Captain Marvel / Shazam Appreciaton

[Güicho]

Nice essay, I actually agree with most everything you say.
Especially Chris Evans portrayal of Captain America, that is the closest I imagine to how to portray Captain Marvel's adult ; optimistic, a bit stoic, always emapthy for the little guy, yet somehow innocent himself, but never as a foolish child, personality.
And I'd prefer that 100 times more than still a kid in an adult body.
That said, in the end "new" Billy does in fact come to care about and have empathy with others, share the power with the little guys, and without saying it, you realize it's what he really wanted, and what separates him from Teth(the fallen champion) which speaks to and is true to the classic characters.
Classic origin (like most back then) was in 3-4 pages, or 2 panels looking at the Wizard's "historama". It's purely plot driven, You are just told who Billy was, there is no character growth.
This new tale, Billy isn't just born that way, he has to get there, gives him a bit of an arc before he becomes that character.

those types of characters are almost never allowed to evolve out of that state of jackassery (as Nu-Billy/Nu-Shazam has never been allowed to do).

Except in the story he does grow, and because of it, he gains a family.
Which is what he wanted most .

[Ares]

On a side note, for anime/manga fans or those who'd be interested in getting into anime/manga, I'd recommend a relatively new series called My Hero Academia / Boku no Hīrō Akademia, which feels like a Japanese attempt at emulating American superheroes, but with a few twists that keep the (for lack of a better term) Japanese flavor. The two main protagonists very much feel like if you split Captain Marvel and Billy Batson into two separate characters, with Cap mentoring the younger Billy to replace him. It's not a perfect analogy, as Mydoria ("Billy") initially lacks a lot of the confidence that Billy often shows, and is a bit more nerdy, but he gains confidence as the series goes, and he displays a lot of the traits of classic Billy, such as being very brave, self-sacrificing, helpful, clever, and he inspires others just by being himself. Meanwhile All-Might is basically Captain Marvel with a slightly more exaggerated personality, but it's that good kind of "over the top" that's endearing rather than annoying. He's the kind of guy that shows up to every crisis with a smile that puts everyone at ease and lets them know that "Everything is going to be alright. Because I'm here." They're both just wonderfully earnest and enthusiastic about being heroes that you can't help but love them.

I highly recommend the manga and the anime, though I prefer the subtitled version of the anime personally.

[Ares]

Nice essay, I actually agree with most everything you say.

Thanks! I hope none of that came off as hostile towards you or any poster here. Any ill will I have is towards DC's mishandling of the character since Infinite Crisis (God, has it been 13 years?), not the fans.

Especially Chris Evans portrayal of Captain America, that is the closest I imagine to how to portray Captain Marvel's adult ; optimistic, a bit stoic, always emapthy for the little guy, yet somehow innocent himself, but never as a foolish child, personality.
And I'd prefer that 100 times more than still a kid in an adult body.

Conversely, I prefer that Billy is the one in charge of the Captain Marvel body without the powers changing his personality. What I'd instead want is Billy to simply have that same personality, just that he's less stoic as Billy because he's allowed to relax. As Cap, he's aware of his responsibilities is a bit more serious, but still comes across as someone who is warm, friendly and enthusiastic about being a hero.

That said, in the end "new" Billy does in fact come to care about and have empathy with others, share the power with the little guys, and without saying it, you realize it's what he really wanted, and what separates him from Teth(the fallen champion) which speaks to and is true to the classic characters.
Classic origin was in 3-4 pages, or 2 panels looking at the Wizard's "historama". It's purely plot driven, You are just told who Billy was, there is no character growth.
This new tale, Billy isn't just born that way, he has to get there, gives him a bit of an arc before he becomes that character.

Well sure, Billy's Golden Age story is hyper-compressed, because it was a Golden Age story. Superman's origin, from Krypton exploding to him being adult Clark Kent working at the Daily Star, took up a whole two pages. Same with Batman. By comparison, Billy had several pages to him being brought to the Rock of Eternity, Shazam explaining who he was, showing Billy's origin in depth, and explaining why he chose Billy for his role. And after gaining his powers, we get more scenes of Billy trying to do the right thing and being brave on his own, before finally using his powers to save the day. In comparison to the superhero origins of the time, it was Shakespeare. And later stories would expand on Billy's backstory, his struggle with his Uncle, his quest to find his sister, etc.

To use the Captain America example, in the first Captain America movie, Steve Rogers undergoes pretty much no character growth. He's pretty much the same person at the end of the movie as he was at the start, a good man who only wanted an opportunity to do the right thing. Steve's struggle is the exact opposite of Tony Stark's struggle. Tony is someone who was always wealthy, powerful and intelligent. His major struggle was internal, trying to get over his arrogance and daddy issues and become a better person. Conversely, Steve's struggle was always an external one: he was always a good person, he just lacked the power that would allow him to use his good ideals and desires to shape the world in a positive way. Tony's story is about a bad person with nearly unlimited power trying to become a good man, while Steve's story is about a good person with no power finally getting the power to change the world, and figuring out how best to use that new power.

Nu-Billy is more of a Tony Stark, someone who is handed power inspite of himself and learns to be a better person. Classic Billy is more like Steve, who is more about finally having all of this power and finally being able to use his good impulses to help others. Both types of story have their place, but Classic Billy is the established personality, and I think fans of Steve Rogers would be just as annoyed if Steve started acting like Tony Stark. Or a Nazi, as recent comics have shown.

Like I said, I think Nu-Billy would be fine if he was just a new character not-connected to the Shazam mythos. As is, he's just too much of a disconnect from Billy's established personality. And for all of the page time Curse of Shazam had, it honestly did very little to justify Billy's personality change or his foster family's existence. Of his foster family, the only one he really spends any time with is Freddy, and Freddy is actually detrimental to Billy being a hero by encouraging him to bully people who "deserve it" and to steal money from ATMs. Billy barely interacts with the rest of the kids, certainly not enough to justify him "learning the meaning of family" to share his power with them and become a better person. Too much page time is devoted to Black Adam, Sivana and the Sins, the latter of whom don't really contribute much. For all it was meant to showcase a broken Billy Batson rebuilding himself into a decent person, the Curse storyline didn't do a good job of it.

Honestly, "Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam" did a better job of showcasing a Billy who was struggling with his situation. A good kid who tried to do the right thing, but who lacked the power to really impact the world, and who was starting to doubt himself. Then he gets that power, and both Superman and Black Adam act as his shoulder angel and devil respectively, Clark urging him to be good, while Adam encourages him to be evil. In fact, Black Adam basically spends the entire short pushing Billy's buttons, trying to get him to embrace being a god and rejecting humanity, talking about how the power "changes you. While Cap simply replies that, "The only thing [the power] changes is that I can control my own fate now". And while Billy is the angriest he's ever been, all Clark has to do is remind Billy of what his parents had said and to "be good". And ultimately, Billy makes his own choice and chooses to be a hero. It even includes Shazam mentioning he chose Billy so as not to repeat the mistake of Black Adam. All done in 20 minutes. It's a shame that wasn't the jumping on point for a Captain Marvel animated series, or wasn't used as the default "this is Captain Marvel" take. Even if I wasn't really a fan of Black Adam shooting lightning Thor-style.

those types of characters are almost never allowed to evolve out of that state of jackassery (as Nu-Billy/Nu-Shazam has never been allowed to do).

Except in the story he does grow, and because of it, he gains a family.
Which is what he wanted most .

Well, that's the thing: even after getting his foster family, Billy barely changes. The only thing he really does is stop being a jerk to them as much. After Curse of Shazam, Billy never really experienced any character growth and his foster family wasn't seen again. He basically kept acting like he had at the start of Curse, only now he was super arrogant about his powers as well. We never really got to see the evolution you talk about because they basically settled in on "Nu-Billy is an arrogant jerk to everyone not his foster family" as his default personality. Maybe things'll change with the upcoming movie, but until they get a creative team that actually likes the character and knows what they want to do with him, I feel like we'll just get more of the same.

I mean, they had Convergence: Shazam and Alex Ross's JUSTICE right over there as examples of how to write the characters.

[Dr. Banner]

This movie is gonna be amazing!

[dswynne]

This movie is gonna be amazing!

Tell me about it. Certain people can post pessimistic essays on why an adaptation of a comic book character will fail, not in the spirit of the original, etc. all they want. I, for one, am looking forward to this, especially since the success of SHAZAM! could mean a redemption for the entire DCEU franchise.

[Dr. Banner]

Tell me about it. Certain people can post pessimistic essays on why an adaptation of a comic book character will fail, not in the spirit of the original, etc. all they want. I, for one, am looking forward to this, especially since the success of SHAZAM! could mean a redemption for the entire DCEU franchise.

Agreed on everything, even though, concerning the dceu, I don't want certain unpopular characters appearing in Shazam, - there are a lot of characters in the movie, and they need space to shine - taking time and just for the sake of establishing a "connection with the dceu".

[dswynne]

Agreed on everything, even though, concerning the dceu, I don't want certain unpopular characters appearing in Shazam, - there are a lot of characters in the movie, and they need space to shine - taking time and just for the sake of establishing a "connection with the dceu".

Agreed, though I do fear that a "certain character" will be appearing in this film, even if it's just a cameo or an "Easter Egg". You know, because of "studio mandates".

[Güicho]

This movie is gonna be amazing!

[SelinaK12]

I was thinking about how captain marvel/shazam could have the ability to summon different color lightning. I know his primary lightning colors are yellow and/or blue. billy or captain marvel/shazam could learn how to summon other colors (red,green,purple,and white).79646bd58a435ae338b8d9d39b1ef877.jpg

[Phoenixx9]

I was thinking about how captain marvel/shazam could have the ability to summon different color lightning. I know his primary lightning colors are yellow and/or blue. billy or captain marvel/shazam could learn how to summon other colors (red,green,purple,and white).79646bd58a435ae338b8d9d39b1ef877.jpg

A very interesting idea! Cool lightning pic, too!

[Marxtles]

I agree that Captain Marvel/Shazam is extremely underrated and under utilized in DC. I really don't mind calling him Shazam (Marvel Comics character taking the name and all) but I don't understand why he isn't in the pantheon of DC characters. He should be up there with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman but has never been treated as such. He should be a core member of the Justice League (like Grant Morrison, Brad Meltzer and Keith Giffen wanted or planned but couldn't due to editorial mandate).
I understand Geoff John's has plans for the character and they maybe fantastic...but again he has been put in limbo while Geoff works on the mediocre Doomsday Clock (which is getting more an more delayed) so it could be years before he can take on Shazam. Why can't one of the other great writers working at DC take over?

[Mutant God]

I was thinking about how captain marvel/shazam could have the ability to summon different color lightning. I know his primary lightning colors are yellow and/or blue. billy or captain marvel/shazam could learn how to summon other colors (red,green,purple,and white).79646bd58a435ae338b8d9d39b1ef877.jpg

Not to make this weird but Shazam is sounding more like a SJW kind of hero...which I am cool with because Billy is such a positive hero, and suppose to be more campy/childlike version of Superman, that he could do a street level story about helping others: Homeless, orphans, disabled, victims of abused, drug addicts, etc...



Also I was thinking about the villain Queen of Fables should she be a Superman or Wonder Woman villain then it hit me that she could easily be a Shazam villain. She manipulates children stories and could disguise herself as a child who lies, like some children do, to Billy alot. Billy also doesn't have that many notable female villains unlike Superman and Wonder Woman. I can see old stories like Billy and Mary being Hansel and Gretel with QoF as the witch lol. Also she could be very campy cartoony which would go well with Shazam's stuff.

[maxmcco]

This casting matchup for these actors is uncanny. All of them are perfect. My hopes are officially high. In Sandberg we trust.

[Phoenixx9]

I believe that this movie will be great and open up things for Captain Marvel/Marvel Family/Shazam!

[Güicho]

I was thinking about how captain marvel/shazam could have the ability to summon different color lightning. I know his primary lightning colors are yellow and/or blue. billy or captain marvel/shazam could learn how to summon other colors (red,green,purple,and white).

As someone who loves the new SHAZAMily! and color costumes, and the idea the color correspondence to their power attributes, I'd love it if in the movie when Billy shares the power the lightning spilt into their individual colors.

Although technically white (which Mary sometimes wears (or traditionaly the wizard)) would be the color that contains them all, and then like revealing the spectrum through a prism, white light would split into all the others.
But this is magic lightning, so it's all good!



I'de go even further, besides their specific color costumes, I like how in the film, Billy has the (Tawky) Tiger emblems on the cape clasps.
Sort of invoking his unique totem power-animal?
Makes me wonder if they will each have their own power animal?

Off the cuff, and keeping it fun with some variety I can Imagine:
Billy - Power - Tiger = (Tawky)
Mary - Courage - Bunny = (Invoking Hoppy the Marvel bunny)
Freddy - Stamina - Eagle
Eugene - Wisdom - Praying Mantis
Darla - Speed - Gazelle
Pedro - Strength - Bull

Or making them all big-cats:
Wizard - Lion
Billy - Power - Tiger (Tawky)
Mary - Courage - White Tiger (his sister)
Freddy - Stamina - Puma
Eugene - Wisdom - Lynx
Darla - Speed - Chetah
Pedro - Strength - Jaguar