Captain Marvel has been one of my favorite characters since I was a child – in fact, he was one of three superheroes my father painted on my bedroom walls growing up. I loved the innocence, the wish-fulfillment, the costume, and just about everything else that came from the character.
So, in the brave new world of the DCnU, with a name change and an attitude adjustment under his belt, how would my beloved Capt…er…Shazam look in 2012?
I decided to set a sort of methodology to my look at Shazam. First of all, I wanted to go back to the original appearance of the character, so i dug out “Whiz Comics” #2. Secondly, I wanted to find the origin of Dr. Sivana, who is being set up here as his first villain, so I tracked down “Whiz Comics #15,” which explains his origin.
Finally, I decided to look at the brief interaction of the S.H.A.Z.A.M. kids in “Flashpoint,”, to compare and contrast the 6 teenagers who made up Captain Thunder to Billy’s new foster siblings.
I figured that by looking at these various sources, as well as the three back ups in “Justice League,” as well as taking a few clues from the DC Free Comic Book Day “The New 52” book, I could, somewhat accurately, show the differences between the classic and current stories.
Please note that I will be publishing new additions to this monthly, until the backup ends, or the origin is sufficiently outlined.
What is the same:
Since Billy hasn’t yet gone to the Rock of Eternity, we only have a little information to try and put together an origin. But let me try and summarize the original origin, so we have a base to compare it to:
Billy Batson is an orphaned teenager who lives in the subway of Fawcett City and sells newspapers to fund his red sweater collection (as well as purchase food). One day, Billy is led onto the subway by a mysterious fellow, and the train takes him to the Rock of Eternity, where he meets the Wizard Shazam. The Wizard instructs him to say his name, and he transforms into Captain Marvel, a hero with the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. Whenever he says the name of the wizard, he transforms between Billy and Cap. After becoming Captain Marvel, Billy gets a job at WHIZ Radio and stops living underground.
What is different:
Billy Batson is still an orphaned teenager who, at some point, lived in the subway. However, Billy now lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While the original Batson was a sweet, polite kid, he is now a troublemaker; a poor student, a seemingly humorless/joyless boy, who has bounced from foster home to foster home. He podcasts, which is the modern-day radio I suppose, and otherwise doesn’t have too many interests. He winds up at the foster home of the Vasquezes, seemingly the most pro-foster kid family in Philly, where he joins 5 other fosters, all around his age, who attend Fawcett High School.
It is here that the origin story starts to shift pretty radically, and veers towards the Flashpoint reality. In “Flashpoint,” each of the six kids held one of the Shazam powers, as opposed to Billy in the old continuity, who alone had the powers (until he shared them with Freddy Freeman and Mary Batson). Now, there are no clues to this being the case in the New 52, especially because in Justice League #7, it is stated, “Billy must become Shazam!”
However, this does carry on the tradition of a large supporting cast for Billy. Whether or not the other foster kids wind up being powered remains to be seen, but in a relatively short span, we’ve seen a lot of the familiar Marvel family – the aforementioned Freddie and Mary are two of the foster kids, Mary has a bunny named Hoppy, and we see two images of Tawky Tawny, one in the photo of Billy’s parents, and on his journal is a drawing of Tawky in a suit. Once Uncle Dudley shows up, the gang is pretty much all here.
Continued below
Finally, in the “The New 52,” the FCBD issue from DC, we see a few clues to where this story has been, and where it is going. The issue begins at the Rock of Eternity, and there are 7 people there, one of which is presumed to be a younger wizard Shazam. But the really interesting thing is that later on in the issue, in Jim Lee’s 4 page spread tease of the Trinity War, we see Black Adam fighting alongside and/or against some of DC’s biggest heroes; he is specifically paired against Deadman. Is there some significance to that? Would Deadman have any powers over his less than normal body?
Overall, I don’t hate this – and I firmly expected to hate it. The worst part, thus far, has been Billy’s interaction with adults who dislike him; the dialogue seems forced and stilted. Billy seems to be a good kid at heart, sticking up for his foster siblings because he “just doesn’t like bullies” – a line, mind you, lifted almost directly from Captain America: The First Avenger. But many of the pieces are in place for a solid interpretation: the extended family, Sivana, Black Adam, the wizard, Tawky, Billy’s father looking like Captain Marvel.
I’m not so naive as to think that Captain Marvel would make it through this process unchanged, but I am glad that the newly christened Shazam at least has one foot firmly in what made the character great in the first place. See you next month.
