Shazam And Supergirl: How DC Broke Billy Batson & Kara Zor-El

Yesterday I mentioned that Ana Nogueira, the screenwriter for the upcoming Supergirl movie in the DC Gunninverse, had trouble believing Supergirl could be so upbeat after seeing her planet die. Kal-El was a baby and saw nothing, while Kara, depending on the continuity, was either on a Kryptonian colony or a chunk of the planet that somehow maintained atmosphere and gravity. Some versions still have Argo City alive but out of phase with the regular universe, or in a pocket dimension or warp or something. The official comic story however is that Kara is as much a survivor of a doomed world as Kal is. While Kal-El was raised on Earth as Clark Kent and only learned about Krypton later in life, Kara has to see her people die, with knowledge of her cousin being alive on Earth her only benefit…only to find that thanks to cosmic shenanigans he was already grown, thus taking care of her instead of the other way around. Not how one wants to spend their teenage years.

I was thinking about this after writing yesterday’s article and remembering that’s kind of why Geoff Johns remade Billy Batson’s personality, or so I theorize. Billy Batson lost his family in a car accident, in his earliest version having his uncle steal his inheritance (I’ve never heard how big that actually was…were the Batsons rich?) and kicking him into the streets. In the original Golden Age version Billy survived as a newspaper boy until he was brought to the Wizard and given the power of Captain Marvel, today going by Shazam for a bunch of we don’t care for this article reasons but don’t be surprised if I end up using both interchangeably or “Captain Shazam” because to me he’ll always be THE Captain Marvel. He ends up with a job in a radio station, then they retconned in a sister who was thought dead but found and later raised by a loving family who also took Billy in.

So what’s the problem? Billy, like Kara (who was also adopted by a loving couple after taking on the identity Linda Lee, depending on continuity), didn’t react the way current writers think he should. He was good natured, caring for others, and so optimistic that Captain Marvel would be called the “Big Red Cheese”, though I don’t think that’s the actual origin of the nickname. I’ll find out when we start looking through the old Fawcett comics. According to the writers, they should be despondent, angry, weighed down by the huge trama of how terrible their backstories are. Except they aren’t, and the fact that they don’t understand why shows they don’t understand how DC used to operate.

Of the two, Billy has probably had the least amount of variations to his history. We don’t even get a look at Billy’s pre-hero life in the serial and two different Filmation shows, a live-action series and the animated appearances as part of The Kid Super Power Hour With Shazam!. I think the first time we get a hint of Billy’s history outside of comics is Batman: The Brave & The Bold, in a story that ends with Batman finding Mary and the Brownfields, allowing Billy to leave the orphanage. There’s a direct to video animated Superman crossover based on a comic story, and the first Shazam! movie with Zachary Levi. By the time Levi’s movie finally escaped development hell, Geoff Johns and the New 52 happened, and that’s the version they sadly went with. That’s why I never saw the movie and don’t plan to. I hate what Johns did to Billy.

In Johns’ version Billy is angry, a jerk to people, and if memory serves this wasn’t the first foster home he had been to. The home had a bunch of other children in it, who Johns would also give powers to in a move that was more about diversity than expanding the formerly known Marvel Family. Originally, Mary would gain powers from famous heroines of myth whose name spelled the same magic word as the heroes of myth Billy was based on, and go by the not well thought out Mary Marvel. Meanwhile their friend Freddy Freeman would also gain powers from Captain Marvel, using the even less thought out Captain Marvel Junior, since his incantation was now his name. He was one of Elvis Presley’s favorites, and the internet says Elvis based his hairstyle on Junior’s. Now there are no sibling, and no friends until he undergoes a character arc to accept his foster “siblings” making up for the family he lost.

Kara’s personality change also comes from the New 52. That shouldn’t surprise anyone with more knowledge of comics than the people at DC Studios. While Nogueira was giving credit to Tom King and the Supergirl: Woman Of Tomorrow story he forced into the universe, Kara was making the same change. And we are talking about main universe Kara-Zor El. In the original Supergirl movie Argo City existed in some kind of space warp or something, so her mission was get back home with one of their lost power sources…and for some reason aged up from 13 to 17 during the trip. I never understood why the director and screenwriters went with that before I was old enough to realize how creepy that was given her love interest in the movie. Superman was off on a mission and thus never met her. In the TV series he got her a home right away, while Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures In The 8th Grade had Argo City in a similar situation to the movies, with the comic focused on Kara adjusting to life on Earth while hoping to get back home. In both the movie and Cosmic Adventures she ends up in a private academy as a place to stay and learn.

We’re also ignoring Matrix and Linda Danvers, the paranormal girl Matrix would be bound to, though Matrix also was the survivor of a whole universe wiped out by that reality’s General Zod and being made of shapeshifting protoplasm before merging with Linda and becoming…an angel or something. Was that trip really necessary?

In most continuities Kara is the last survivor of the last remaining piece of Krypton. In the original Silver Age she was sent to where they knew baby Kal-El had gone after the remaining chunk of Krypton that somehow kept an atmosphere and gravity turned to Kryptonite. She landed on Earth and Superman sent her to an orphanage, needing to protect his identity and allowing Kara a safe place to learn to control her powers in secret as Superman’s “secret weapon” until Supergirl was ready to be revealed to the world and learn more about her new home, as was the case in Cosmic Adventures. I think in the CW show and maybe one of the comics origins the teen was sent to join baby Kal and help him grow up only for events to cause her to show up long after Kal grew up to become Clark Kent, aka Superman. Superman: The Animated Series dropped the family connection and froze Kara in suspended hibernation to help her escape what was happening until by chance Superman came upon her while testing out his new spaceship.

So most of the time Kara sees her world die. That’s the important detail here and the sticking point for Nogueira and King and whoever altered her in the New 52. They couldn’t believe that going through that wouldn’t make her angry, bitter, hating the Earth, and also being an out of control teenager (aka a teenager) with powers. Batman feared her for it, and Wonder Woman was willing to force her to learn the ways of the Amazons because girl with powers, while Clark was also making the mistake of assuming she’d be like him and love the place enough to protect it like he does. All the added frustration just made her even more of an angry person, while her Earth-2 counterpart got stuck on our Earth-1, took on the name Power Girl, and apparently was better adjusted to her situation than her Earth-1 “sister”. So like New 52 Billy Batson, New 52 Kara Zor-El is angry at the universe and not afraid to say so simply because the writers can’t believe that anyone in their situations wouldn’t be.

This is because they don’t understand variety or what makes a DC hero.

It’s why they try to make Batman as grimdark as they can until the fans finally push back, not that they care about the fans anymore. Apparently everybody reacts to tragedy in the same way in their minds. If that’s the case, why have I never even considered shooting up the school I was bullied at, always tried to believe in the best of people as the default while acknowledging actual evil, and sought to help out people who needed it even if they weren’t the nicest to me? I didn’t deal with bullies the same way as the guys who shoot up schools or plot to, like at Columbine. I believe in the First Amendment, but me not having a gun is more about being a clumsy oaf and occasional paranoid, not because of my temper. And I do have a temper. I want to be Clark Kent but too often I’m closer to Bruce Banner, if you catch my drift. That’s not even because of the bullies (well, maybe the paranoia in part). It’s just how I’m wired, unfortunately.

My point is there are people who do react to these events with a more positive opinion as a way to cope. “My life is full of crap, but I’m not giving up on things getting better”. Billy lost his family and his inheritance but wouldn’t let the world take his spirit, his optimism. And before the New 52 he would be rewarded for his good deeds with praise and a new family. It was this kind nature and sense of right and wrong that led to the boy being chosen by the Wizard to take on the power of Captain Marvel after his last choice, Black Adam, was corrupted by the power and tried to use it take over Egypt only to be exiled for his actions. (Fun fact: Black Adam originally died in his solo Fawcett era appearance. Like the Shredder, they saw a good foil for the heroes and brought him back.) So taking away that “never say die” attitude, making him angry and bitter at the world, takes away the reason he was given the power of Captain Marvel, so I guess calling him Shazam is correct after all. The secret identity’s name is the same but the current Billy Batson is no Captain Marvel. So call him Shazam I guess.

As for Kara, she does get homesick, but in most cases she makes contact with family or someone who finds her a good home. The DCAU version is given a place with the Kents while other versions have the Danvers family. Even without one or both she manages to make friends as she tries to adjust to live on Earth whether the situation is temporary or permanent. She also isn’t jerked around like post-Flashpoint Kara. She’s sad but learns to find friends, family, and happiness. That’s the kind of person you want having Superman’s powers: kind, hopeful, wanting to help others, and not running off to get drunk on an alien world with a younger drinking age on her birthday instead of spending time with the only family she has left.

That used to be the DC universe. Even Batman wasn’t as moody as he is today because we get over things, we change, we grow, and unless we let the bad things in our life fester things get better. Heck, I get along with some of my former bullies now, like Flash Thompson reforming in the Spider-Man comics. They grew up, matured, realized they weren’t in the right back then, and are now nice to me and sorry about their past deeds. And I always tried to work to be a better person, see the good side of life, and to not act like those I hated or resented. It was the heroes of the DC universe, including Captain Shazam Marvel and Supergirl, that were partly responsible for me being that way. Seeing their stories and how they treated others made me want to be like them not because of their powers but what they chose to do with them. Those powers go against the laws of physics and nature, though at least Billy and company can blame magic, which doesn’t work like that in our world if it exists at all. It was their attitude, their desire to help others and not let the bad things in life corrupt and embitter them that I admired. They sought a better world, a better way of life, to achieve their dreams and help others achieve theirs and learn to be better people. That’s what drew me to the DC universe, the hope and optimism, to believe in a better world for themselves and others.

Today’s more cynical writers took that way from them, and that’s why the DC properties now fail. Be it comics or movie we have people who don’t believe in what the DC heroes used to, and thus can’t understand them or write them properly. So I’m as uninterested in this take on Supergirl as I am about the theatrical version of Billy Batson. Without that better attitude driving them, they aren’t the same characters. They’ve fallen to despair, and that’s how the villains win. Billy was broken by his uncle, by Black Adam (the one who killed his parents in some version), while Kara might as well have died with Krypton/Argo City. They don’t inspire me the way the originals did. They can’t believe in heroism, so I don’t believe they can make heroes. I’ve seen what happens when writers who do make Supergirl and Captain Marvel/Shazam stories, and I like them much better, because I want them to be how good people are. I want them to overcome what held them back and not only enjoy life but spread that joy to others. That’s what a superhero is to me…and that’s not what today’s writers are capable of anymore.