Jab’s Builds! (Beaker! Sam Eagle! Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef!)

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Jabroniville
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The Lieutenant Marvels

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

THE LIEUTENANT MARVELS (Tall, Fat & Hill Marvel, aka Billy Batson, Billy Batson & Billy Batson)
Created By:
C.C. Beck
First Appearance: Whiz Comics #21 (Sept. 1941)
Role: Silly Sidekicks
Group Affiliations: The Marvel Family
PL 10 (175)
STRENGTH
12 STAMINA 10 AGILITY 2
FIGHTING 8 DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 1

Skills:
Deception 3 (+4)
Insight 1 (+4)
Perception 1 (+4)
Persuasion 3 (+4)

Advantages:
Teamwork

Powers:
"Marvel Family Powers- Divided By Three"
"The Strength of Hercules"
Power-Lifting 5 (3,200 tons) [5]

"The Stamina of Atlas"
Protection 2 (Extras: Impervious 11) [13]
Immunity 10 (Life Support) [10]

"The Speed of Mercury"
Enhanced Advantages 1: Improved Initiative [1]
Flight 15 (64,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (31) -- [35]
  • Dynamic AE: Quickness 6 (Feats: Dynamic) (7)
  • Dynamic AE: Speed 12 (8,000 mph) (Feats: Dynamic) (13)
Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) [2]

"The Wisdom of Solomon"
Enhanced Advantages 3: Beginner's Luck, Jack-Of-All-Trades, Well-Informed [3]
Comprehend 3 (Languages) [6]

"The Courage of Achilles"
Immunity 2 (Fear Effects) [2]
Impervious Will 3 [3]

"The Power of Zeus"
Features 1: All Attacks Count as Magical [1]

Offense:
Unarmed +8 (+12 Damage, DC 27)
Initiative +6

Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +8 (DC 18), Toughness +12 (+5 Impervious), Fortitude +10, Will +6

Complications:
Enemy (Dr. Sivana & Others)
Relationship (Captain Marvel)- All four Billys are close pals, but live in entirely different parts of the country.
Involuntary Transformation ("Shazam!")- Any Billy Batson must say the magic word to transform into Captain Marvel. Similarly, he will transform back if he says it again. This is not always a good thing. Their stats as Billy are ST 0, STA 0, AGI 2, FIGHTING 2, INT 0, AWA 1, PRE 1.
Power Loss (Lightning Bolt)- Billy must speak to call down the Lightning. If struck by the Lightning for any reason, he will revert to non-powered form.

Total: Abilities: 80 / Skills: 8--4 / Advantages: 1 / Powers: 81 / Defenses: 9 (175)

-The Lieutenant Marvels are one of those things that only happens in 1940s comics- Fawcett Comics added three more members to the Marvel Family, basing them off of Fawcett staff members. They were three guys of varied appearance who shared Billy Batson's real name- they all travel to the real Billy's hometown to form a Billy Batson Club, and he gladly reveals his secret identity to them (but of course he has to keep it from other ACTUAL SUPERHEROES). To prevent confusion, they are named Tall Billy, Hill Billy (he's from the South) and Fat Billy. They are kidnapped by agents of Dr. Sivana (he's looking for Billy, knowing his real name), and soon all four Billys shout "Shazam!" together, and amazingly gain powers! Figuring that there's only ONE Captain Marvel, the others decide to be mere Lieutenants. They knock Sivana's airplane out of the sky, killing everyone aboard except the Doctor, and become recurring joke characters.

-They appeared throughout the '40s sporadically, and DC even brought them back briefly in the 1970s! However, they were wiped away by The Crisis on Infinite Earths, as writers tried to de-sillify DC Comics (one writer claims they died, while another book says they survived but lost their powers).

-The Lieutenant Marvels may be silly (ya can't treat a guy named Fat Marvel like any other hero, y'know?), but they're all quite powerful, hitting a third of Captain Marvel's raw capabilities (I didn't want them lifting tens of thousands of tons, so I settled for a mere 3,200).
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue Aug 23, 2022 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by Davies »

Seriously, in the original stories, anyone who is willing to do a bit of investigation can find out that Billy Batson can turn into Captain Marvel. In one story where he gets framed for various crimes, ordinary crooks explicitly state that they know perfectly well that this is the case!

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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by drkrash »

All these pages so far and no mention of the live-action movie? :P

Somewhat seriously, as someone who knew almost nothing about CM, my family and I enjoyed the movie, even though I knew that their portrayal of Billy, and to a certain degree Freddy, were pretty off. Still, reading these pages now, it otherwise seemed like they got a lot of the broad outlines of the mythos correct.
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Doctor Sivana

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

DR. SIVANA (Thaddeus Bodog Sivana)
Created By:
Otto Binder & C.C. Beck
First Appearance: Whiz Comics #2 (Feb. 1940)
Role: Mad Scientist
Group Affiliations: The Monster Society of Evil, The Sivana Family, The Fearsome Five, The Secret Society of Super Villains, The Science Squad
PL 3 (120), PL 10 (120) Scientist
STRENGTH
0 STAMINA 1 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 2 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 10 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Deception 4 (+7)
Expertise (Science) 10 (+20)
Insight 4 (+8)
Investigation 4 (+8)
Perception 6 (+10)
Technology 10 (+20)
Vehicles 2 (+6)

Advantages:
Equipment 15 (Lab, Spaceships, etc.), Inventor, Ultimate Technology Skill

Powers:
"Left Eye Detects Magic" Senses 2 (Magical Awareness- Ranged) [2]
"Mathematical Formula of Intangibility" Insubstantial 4 [20]

Offense:
Unarmed +2 (+0 Damage, DC 15)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +5 (DC 15), Parry +5 (DC 15), Toughness +1, Fortitude +2, Will +8

Complications:
Motivation (Ruling the World)- Sivana was a brilliant, benevolent inventor, but was rejected as "mad". Desiring to "Show them ALL!", he now demands that only rulership of the universe is enough of a prize for himself.
Enemy (The Big Red Cheese)- Dr. Sivana's first scheme was undone by Captain Marvel, and he's carried a huge grudge ever since.
Relationship (Family)- Sivana's children in the modern age are Magnificus & Beautia, and his ex-wife the lovely Venus.

Total: Abilities: 48 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 17 / Powers: 22 / Defenses: 13 (120)

-Formerly the arch-nemesis to Captain Marvel is the diminutive, ugly Mad Scientist, Doctor Sivana. An inventor bent on world domination, Sivana occupied the role of Marvel's main enemy during the Golden Age, appearing in over HALF of the Fawcett Marvel-based stories published between 1939 & 1953! Sivana learned Marvel's secret identity very early on, having deduced it (seriously- LEX LUTHOR could never figure out Clark Kent and Superman were the same person; Sivana had his shit in order early), and went into all manner of adventures, forming groups of baddies like the Monster Society of Evil, and more. We'd even meet his bizarre family (he was twice-widowed), including the super-strong Magnificus, Thaddeus Sivana Jr., Georgia (who fought Mary) & Beautia, his attractive daughter who was Empress of Venus (where he'd onced travelled). His catchphrases included the now cliche "Curses! Foiled again!". It's estbalished at some point that he was a good man who wanted to help humanity, but big business and other concerns ripped on him, tore him down, and called him "mad" until he became a bitter, evil man.

-Sivana disappeared with the Marvel Family in 1953, and was so intrinsic to their stories that they re-debuted at the same time- 1972 saw DC publishing Shazam stories, with Sivana having been revealed for the reason behind their disappearance! He had placed the Marvels in suspended animation as part of an evil scheme, but accidentally placed himself and other Marvel villains under it as well after his son slapped him on the back in congratulations, thus crashing their spaceship into the Suspendium Sphere. Oh yeah, that's a Marvel story for sure. Eventually the Sphere moved close enough to the sun that it melted and the Marvels broke everyone free.

-Dr. Sivana was a recurring nemesis again, but as a mishapen, tiny goon of a man, he was a bit too silly for the more serious Bronze Age stuff, and didn'dt appear as often. In Roy Thomas's work, he now had two children instead of the gaggle he had in the Golden Age. Jerry Ordway turned him into more of a Luthor-like tycoon in the '90s, and when The Power of Shazam! was cancelled in 1999, he vanished for a number of years, popping up only in side-books and stuff like The Outsiders, where he takes control of the Fearsome Five. Black Adam quickly outpacing him as Billy Batson's chief nemesis didn't help matters. The character never quite tickled my fancy- he may be a classic foe, but "Mad Scientist" is now a pretty tired old trope. I got the biggest kick out of his nutjob family in 52- the beautiful wife and daughter, and hideous genius children, were a hoot.

-Dr. Sivana is a brilliant scientist, nearly as potent as Reed Richards or Doctor Doom, but lacks physical credibility. He can see magic with his left eye, however, and can recite a formula that lets him walk through walls, making capture impossible.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue Aug 23, 2022 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by Ken »

drkrash wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:04 pm All these pages so far and no mention of the live-action movie? :P
When I saw this scene on TV in 2010, I decided Zachary Levi was the right man to play Billy Batson's alter ego. The only time I successfully cast a movie.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by Davies »

Sivana's recent turn as a wizard was poorly considered, buuuut ... I think the idea of him as a Son of Ether-style mad science-magician, who believes he's doing science but is really warping reality in conformance with his will, would go a long way to cleaning up the problems with the idea that a genuine genius would be so utterly rejected as he was, without taking the route of turning him into a Lex Luthor tech-mogul type. They didn't laugh at him because his ideas were crazy. They laughed at him because nobody could replicate his results.
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Re: Doctor Sivana

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:38 pmSivana had his shit in order early), and went into all manner of adventures, forming groups of baddies like the Monster Society of Evil, and more. We'd even meet his bizarre family (he was twice-widowed), including the super-strong Magnificus, Thaddeus Sivana Jr., Georgia (who fought Mary) & Beautia, his attractive daughter who was Empress of Venus (where he'd onced travelled).
It was Mr. Mind, not Dr. Sivana, who formed the Monster Society of Evil.

Beautia was only part of the Captain's supporting cast for 16 stories, initially, and disappeared after 1943. She was seen, though had no speaking lines, in Shazam #1 in 1973. She started re-appearing after that.

Her brother, Magnificus, was only in one golden age story, Whiz Comics #15. (The same issue we learned that Beautia was Sivana's daughter (she went half a dozen stories without a surname. Even when she ran for US President on a platform of "she's hot".)

Georgia Sivana (heh, named after Savannah, Gerogia) was introduced in late '45, and Thaddeus Bodog Sivana Jr. in early '46. There wasn't an attempt to reconcile Sivana's two sets of kids until the 1970s.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ken wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:45 pm It's too bad that too many comic creators can't handle Mr. Tawny. It's like he really frosts their flakes.

Seriously, Mr. Tawny preceded Tony the Tiger by 5 years. But too many comic creators, today, grew up with Tony the Tiger on their cereal boxes and TVs, and I think that's why Mr. Tawny is "silly", but Bova Ayrshire being Scarlet Witch's mother's midwife is "okay".
This comparison triggers meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

While Wanda having a cow-lady for a midwife is ALSO weird in the same way that Mr. Tawny is weird, there are important differences here, both in place and context.

Captain Marvel is a "Main Eventer" hero at Fawcett, and a solo star in DC... mostly. Mr. Tawny is a sidekick and recurring character. And his name is "Mr. Tawky Tawny", as Drkrash points out- that's a very comical name. Now, Bova is simply named for the Latin word for cow, and is a minor background character used to explain some backstory for a second-tier Avenger, and almost never appears again.

Now, if her name was Bessie McUdders and she was the recurring sidekick of Daredevil or something, you'd have a point and this would be apt. But she isn't.
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The Sivana Family

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

THE SIVANA FAMILY
Created By:
Otto Binder & C.C. Beck
First Appearance: Whiz Comics #2 (Feb. 1940)
Role: Weird Family

-My favorite part of Dr. Sivana is his weird family. In the Golden Age, he was depicted as a twice-widowed man with four children- Georgia, Thaddeus Jr., Magnificus & Beautia. The first two were evil like Sivana, while the latter two were more good-natured.

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GEORGIA SIVANA: Georgia is short and ugly- an evil genius like her father. She opposed Mary Marvel most usually.

Image

THADDEUS SIVANA, JR.: Thaddeus is basically a younger version of his father- short, ugly and brilliant. He was often put against Captain Marvel Jr.

Image

MAGNIFICUS SIVANA: Magnificus was an ally of the Marvel Family, but only had a single Golden Age appearance- he was super-strong and fought Captain Marvel only on his father's request.

Image
Image

BEAUTIA SIVANA: The beautiful daughter of Sivana was hilariously the EMPRESS OF VENUS, since he'd touched down there after his exile on Earth, leaving her behind to rule them. Beautia had a big crush on Captain Marvel, not realizing he was really a young boy. In Golden Age stories, she often unwittingly aided her father, but ultimately sided with the Marvels. In more modern comics, she renounced crime and became a social worker.

Image

VENUS SIVANA: Venus didn't debut until 1997- her name a cute in-joke to the Sivana Family's backstory in the Golden Age. I found her HILARIOUS in 52- the preposterously beautiful, young-looking wife of Dr. Sivana, and kindly mother to four adult children.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Tue Aug 23, 2022 8:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 2:29 am
Ken wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 2:45 pm It's too bad that too many comic creators can't handle Mr. Tawny. It's like he really frosts their flakes.

Seriously, Mr. Tawny preceded Tony the Tiger by 5 years. But too many comic creators, today, grew up with Tony the Tiger on their cereal boxes and TVs, and I think that's why Mr. Tawny is "silly", but Bova Ayrshire being Scarlet Witch's mother's midwife is "okay".
This comparison triggers meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

While Wanda having a cow-lady for a midwife is ALSO weird in the same way that Mr. Tawny is weird, there are important differences here, both in place and context.

Captain Marvel is a "Main Eventer" hero at Fawcett, and a solo star in DC... mostly. Mr. Tawny is a sidekick and recurring character. And his name is "Mr. Tawky Tawny", as Drkrash points out- that's a very comical name. Now, Bova is simply named for the Latin word for cow, and is a minor background character used to explain some backstory for a second-tier Avenger, and almost never appears again.

Now, if her name was Bessie McUdders and she was the recurring sidekick of Daredevil or something, you'd have a point and this would be apt. But she isn't.
He wasn't a sidekick. He was a guest star. He only appeared once every couple of issues. He appeared in 14 issues of Captain Marvel Adventures over 4 years between 1947 and 1951. That's 14 out of 150 issues of Captain Marvel Adventures, and didn't appear in any of the 155 isues of Whiz or the 89 issues of Marvel Family. That's a whopping 3.6% of the comics where Captain Marvel was the lead character. And when you consider that the majority of those comics had multiple stories, plus the Captain appearing in Gift Comics, XMas Comics, America's Greatest Comics, and I don't know what other anthologies Fawcett published, the number of stories Mr. Tawny appeared in was a tiny percentage of the Captain's adventures.

Also, he was "Mr. Tawny." Yes, eventually he was given the first name of Tawky, but that was an addition that came later, and no one used it. (No one ever called Mr. Morris "Sterling" either.) And tigers are, generally, tawny. I fail to see why being named (he didn't chose his surname) after his fur colour is derisive, but Latin for "cow" is okay.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Dark Rider & Raider! Captain Marvel! Marvel Jr.!)

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 9:47 am Is the "Going to the Rock of Eternity" thing something that only the Marvels can do? Like, do they simply appear there at any point, or are they summoned by Shazam? How much of that is a function of the Rock itself?
It depends on the setting. When the Marvels were in the Pre-Crisis DCU, Superman was able to travel to it by flying in the right way, but Post-Crisis it's been more of a feature of having the Power of Shazam.

In essence, I'd give Billy, Mary and Freddy (possibly Adam) a limited ability to dimensionaly travel to the Rock of Eternity, but from the Rock they can travel to any point in time or space, including traveling to other dimensions or different universes within the multiverse.

It's something that really got under-utilized Post-Crisis, as the Rock of Eternity should have been the ultimate gateway to adventure, traveling to Dr. Strange like dimensions, going to alternate universes, or traveling to the past and future. Stuff the Marvels used to do regularly, especially in the Don Newton era.

One of my own ideas for the Marvel Family is that their connection to the Rock of Eternity (which sits at the exact center of existence) is that they're actually immune to time/dimensional shifts. So a decent chunk of Billy, Mary and Freddy's job is dealing with people who make changes to the time-stream, because while everything shifts around them, the three of them remain untouched. And if the change is drastic enough, they immediately get shunted to the Rock of Eternity.

I'd basically have a story where Billy wakes up and goes to the window, only to see that everything outside of his home has become a Jurassic jungle full of dinosaurs. He just sighs, goes to the kitchen, makes himself some cereal, eats it, then once he's done, says "Shazam" so he can find out who changed the past and go set things right. I've even showcase that every time the past has been changed involving other heroes, Billy will be monitoring them from the sidelines and only step in if they're completely unable to handle the situation.

It'd also explain why people can't simply go back in time and try to kill Billy before he gets his powers, or as an infant. They simply can't, because Billy will still exist, and simply come back in time to stop them.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

Post by Ares »

Davies wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 7:29 pm Seriously, in the original stories, anyone who is willing to do a bit of investigation can find out that Billy Batson can turn into Captain Marvel. In one story where he gets framed for various crimes, ordinary crooks explicitly state that they know perfectly well that this is the case!

Image
Yeah, the Golden Age played a lot of things very fast and loose, from how secret Billy's ID was to whether or not Cap and Billy were the same person. In some ways the books were very innovative with having multi-part stories and a focus on continuity, but in other aspects they almost had negative continuity.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel! Mr. Tawny! Dr. Sivana!)

Post by Ares »

The Lt. Marvels are a bit interesting, being one of the goofier hold-overs from the Golden Age. They only had a limited appearance, and I believe they were an experiment in seeing how secondary Captain Marvel-esque heroes could work, as I think they pre-date Captain Marvel Jr.

The thing with the Lt. Marvels is that they didn't really have personalities the way Mary and Freddy did. They were basically just stereotypes with some visual cues and they never caught on. The idea of them only being able to transform if they were all together was a neat little twist at least, and they provided some much needed reinforcement when Mr. Mind created a truly all-star Monster Society of Evil, consisting of Mr. Mind, Dr. Sivana, Ibac, Black Adam, King Kull, Oggar and Mr. Atom. That's the kind of line-up that could take on the Justice League.

Overall, I kind of like the Thunderworld idea where the Lt. Marvels were more of a support crew that helped the Marvels out, if they helped out at all. And like I've said, if I needed to update Freddy's name, I'd go with Lt. Marvel.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel! Mr. Tawny! Dr. Sivana!)

Post by Ken »

Ares wrote: Sat Nov 28, 2020 4:31 amThe Lt. Marvels are a bit interesting, being one of the goofier hold-overs from the Golden Age. They only had a limited appearance, and I believe they were an experiment in seeing how secondary Captain Marvel-esque heroes could work, as I think they pre-date Captain Marvel Jr.
The Lieutenants debuted in Whiz #21; Junior in #25, four issues later. Their appearances were sparse: Whiz #21, CMA #4, #62, & #71, and Marvel Family #2. Only a third as many appearances as Mr. Tawny had.
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Re: Jab’s Builds! (Captain Marvel! Capt. Marvel Jr.! Mary Marvel!)

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drkrash wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 11:04 pm All these pages so far and no mention of the live-action movie? :P

Somewhat seriously, as someone who knew almost nothing about CM, my family and I enjoyed the movie, even though I knew that their portrayal of Billy, and to a certain degree Freddy, were pretty off. Still, reading these pages now, it otherwise seemed like they got a lot of the broad outlines of the mythos correct.
I'll say this: I understand why people like it. It was generally more fun than the majority of the DCEU films, the acting was fairly decent, I think the casting choices were well done for what they were going for (Zachary Levi is a decent pick for Cap), and the story of a broken teenager connecting with his siblings, learning to love and trust again, and becoming a hero is a story worth telling.

It's just not a very good Captain Marvel story. If it had been an original story with something unrelated to the Marvel Family, I'd have thought it was okay. But it'd be like pointing at The Boys TV series and trying to tell me it's a series about the Justice League.

The whole point of Billy is that someone he endured tragedy with his humor, optimism, hope and humanity undamaged. Billy is much like Steve Rogers in that it's the strength of character they showed that got a wiser, older mentor figure to notice them and choose them to be a hero. Honestly, Captain America: The First Avenger works as a decent enough general template for a Captain Marvel film. You've got an older mentor figure trying to find the right successor because his previous choice turned evil and considers himself a god, and the new guy has to step up and be a hero.

The movie tries to promote a decent idea of family being "not whose blood you share but who stands by you when times are tough", but they have to do that by demonizing Billy's actual parents. Billy losing his parents in the comics is supposed to be a tragedy that he overcame. In the movie, it's a blessing in disguise, because he gets a postcard perfect foster family instead. The fact that his foster family are all perfect candidates for the Power of Shazam is also just . . . lazy. Originally Billy had to build up his Marvel Family over time, they were introduced gradually and organically, and each demonstrated qualities that made them worthy to wield the power. Here, Billy is just sent to them and he's got a team ready for him to empower because there's not a bad kid in the bunch. It almost reads like some kind of weird advertisement for foster care.

Dr. Sivana being a wizard and a flying brick is just silly. There's literally nothing left of the original character there.

The humor can be a bit jarring. I get the intent that as "Shazam", Billy is able to lighten up in a way he doesn't when he's a kid, but it's still weird that Billy acts way sillier as "Shazam" than he does when he's normal. It feels like the only way they could let you know there was a little kid in "Shazam" was by making him act extra juvenile, instead of just having Billy's character be well defined enough that his personality can be easily spotted in both forms.

And Billy is just . . . well, a jackass. Freddy has his own issues, but he or Mary would have made much, much better choices for champion than Billy here.

I will say that the story is definitely a step up from the Curse of Shazam comic, but that's damning with faint praise.

So I understand why people like it, but it's an okay film for me at best and a terrible Captain Marvel film at worst.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
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