Comics-Captain Marvel TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean, preserves the tracking number and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

My youth was in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Drawing from that period, this is one of a series of travel bugs made to commemorate favorite characters from comic books, comic strips, movie cartoons, B-movies and animated feature-length movies.  Some of the characters had only a brief existence, some survived as radio and early TV programs and some have been digitally-modernized into some of the blockbuster movies of today.  There were many other characters, but these are the ones on which I was willing to spend my dimes (comic books) and quarters (movie and popcorn).  However, I didn’t pay for the daily comic strips or Sunday funnies that came with the newspaper.

Captain Marvel, also known as Shazam, is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics.  The character was created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, and it first appeared in 1940, published by Fawcett Comics.  Captain Marvel is the alter ego of Billy Batson, a boy who, by speaking the magic word "SHAZAM", can transform himself into a costumed adult with the powers of superhuman strength, speed, flight, and other abilities.  The word SHAZAM is an acronym for Captain America’s elders, Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.

Based on book sales, the character was the most popular superhero of the 1940s, outselling even Superman, and Fawcett expanded the franchise to include other "Marvels", primarily Marvel Family associates Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr., who can share Billy's powers. Captain Marvel was also the first comic book superhero to be adapted into film, in a 1941 Republic Pictures serial titled Adventures of Captain Marvel.

Fawcett ceased publishing Captain Marvel-related comics in 1953, partly because of a copyright infringement suit from DC Comics, alleging that Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman.  In 1972, DC licensed the Marvel Family characters from Fawcett and returned them to publication, acquiring all rights to the characters by 1991.  DC has since integrated Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family into their DC Universe and have attempted to revive the property several times, with mixed success.