Golden Age Shazam

I know that it was not until the 80s that DC started publishing Shazam comics of their own, but if they have the rights to the character, does that mean they own ALL comic appearances of his now? 'Cause Fawcett Comics no longer exists as a company and I would really want to read some of the older, I guess “Golden Age” comics from the 40s and 50s.

(I guess I can always look for them at collector’s sales, but it would be easier to read them digitally, and for free on this app with their awesome comic reader.)

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You can find them online for free like here https://archive.org/details/captainmarveladventures

I hope that DC eventually restores all of their comics, including those from other companies their acquired. It might take a long long time though. But I’m sure, one day…

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A lot of Captain Marvel and the Marvel Families early adventures slipped into the public domain before DC bought them (Public Domain laws were different at the time), but the rest of them and everything Fawcett DC Does currently own. I think they originally leased the character when they published his stories in the 70’s but they have since bought them outright.

The short answer to why they are not on DCU is that they are not in the digital library. I have no idea why his Golden Age stories, and for that matter his series from the 70’s are not digitized though. Since a lot (I believe most) of his Golden Age stories are in the public domain they have not been hard to find, and due largely to the misconception all Golden Age Fawcett Comics were in the public domain some public domain archives had all of them. So it is debatable by now most who wanted to read them haven’t found them, the number who would pay for Golden Age comics just for the story (I.E. what you get if you buy them digitally) is not a huge number compared to who would buy digital comics of current stuff.

But I do hope they archive some, it just seems a shame not to have the Golden Age books available in the DC Digital Library at all. And am genuinely surprised why nothing from his 70’s run is there.

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I love GA Captain Marvel. Amazing reads

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There’s not any Wildstorm or Milestone on here either. Or whatever company Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and the Question originals from.

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They added plenty of Wildstorm. If there is something specific you were looking for that wasn’t added you can try the comic request thread.

There are a few World’s Finest issues on DCU that had Shazam stories (starting with #256, I think), but yeah a lot of Shazam comics have yet to be digitized. I was hoping more issues would have been released digitally when the Shazam movie came out, but I didn’t see anything new on Comixology.

As @.50710 says while not everything Wildstorn from the archive is on here due to DCU’s agreement, a lot is.

As far as Charleston (the company that owns Blue Beetle, etc.) they do have the Silver Age run of Captain Atom. (83-89… the numbering continued from Strange Suspense Stories.) which features the first appearance of Blue Beetle as a backup for the first three issues.

Those are the only ones in the digital archive, so I am sure if anymore are ever digitized DCU will add them. But the Charleston books (superhero and otherwise) are not known for great quality so I am guessing that if they didn’t digitize anything else from them that Captain Atom must not have gotten many buys on Comixology, etx. Would be nice to at least include the first appearance of the question for histories sake (since Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question are easily the success stories from the Charleston heroes moving to DC). But they are not completely ignored.

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