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Quotes
- Billy Batson
- Listen, Chester, that stuff might work like candy on six-year-olds, but you come any closer and I’ll knock out the last of your teeth.
- Wizard
- HMPP! Not only has the seeking spell brought me a child, but a rotten one at that!
Synopsis "Shazam"
This synopsis/analysis covers the first six chapters of the “Shazam” back-up feature — the five 10-12 page chapters from earlier issues of Justice League and the feature-length chapter in this issue.
Chapter 1 (12-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #7 (May 2012):
Seven months ago: Doctor Sivana reviews footage of 37-people all recounting near identical cases of “mystical abduction”. Sivana has reached the limitations of science while trying to save his family and he believes that their only hope lies in magic. He also believes that these abductions are tied into the legend of Black Adam, a slave who was turned into a magical champion, but he vanished after saving his home country of Kahndaq from the Seven Sins.
Christmas in Philadelphia. Billy Batson is in a meeting with Victor and Rosa Vasquez, his potential foster parents, and his social worker Mrs Glover. They are a nice couple who already have a large family of foster children and have agreed to give Billy a new home. What they don’t know is that Billy has made a deal with Mrs Glover to play nice for this placement so that he and she will finally be out of each other’s way. She describes Billy as “the most unpleasant boy I’ve ever had the unpleasure of knowing”. It is a description that Billy believes and even embraces.
Chapter 2 (11-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #8 (June 2012):
The next day, Mrs Glover leaves Billy as the Vasquezes. They then introduce Billy to his new foster “siblings”: Mary (who’s been there the longest), Freddy Freeman (a trickster on crutches), Pedro (the overweight nervous one), Eugene (the geeky one). The last member of the family is Darla, but Billy snaps at her after the barrage of “house rules” and “the family rule” (“we always have each other’s back”) gets too much for him. Billy didn’t mean to make Darla cry, but he can’t help pushing everybody way from him. He’s looking at a photograph of his parents at the zoo in front of a tiger when a lightning strike catches his attention. For a moment he thinks he sees a face in the clouds watching him.
Chapter 3 (11-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #9 (July 2012):
Darla seems to have forgotten Billy’s behaviour from yesterday. However, his first day at Fawcett High School proves more challenging. Freddy, who has a sideline forged parental notes, keeps up his efforts to cheerfully wear Billy’s attitude down. It seems that Billy wants nothing to do with his new siblings until a bunch of rich bullies called the Bryer brothers start hassling them. Billy single-handedly flattens the four thugs, but gets hauled into the Principal’s office for his troubles. Billy’s sense of injustice is so inflamed that he confronts the Bryers’s father in the school parking lot. It’s clear the man isn’t any more civilised than his children and he pushed Victor Vasquez aside with a warning to “keep your vagabonds in their place, or I will.”
In Iraq, Dr Sivana’s workmen unearth a sealed doorway covered with indecipherable characters. Sivana believes that it is the tomb of Black Adam and eagerly takes a crowbar to it. There is a sudden electrical discharge and Sivana staggers backwards. He has been scarred with a lightning shaped mark across his right eye and proclaims that “I can see magic!
Chapter 4 (12-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #10 (Aug 2012):
Victor Vasquez is concerned that Billy is not giving them a chance to help him. Billy meanwhile has slipped out of the house. Freddy follows him to the city zoo where he finds Billy feeding a tiger called Tawny. The tiger is the only thing that Billy can remember from the time he was with his parents. Freddy tells him that the Vasquezes are nice people, if a little naive. He also tells him that the others were impressed at the way he stood up to the Bryer boys. Freddy grins and says he knows where the Bryers live.
Doctor Sivana laughs like a lunatic as he races through the Iraqi catacombs. His new magical sight lets him read the “language of eternity”. He speaks the word “Shazam” which he finds on a hidden doorway. The is another electrical explosion as the doorway opens. Beyond it is the powerful figure of Black Adam. He demands to know “Where is the Wizard?”
Chapter 5 (10-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #11 (Sept 2012):
Black Adam kills the Iraqi archaeologists and then snatches Sivana and Gregory, flying with them high into the air. Adam kills Gregory after he realises Gregory cannot speak his language. Sivana then tells him, “I am the one who will help you find the wizard!”
Freddy and Billy’s attempt to sabotage the Bryer’s cars sets off an alarm. Billy leads the chasing Bryer boys off in the opposite direction from Freddy. He ducks into the subway and looses them as the train doors close. The carriage suddenly goes dark. The lights come up again and Billy finds himself in a strange carriage made of wood and brass. It comes to a stop and the doors open on to a foggy platform. The mist clears to reveal that Billy is a strangely decorated fortress.
Chapter 6 (24-pages)
Appears in Justice League (vol. 2) #0:
The Wizard sits alone the throne room of the Rock of Eternity and realises that Black Adam is free, his search for a successor has run out of time. Billy Batson wanders through the halls of the Rock as the Wizard’s voice leads him to the throne room. Billy sees the Wizard for the first time, an old aboriginal man in tattered red robes. The Wizard announces that he is” the last of the Council of Wizard’s and the keeper of the Rock of Eternity”. He dismisses Billy as just a child, but nevertheless tests him to see if he is “pure good”.
By now Billy has had enough and is unbowed by the Wizard’s power. He retorts that the Wizard is searching for something that doesn’t really exist. Through Billy the Wizard realises that he instead needs to find somebody with the potential, “the embers”, of goodness. His spell then convinces him that Billy has that potential. The Wizard almost collapses and commands Billy to say the magic word “Shazam”, but Billy’s fist attempt has no effect. The Wizard says he must say it “with purpose, with belief, with good intentions”.
Billy tries saying Shazam again and is transformed amid lightning into a muscled adult in a red and gold costume. The Wizard says he has inherited the Wizard’s lighting and place in the Council of Eternity. Billy is rather pleased with his new power, but the Wizard warns him that he is all that stands against Black Adam and that he will need his family if he is to prevail. Shazam/Billy goes to catch the Wizard as he collapses again, but there is another explosion of lightning and Shazam/Billy finds himself back in Philadelphia.
At first Freddy runs away from the new adult, but his fear turns to astonishment when he realises the man is actually Billy. Shazam/Billy demonstrates his new powers by trashing Mr Bryer’s Humvee, As amused as they are, the two friends discover that Shazam cannot touch anything electrical without shorting it out. Their exploration of Billy’s powers is cut short when they come across a man mugging a woman. Billy slaps the mugger, sending hum hurtling into a parked car. The woman asks how she can ever thank him and Shazam, at Freddy’s suggestion, mentions that “I am a little short on cash”. The woman gives him 20 dollars. Freddy later declares that “we’re gonna be rich.”
“Questions” (4-pages)
Appears in Justice League (vol. 2) #0:
Pandora stares at the Box that she liberated from A.R.G.U.S.’s Black Room (The New 52 Special Edition #1 (June 2012)). She is determined to right the wrongs that she is perceived to have committed, but she cannot open the Box. The Wizard appears to her in lightning and tells her that he has used the last of his power to speak with her. He apologies to Pandora saying that the Council’s judgement of her was poor. He then tells her that the evils unleashed from the Box cannot be imprisoned, but that “there is yet still great power contained and only the strongest of heart or darkness can open the box and claims its power”. There is another bolt of lightning as the Wizard vanishes and Pandora is left to ask of whom he spoke.
In Hub City, a police squad find the Mayor’s daughter safe and her kidnapper tied up. There is a piece of paper with a question mark on it attached to the kidnapper. The Question has been at work and is aware that Pandora and the Phantom Stranger hold the answers that he seeks.
Continuity
- The Council of Eternity was destroyed when Black Adam turned upon them. He killed most of them and was imprisoned by the final Wizard. It was foretold that he will remained imprisoned until the coming of one who can destroy him.
Commentary
Shazam Versus Captain Marvel.
With the New 52 relaunched DC had finally bitten the bullet and changed the character’s in-universe name from Captain Marvel to Shazam. Writer Geoff Johns explained the change to Newsarama:
Well, there are a lot of reasons for the change. One is that everybody thinks he’s called Shazam already, outside of comics. It’s also, for all sorts of reasons, calling him Shazam just made sense for us. And, you know, every comic book he’s in right now has Shazam on the cover. So I think just by embracing that and calling him Shazam.
And you’ll see it actually make sense in story, why he’s called Shazam rather than Captain Marvel. That’s just what he’s going to be called for us from now on.
Originally the character’s name was Captain Marvel and his magic word was Shazam. The confusion between them came about because the trademark on the name “Captain Marvel” lapsed between the time Fawcett published his adventures in the 1940s and the time DC picked them up again in the 1970s. That allowed Marvel Comics to cheekily launch their own totally different Captain Marvel. DC still had the trademark for “Shazam” so that is what the franchise has been called even through the character was, up until now, called Captain Marvel in-universe.
Sales
| Source | Date | Chart | Units | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ICv2 | September 2012 | 56 | 34287 | Est. Units. Normal |
| ICv2 Total | 34287 | Est. Units | ||
Opinion
My Thoughts
I’ve done something a little different with this review as I’ve lumped the earlier five-chapters of the Shazam story in with the zero-issue feature-length story. My review is for the six-issues, but the pull quotes from other sites and the scores are just for Justice League #0.
This is one of the primal comic book archetypes, the child with the magic word who is transformed into a demigod. It has appears in various forms as Captain Planet, He-Man, the UK’s Super-Ted, Miracle Man, and to an extent even Aladdin. It is the fourth great archetype alongside Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Yet it is a character that DC has traditionally had problems integrating into their universe. There was an amazing 1990s Power of Shazam series by Jerry Ordway that perfectly captured the feel of the original 1940s stories, but even it never really felt like part of the DCU. More recently, there was the Trials of Shazam which was interesting for its own sake and had nice art, but never really hit the right tone.
That brings us to DC’s latest attempt to update Captain Marvel/Shazam’s origin in a new multipart series by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank that is running as a back-up feature in Justice League and a full-length sixth chapter in Justice League (vol. 2) #0. That book length chapter finally sees Billy Batson say his magic word. Johns and Frank have twice before collaborated to revamp DC’s leading characters, first in Superman: Secret Origin and then in Batman: Earth-One. I personally found each of those underwhelming giving the talent involved – Secret Origin was too regressive, while Earth-One was too revisionist – however, this third attempt seems to pitch the balance perfectly.
The new Billy Batson is recognisable as the same character from the 1990s series, a strong-willed orphan with a sense of justice. However, this Billy has not been able to keep his innocence in a fairy-tale city. He has instead become disillusioned and hardened by a foster system that has repeated failed him. Even when he ends up in the too-good to be true Vasquez foster home he cannot let go of the walls that he has built around himself. It is these other children whom Billy is called upon to protect from their school’s bullies. With their defence we get to see the good and noble person buried inside of Billy. This is a scene that proves his worth to the Wizard and the audience.
Reading the chapters of this story individually works fine, but I think this will work better as a collected hardcover. Putting the chapters in the back of Justice League increases their exposure, and they diverse to be seen, but it is as a single story that it works best. It has a graphic novel’s pacing and that allows us to get to know Billy Batson before his transformation into Shazam. We get to know him separately from his alter-ego and see how the physical transformation will ultimately transform him as a person. That said, we don’t get too much of Shazam in even this zero issue.
There is something about Gary Frank’s art that I can never describe properly. It is as detailed and fancy as that produced by teams like Reis/Prado or Lee/Williams, but it still manages to bring a depth of amplified characterisation that only really works for people like Maguire or Hughes. This balance works great in the chapters that are set in Philadelphia and when Billy is exploring the Rock of Eternity. It’ll be interesting to see how the balance works once we get to Shazam in action.
I now realise that this is a post-Harry Potter Billy Batson (albeit in this universe it the villain who gets the lightning shaped scar). What the Potter books did so well was to balance the utter mundane muggle world with the glamour of Hogwarts. To work the “Curse of Shazam” must strike the same balance and it comes close to it. The Christmas setting work well (I’m reading this at that time), but its version of Philadelphia does feel a little bit like a TV movie at times. The is a modern origin, but it is happening at a magical time of the year and maybe that gives it greater license. This is definitely a great series and I eagerly look forward to the second half.
Annotations
Chapter 1 (12-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #7 (May 2012):
Page 3. This is our first look at the Rock of Eternity. The Shazam lightning symbol is shown on the floor. The decoration is a mixture of European and Eastern cultures. A cave painting sits on the left hand wall, a renaissance style painting on the right. A European suit of armour stands to the left of the stairs, a Japanese Samurai suit on the right.
Note the window at the top of the stairs, he shows mountains and a forest. The old Rock of Eternity drifted in inter-dimensional space, if that is a real window it could suggest that this fortress has a “real” world location.
We briefly see the throne of the Council of Eternity. These were shown in their prime in The New 52 Special Edition #1 (June 2012):
When then sentenced the Phantom Stranger, Pandora, and the Question to their punishments. The thrones are actually a call back to the original Captain Marvel origin in Whiz Comics #2 (Feb 1940). When Billy Batson first saw the Wizard he was sat on such a throne and there was a massive block of stone suspended above it. Saying the word Shazam for the first time transformed Billy into Captain Marvel, but it also caused the block to drop seemingly killing the Wizard and destroying the throne.
Page 4. Mystical abductions. These were first alluded to in a dossier reproduced in the back of Justice League (vol. 2) #3 (Jan 2012). Amanda Waller is debriefing Steve Trevor and describes:
And there are these strange reports of several men and women across the world. People with absolutely no connection to one another who claim to have been abducted by a Wizard and tested. Tested to see if they were worthy of something called “Shazam.” They’re calling them magical abductees.
Page 5. Doctor Sivana also first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (Feb 1940). He was to Shazam as Lex Luthor was to Superman, a super scientific opponent. The original Sivana was a short, crooked looking man, nothing like the strong robust fellow shown here. He alludes to his family, but does not go further. The original Sivana family included a wife Venus, a daughter Beautia, and a son Magnificus.
Page 8. Billy mentions that he does a podcast. This is another call back to the old comics he was a boy reporter for Whiz radio. This is a scan or original Captain Marvel art reproduced in Chip Kidd and Geoff Spears’ Shazam! The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal:
Billy Batson’s radio apparatus is clearly visible.
Chapter 2 (11-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #8 (June 2012):
Page 2. If Billy is the state’s responsibility for three more years it means he’s 15 years-old.
Page 4. This group of children have been seen before. From left to right they are Pedro, Eugene, Mary, Freddy, and Darla. Mary Marvel was Billy’s sister in the original comics and first appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #18 (Dec 1942). She shared the Shazam power as Mary Marvel. Freddy was Billy’s best friend and first appeared in Whiz Comics #25 (Dec 1941). Freddy was crippled during a fight between Captain Marvel and Captain Nazi. Shazam felt responsible for this so he shared his power with him as Captain Marvel Junior.
This particular group of would characters first appeared in the Flashpoint Universe. The Flashpoint version of Captain Marvel was called Captain Thunder and mixed together influences from Shazam, Captain Planet, and even He-Man. Instead of just Billy Batson there was six-kids involved. Their attributes and names were described in the back of Flashpoint #4. There was Billy Batson (Courage of Achilles), Mary Batson (his sister, Stamina of Atlas), and Freddy Freeman (Power of Zeus) from the original comics, but they were also joined by Darla Dudley (African-America, “cute and energetic”, speed of Mercury), Eugene Choi (Asian-America, geek, Wisdom of Solomon), and Pedro Pena (Hispanic, slightly chubby, strength of Zeus).
The kids were all part of a foster family looked after by Mr and Mrs Beck. Pedro’s pet tiger was “the last of great striped tigers of Kahndaq” and appeared to most people as a normal house cat. The group shared Shazam’s power after becoming a “bunch of kids who got stuck on a subway car” Individually they have the power of one of the gods, but by saying the word Shazam they merge into a single hero called Captain Thunder and Pedro’s pet Tawny is transformed into a massive armoured war tiger.
Page 10. Billy’s parent were called C.C. and Marilyn and in the previous DC Continuity were archaeologists who accidentally released Black Adam into the modern world. The tiger motif is a recurring theme. The original Shazam comics had a character called Talky Tawny, a talking tiger.
Page 11. The Wizard’s face is seen in the clouds. This is identical to the manner in which he was spying on Pandora in The New 52 Special Edition #1 (June 2012).
Chapter 3 (11-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #9 (July 2012):
Page 3. There are two allusions in the first panel. The first one is to the lighting motif that runs through this entire series. It is the large painting behind Freddy and Billy showing the famous experiment where Benjamin Franklin sent a kite into a thunderstorm whilst a key was tied to the end of its line. The second allusion is the name of the school, Fawcett High. The comic book company that originally published Shazam’s adventures was called Fawcett Publications and was named after its founder Captain Wilford “Billy” Fawcett. Billy Batson’s adventures use to take in the fictional Fawcett City, but this revamp grounds him in Philadelphia and keeps Fawcett as the name of his school.
Chapter 4 (12-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #10 (Aug 2012):
Page 5. The original Shazam was set in a very whimsical world. The original Tawny appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #79 (Dec 1947) and was a tiger given sentience so that he could defend himself against an accusation that he was a man-eater. Each Shazam re-imaging creates a new Tawny that fits into its world. This one is a magnificent tiger, whether he’ll stay that way remains to be seen.
Page 11. Black Adam first appeared in The Marvel Family #1 (Dec 1945) as an evil version of Captain Marvel. He only appeared once during the 1940s, but something about his origin – the way he’s tied into the Wizard’s first attempt at creating a champion – has meant that he’s been an integral part of each Shazam re-imagining since the 1980s. Black Adam has taken up a very important place in the DC universe as he is the one Superman class villain who isn’t insane, is sticking around, and is powerful enough to actually hold the heroes to a checkmate.
Geoff Johns used the character’s extensively during his run on JSA and 52. That incarnation of the Black Adam was shown to be a complex character who was driven by a strong, but violent personal morality. In 52 Johns and his co-authors played up the Marvel Family analogue for Black Adam and showed him attempting to be a just and strong ruler of his home land. However, that eventually degenerated into all out warfare between him and every other superhuman on Earth.
Chapter 5 (10-pages)
From Justice League (vol. 2) #11 (Sept 2012):
Page 10. We’re back in the Rock of Eternity, but a room back from the one we say before. The juxtaposition of Eastern and Western art continues. On the left is a Greek style statue in front of an arched door. While on the right is a Japanese style door and a Chinese Lion Dog guardian statue. These are normally found in pairs so the split Fortress means that we unusually only see one.
Chapter 6 (24-pages)
Appears in Justice League (vol. 2) #0:
Page 1. The zero-month issues all focused on the origin and background of DC characters. The new Phantom Stranger’s origin is tied into the Council of Eternity and is retold in Phantom Stranger #0 (Nov 2012) which was on the stands at the same time as this issue. An addition shown in the Stranger retelling is a set of clocked guards/attendants who serve the Council. They do not seem to be present today. The flashback to Black Atom is from Chapter 4.
Page 3. Another interior of the Rock. Noticeable are a statue of a centaur with a hammer, a dragon skeleton, a penny farthing bicycle, and in the foreground is the statue of a Norse like female warrior with winged helmet and war-axe. There are also three artefacts that appear sentient. The first is a talking mirror in the style of that from Snow White, she is called Francesca and reappears in a few chapters. There is a green something (an emerald?) under a bell jar. I thought it might be a Green Lantern ring, but now I’m not so sure. Then finally there is a suit of armour with gashes to its breastplate. Was it damaged during Black Adam’s attack?
Page 4-5. This set of statutes shows the Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man (depending on the case). In Christian dogma, there are seven “Cardinal Vices” against which souls are measured. These are “lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride”. These are the same sins that were used by Dante when designing the layout of the circles of Hell. The statues themselves appeared in the very first appearance of the Rock of Eternity in Whiz Comics #2. However, lust was swapped out with injustice. It was later revealed that they are demons capable of possessing people and controlling them via their totemic vise. The statues were a warning about them. In the 1990s/2000s DC Universe the demons had been defeated by the Wizard and imprisoned inside bizarre statues which stood in the Rock’s throne room. They would escape every now and them and have to be recaptured by Captain Marvel. It looks like Gary Frank has worked up full designs for the New 52 Sins so I guess we’ll be seeing them soon.
Page 6. This is the first clear look at the Wizard we’ve seen in this series. However, we’ve seen him in his prime in The New 52 Special Edition #1 (June 2012) (as shown above). The original Wizard looked like your classical Merlin/Gandalf/Dumbledore wizard as shown in the above still from the Captain Marvel movie serial. The version of the Wizard shown in this comic book here visible departs from that by changing his ethnicity and by making him seem far more primal — as if he was the first Wizard on Earth. There is a minor are glitch on this page as the Wizard is missing bracer that he is shown wearing in later panels. He is, however, wearing one on his ankle. The bracers match those worn by Billy as Shazam. The red colour of the Wizard’s cloak is also replicated in Shazam’s costume.
Page 13. Open question. If Billy/Shazam has inherited the Wizard’s seat on the Council of Eternity who inherited the other ones?