The DC Extended Universe is set to take a crack at the joke-cracking and childish (when he isn’t serious) character SHAZAM, and staying true to our tradition of giving you the necessary information when a new superhero movie comes out, so you don’t get lost in the cinema, here are things you need to know about SHAZAM before watching the movie.
Original Captain Marvel
Even though Marvel has a character named Captain Marvel, SHAZAM was actually the first character to be called by that name way back when he was being published under Fawcett Comics. While under Fawcett, SHAZAM was doing so well and was even outselling Superman, that DC sued them for “ripping off Superman’s concept” (weird, right?) and won the case and the right to the character. He was still named Captain Marvel until 2011 when his name was officially changed to SHAZAM; which is what he says before becoming the powerful hero that he is.
Powers and meaning of his name
Billy Batson is basically just an everyday kid who gets imbued with the powers of the Old Gods and becomes one of the strongest (yet underrated) superheroes in DC when he says SHAZAM.
- S for the wisdom of Solomon
- H for the strength of Hercules
- A for the stamina of Atlas
- Z for the lightning of Zeus
- A for the battle prowess of Achilles
- M for the speed of Mercury
The power to channel this was given to him by the wizard Merlin at the Rock of Eternity (the place he is sworn to protect for all its secrets and more).
Villain
His main adversary is Black Adam (which is set to be played by Dwayne Johnson), but for this movie, his main villain is Dr Sivana, who is a rich businessman with a genius-level intellect and a master of robotics and engineering. However, in this movie, he seems to be able to do a lot more than he can in the comics; being able to fly and go toe-to-toe with SHAZAM. So we will have to watch and see what DC will do with the villain’s backstory in the movie.
Powers and abilities
SHAZAM’s powers and abilities come from the gods themselves and he has access to the powers that make up the name SHAZAM as earlier mentioned. He has super strength, speed, durability, unrivaled stamina, can summon great bolts of lightning, and even more. To show how strong he is, he has gone toe-to-toe with the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, Darkseid, Yuga Khan, and way more scarier gods (both old and new) and won.
SHAZAM is currently showing in cinemas nationwide and don’t forget to watch out for our review.
What do you think?