Essentially, the premise of Shazam is “Big, but with Superheroes.” And Billy Batson is usually represented as quite young-in some iterations just 10 or 11 years old. To my mind, what makes Shazam unique and also fun as a character is the fact that he’s actually a child. So why is it that Shazam never seems to work as a comic book character? His first movie was an unexpected success. He has a unique backstory, a great costume and a power set to equal Superman. As a battle of all the world’s heroes veers toward Armageddon, Billy has to overcome his programming and eventually saves the world (and Superman), at the cost of his own life. In Mark Waid and Alex Ross' 1996 dystopian future miniseries Kingdom Come, decades of brainwashing from Lex Luthor (and psychotropic worms) have turned Billy into him a leering, maniacal puppet who hates super heroes. And if that doesn’t sound like it really tracks from where Johns left the character, you are correct, it really, really doesn’t.Īt this point probably the most iconic Shazam story is one in which he’s not even a main character. Together these two series also created the first clear and compelling narrative for Billy Batson and his family in decades.īut since then the most significant use of the Shazam characters has been a Titans Academy story in which Billy loses his powers, then agrees to have his two identities turned into separate beings (!) so that he can become the prison warden for the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse in Hell (!!), while Shazam-lacking Billy to ground him-starts murdering people he believes to be demons (!!!). But it, too, led to nothing further for the character until 8 years later, when Johns and artist Dale Eaglesham did the 13-issue series Shazam! which gave more attention to Billy’s siblings and gave them all an entire magical universe of their own to play in. That reboot would end up being the inspiration for the cinematic Shazam. Instead five years later Geoff Johns and Gary Frank rebooted the character again within Justice League as part of DC line-wide New 52 reboot. But once again, the foundations they created were never built upon. Similarly in 2006 Judd Winick and Joshua Middleton produced Superman/Shazam!: First ThunderSuperman/Shazam!: First Thunder, a gorgeous and heartfelt story of the first encounter between Superman and Shazam. In 1994 DC published a whole new reboot, The Power of Shazam. So after the Shazam family’s universe was devoured by the Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths, writers Dann and Roy Thomas and artist Mandrake’s 1987 miniseries Shazam! A New Beginningĭid a great job of establishing the character in the main DC universe. Though he’s one of the most powerful characters in the DC Universe, he disappears for long stretches, and every time he reappears he seems to get a new origin story. On team books he’s mostly a background character or the butt of the joke. “Gangway for Captain Marvel!,” a caption reads.īut for as long as Shazam has been around, and as unique and interesting a character as he is, he never quite seems to work. The cover of Shazam's debut issue clearly echoes Action Comics #1, as Captain Marvel throws the same green coupe that Superman smashed in Action #1 into a nearby wall, as bad guys with Tommy guns fly from its interior. He first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 in late 1939 (cover date February 1940), just a year and a half after Superman’s first appearance. The character of Shazam (previously known as Captain Marvel) has been around longer than you might think.
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