It has recently been announced that DC Comic's New 52 is coming to an end. It's all very confusing from a comic outsider's prospective, but to put it simply: DC Comics took their universe of characters and recreated in 2011, now in 2015 they are recreating them once again with pieces from both Pre-New 52 and Post-New 52. But we aren't here to point fingers at a sloppy continuity. We're here today to compare what DC had, to what they've given. Since the comics are just rebooting again, I wanted to take this chance to explore certain characters and see which versions are the best. I'll be starting with Billy Batson, also known as Shazam! Or Captain Marvel, for you retro fans.
In 1939, Fawcett Comics writers C.C. Beck and Bill Parker created a superhero who could compete with the ever popular Superman. However, this character would be both a god-like man and a mild-mannered child. The character was named Billy Batson/Captain Marvel and starred in Whiz Comics. Captain Marvel's adventures in the 1940's gave the character more popularity than even Superman. Like Superman, Captain Marvel fought evil scientists, had family of heroes and was a good role model for young readers. Seeing the notoriety collected by Captain Marvel, DC Comics decided to sue Fawcett Comics for copyright infringement in 1953, claiming Captain Marvel was a Superman rip-off. DC's next move was licensing all of the Captain Marvel characters and integrating them into the DC Comics Universe in 1972. At this time, Marvel Comics had introduced a totally different character with the same name, forcing DC to rename the book "Shazam!". This would make up for the copyright incident in some regard as Captain Marvel was able to continue publication and now be able to team up with characters in the DC Universe.
In the 1980's run of the book, writers Roy Thomas and Dann Thomas created the concept of Billy Batson being the personality of both forms, as before the personalities of Billy Batson and Captain Marvel were completely separate. This concept proved successful as Captain Marvel has the unique quality of being a grown man with the perspective of a child. While more characters grew darker, Captain Marvel remained old-fashioned and chipper because of Billy's lasting outlook. The basic premise to Billy Batson's origin is that he was a homeless boy who's parents died in a car accident, but despite that tragedy Billy continued to show compassion. Billy was summoned to a magical haven called The Rock of Eternity where he meets a wizard named Shazam who has used his powers to protect mankind for centuries. Grown old and weak, Shazam deems Billy worthy of being his successor. In his dying moments, Shazam tells Billy that by shouting "SHAZAM!", Billy could become Captain Marvel.
Now comes the comparison, Captain Marvel's original stories were goofy and fun, but also showed some level of depth. His villain Black Adam had roots to ancient Egypt and would become a redemption-seeking hero for a short time, Cap's sidekick-Captian Marvel Jr.-was Billy's crippled best friend Freddy Freeman, and after Billy would became the new wizard Shazam, Freddy would become the next Captain Marvel. Now in the New 52 retelling of the character, Billy Batson was an orphaned teen who was ignorant, selfish, and immature, even faking manners in order to get adopted. He ran away from his new family and was summoned to The Rock of Eternity. The simply named "Wizard" appears and tells Billy of his wish to give his powers to someone of perfect good before his death. But Billy argues there is no such thing as a completely good person. Seeing Billy's potential to become a better person, The Wizard settles on Billy and gives him the power to become the magical hero Shazam (renamed to avoid legal issues). At first, Billy uses his new powers for profit, but shows signs of humility after defeating Black Adam with the help of his family.
Don't get me wrong, the New 52 introduced an interesting idea and I see how it makes sense, in the modern era the idea of a completely good person doesn't really exist as everyone is capable of evil. I simply wish this idea integrated into a successor to Billy Batson because the prior version of the character was so inspiring. Billy/Cap M wasn't the character readers related to, he was the character readers aspired to be. Matter of fact, Captain Marvel is one of my favorite superheroes even above Superman or Batman and if you check out his on-screen roles in Justice League Unlimited's episode "Clash" and the DC's animated short "Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam" you'll see why I admire him. In conclusion, both versions of Billy Batson send a good message to readers, but while one message is blatant the other is consistent. Anyone can want redemption, but everyone should want to be a good enough person not to need it. That's my opinion, thanks for reading!
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