in superhero form.

"Shazam" sounds like it should be an interjection, rather than a name.

Well, it kind of originally was. The character now known as "Shazam" used to be "Captain Marvel", but Marvel now have the trademark on that name, so DC can't use it. "Shazam" was originally the phrase Captain Marvel would say in order to transform... but it was also the name of the wizard who gave him that power.

Isn't there a tvtrope called something like "I am not shazam"?

Yes. There was a period in between the original era and the current era where the comic book was renamed to Shazam but the character was still Captain Marvel, and the trope applies to that character during that period, but not before or after it.

So why did DC have a character named after their competitor?

chridd wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 2:57 am So why did DC have a character named after their competitor?

The character was called Captain Marvel before Marvel Comics was called Marvel Comics.

So then why did Marvel name themselves after their competitor's character?

Ah, to be fair, I'd forgotten that the company that would eventually become Marvel did publish a specific comic book called "Marvel Comics" before Captain Marvel existed. The DC superhero, on the other hand, was originally going to be called "Captain Thunder", but they couldn't get the trademark, so the artist suggested "Captain Marvelous", and the editors changed that to "Captain Marvel". So no-one was trying to steal from anyone from the sound of it (although Marvel very much were trying to screw with DC by naming a character Captain Marvel).

*still confused, looks up Captain Marvel on Wikipedia*
*sees a huge disambiguation page*

This tends to be what happens if you try to learn anything about comics.

*meows comically*

*squeaks bookly*

*looks at the book you're reading and it just says "Squeak. Squeak squeak, squeak. Squeak squeak squeak, squeak squeak squeak squeak." and so on*

Correct. It's lite-rat-ure.