142 DC COMICS
Services, which subsequently purchased Warner Brothers in 1969, and formed Warner
Communications in 1972, with DC as a subsidiary.
Th e years leading up to World War II were crucial years for National Allied
Publications and Detective Comics, Inc. Donnenfeld and Liebowitz consolidated the
ownership of both companies into a single publishing entity, National Comics. By
1940, National began branding its books with a precursor of its familiar bullet logo
reading “A DC Publication.” After consolidating the companies, however, the company
was referred to as Detective Comics, or DC.
In mid-1938, DC issued the fi rst number of a title that was to become an unexpected
runaway hit: Action Comics, featuring the debut of Superman, created by Jerry Siegel
and Joe Schuster. Th e release of Action Comics #1 inaugurated what collectors refer
to as the Golden Age of comics. Th e success of Superman as a character was largely
a product of young comics readers promoting the book via word-of-mouth. By mid-
1939, National hoped to recreate the success of Superman by soliciting a young creator,
Bob Kane, to create a similar costumed hero. Th e result of this was Batman, whose fi rst
appearance was in Detective Comics #27.
Th e popularity of Superman and Batman inspired a fl ood of imitators and super-
powered characters in comic books. Inspired by the success of Superman and Batman,
another veteran of periodical publishing, Martin Goodman, founded Timely Comics
in 1939. Timely Comics published unique characters such as Human Torch, Subma-
riner, and Captain America, and would later be known as Marvel Comics. Other
publishers, however, tested National’s protective attitude toward its copyrights. Victor
Fox, an accountant at DC, supposedly took note of the profi tability of Superman and
quickly left the company to start a rival publisher with a similar character, Fox Comics.
Fox contracted with Will Eisner’s Eisner-Iger studio to create the title Wonder Comics,
featuring the superhero Wonder Man. Donnenfeld and Liebowitz, alarmed by what
they felt were excessive similarities to their character Superman, successfully fi led a
legal injunction preventing the character from appearing again.
Although the lawsuit against Fox Comics was swiftly resolved in DC’s favor, it was
the precursor to a longer and more controversial legal battle between DC and Fawcett
Publications, over the character Captain Marvel, created by C. C. Beck. DC’s lawsuit
against Fawcett would eventually succeed; however the legal battle, which started in
1941, would last over a decade. DC asserted again that Captain Marvel infringed on its
own Superman. Fawcett, however, was profi ting from the character and was seen as a
new publishing rival for DC. Fawcett fought the lawsuit until it became unprofi table to
do so and ultimately lost his legal battles with DC.
After World War II, DC continued to expand its operations. In 1946 DC purchased
All-American Comics, a publishing operation founded by DC’s Jack Liebowitz and
publisher Max C. Gaines. Prior to this, All-American and DC operated as an infor-
mal partnership between separate companies, and many readers were unaware that the
two companies were separate. Max Gaines left the partnership to found EC Comics,
while the consolidation of DC and All-American brought in characters such as Green
