Marvel Family Marvel Family The Marvel Family, also known as The Shazam Family, are a group of superheroes who originally appeared in books published by Fawcett Comics, and were later acquired by DC Comics. Created in 1942 by writer Otto Binder and artist Marc Swayze, the team was created as an extension of Fawcett's Captain Marvel franchise, and included Marvel's sister Mary Marvel, their friend Captain Marvel Jr., and, at various times, a number of other characters as well. Because Marvel Comics trademarked their own Captain Marvel comic book during the interim between the demise of the Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel comics
Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) current. This had the effect of requiring DC Comics, which in the meantime licensed the original Fawcett Captain Marvel for publication, to print its new comics under the trademark "Shazam!" Comics historian Don Markstein states, "Marvel didn't seem to quite know what to do with him—but they did put his comic out every other month through most of the 1970s, if only to maintain their trademark on his name." When "Captain Marvel" was cancelled with issue #62 (May 1979), there were five as-yet unpublished issues already complete or near-complete. The series "Marvel Spotlight" was revived for the express purpose of