Quote:
Fawcett wasn't put out of business, they reached an out of court settlement with DC to stop publishing Captain Marvel. One of the reasons they threw in the towel on the court case was because sales on the Marvel Family titles were down, so the fight was no longer worth their time and money.


What happened is that in 1952, DC won a very important appellate decision in its case against Fawcett. DC had established in a 1951 trial court judgment that Capt. Marvel infringed on Superman's copyright, but DC lost at the trial court on a technicality as to whether it had properly maintained Superman's copyright. The Appellate court found the trial court erred.

After the 1952 appellate decision, although the case was remanded back to the trial court for further proceedings, the writing was on the wall for Fawcett. It settled a year later in 1953, agreeing not to publish any more Captain Marvel and paid DC $400,000. The fact Fawcett ended up paying DC $400,000 tells you that the decision to abandon the lawsuit was largely about the fact they would ultimately lose, and be required to pay damages, not about the character no longer being worth fighting for. If they just wanted to walk away from the character, the settlement would not have included such a substantial payment. Further, without Captain Marvel, Fawcett decided that it was no longer worth it to publish comic books.