2019 is the year of Captain Marvel. Think about it: Marvel’s Captain Marvel will arrive in theaters next week... and then another Captain Marvel movie will hit a month later. It's true: Warner Bros.' Shazam! is about the first Captain Marvel, and he was never a Marvel character!

Welcome to the strange and bizarre world of comics, where two companies can have their own unique heroes that just happen to share the same name. It's a convoluted tale best told with cupcakes. But even if you don’t have a sugar rush to power you through, SYFY WIRE's latest video is going to explain how this happened and why Captain Marvel is suddenly everywhere.

The male hero formerly known as Captain Marvel was originally conceived as Fawcett Comics' answer to Superman. Captain Marvel and Superman were owned by rival comic companies before DC eventually acquired the rights to the character.

Marvel's Captain Marvel dates back to 1968, when Stan Lee and company realized that the trademark for the character had lapsed. Therefore, Lee and artist Gene Colan created their own Captain Marvel, a Kree warrior who went by 'Mar-Vell.' Carol Danvers was introduced as a supporting character in Mar-Vell's adventures before she eventually received superpowers of her own.

Danvers went on to become the heroine known as Ms. Marvel, but she didn't immediately claim Mar-Vell's superhero name for herself when he died from cancer. Instead, a number of different men and women became Captain Marvel before Carol Danvers donned her now-iconic costume in 2012.

Around the same time, DC abandoned the name Captain Marvel for Billy Batson's character; instead, he began calling himself Shazam, after the mighty wizard who gave him his powers.

That's where things stand today.

Of course, there's a lot more to the story. Watch below!