Marvelman: The Mick Anglo Years
In 1953, the American company Fawcett Comics, which was the U.S. publisher of Captain Marvel, discontinued the title because of court action by lawsuit from DC Comics. Len Miller had been publishing black & white reprints of the series, along with other Fawcett titles, in the UK, and rather than stopping he turned to comic writer Mick Anglo for help continuing (or replacing) the comic. They transformed Captain Marvel to Marvelman while Miller continued his other Fawcett reprint titles and used logos and trademarks that looked significantly like Fawcett's. This added to the appearance that the Fawcett line was continuing, and that Marvelman was still Captain Marvel, in order to retain the audience.
Marvelman was very similar to Captain Marvel: a young reporter named Micky Moran encounters an astrophysicist (instead of a wizard) who gives him his superpowers based on atomic energy. To transform into Marvelman, he has to speak the word "Kimota" (phonetically, "atomic" backwards; rather than "Shazam"). Instead of Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel, Marvelman was joined by Dicky Dauntless, a teenage messenger boy who became Young Marvelman, and young Johnny Bates, who became Kid Marvelman; both of their magic words were "Marvelman". They had fairly typical, unsophisticated superhero adventures.
The changes took place with issue number 25 in each title, both cover-dated 3 February 1954, although they had been announced about five issues earlier. The new titles published were Marvelman, Young Marvelman, and Marvelman Family . Marvelman and Young Marvelman each had 346 issues (#25-370), being published weekly except for the last 36 issues, which were monthly, reprinting old stories. Marvelman Family was a monthly which usually featured Marvelman, Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman together, from October 1956 to November 1959. A variety of Marvelman and Young Marvelman albums were printed annually from 1954 to 1963. Mick Anglo's association with Len Miller ended in 1960, and the comics ran until February 1963.
At the height of their success, the British "Marvels" saw a series of Italian reprints. Gordon and Gotch, one of Australia's largest comics publishers, also published reprint editions. In Brazil, British Marvelman stories were reprinted in the same titles as Fawcett's original Captain Marvel. However, in Brazil, Marvelman became Jack Marvel.
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