Panel Vision - 9 Possible Characters for Shazam 2

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Judging by its sizable opening I’m assuming by now most folks have seen the infectiously enjoyable Shazam.  This movie has turned into a real slam dunk for the haggard DC Entertainment and seems to mark a turning point where their movies go from polarizing dregs like Suicide Squad and Dawn of Justice to a new era of popular if disconnected hits like Aquaman and Shazam.  

In any event, WB seems to have faith in this as they’ve already re-upped the creative team behind Shazam to begin work on a sequel, which means I get to start speculating on who we might see in said sequel.  I’m not going to address the very obvious appearances in the sequel set-up by Shazam’s post-credits scene but there are still a number of characters from the Shazam mythos and beyond that, I think we can expect to see in whatever adventures are next in store for Shazam and his marvelous family.

 

BLACK ADAM
DC is SO desperate to make a Black Adam movie it’s almost embarrassing at this point, especially given Black Adam hasn’t really been a popular anti-hero in comics since the 2000s ended.  Regardless, the fact WB has locked down The Rock for a solo Black Adam movie AND featured Easter Egg references to him in Shazam feels like a pretty good indicator that “not your dad’s Shazam” will be appearing in the sequel in some capacity.  A lot of that has to do with the guy running DC Entertainment and whose work has, for some reason, been the most central to the Shazam adaptation Geoff Johns.  Johns is a good writer and basically rescued Black Adam from relative obscurity in the early 2000s by making him an anti-hero on DC’s team book Justice Society of America.  

I’m not sure how they’d integrate the character seamlessly into the new set-up of the movies though.  In the comics, he was a hero in ancient North Africa who used his powers to murder the man who killed his family and then spent eons banished beyond the stars before returning to the Earth.  I could believe that Shazam 2 would set-up Adam through the maze of realms and doors in the Rock of Eternity, with his return facilitating that solo movie they keep trying to launch though I doubt he’ll be the prime antagonist. 

IBAC/SABBAC

These guys are so similar it didn’t really feel necessary to give them discrete entries.  They’re both more B-grade Shazam villains but they’re the kind of disposable over-muscled bad guy you want on hand in an action-adventure flick to fill out the fight scenes.  They’re both basically evil versions of Shazam who aren’t as powerful and draw their abilities from different magic word acrostics, as well as both fairly normal people in real life who only become “evil” in their transformed state.  

Sabbac seems the more likely of the two to appear given his very cool satanic visual design and the fact his powers are all Satan based, including flight and fire projection similar to Shazam’s lightning powers.  What’s more, Sabbac appeared in the New 52 Shazam comics that were a key point of inspiration for the new movie so he does seem more likely though I personally prefer Ibac because he’s just so much weirder.  Rather than drawing his powers from biblical and mythic figures or Satans his powers all come from real historical figures: Ivan the Terrible, Cesare Borgia, Atilla the Hun, and Caligula.  It’s that kind of nonsense that keeps me coming to the Shazam mythos. 

THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL

So, not technically a single character, but the Monster Society of Evil is such a core part of the Shazam villain mythos I’ll frankly be shocked if this isn’t the subtitle of the next film.  Their ranks include Dr. Sivana and Mr. Mind, Shazam’s 2 largest looming archenemies, but also include a whole host of attendant Shazam villains who might not be compelling enough to work as a primary antagonist.  

Folks like Mr. Atom, a killer atomic robot mastermind, or Oom, a bizarre ogre-like monster, these guys aren’t really masterminds or marquis value baddies but they’d make a solid roster of super-foes to throw at the Shazamily, especially given how many of them are kaiju-sized beasts.  After already seeing the Shazam team take on a bunch of monsters at the end of the first movie going up against a horde of kaiju like this would be a really solid acceleration. 

TAWKY TAWNY

So this is a weird part of the Shazam mythos.  Obviously, the entire mythos is weird, it’s basically launched by “a wizard did it” and stays at the random energy all throughout, but Tawky Tawny is the kind of weirdness you have to be wheeled into slowly.  He’s a Tiger Prince from parts unknown that is a friend and occasional legal guardian to Billy, Freddy, and Mary.  That was his ORIGINAL form anyway, he’s been through a NUMBER of re-imaginings but he’s almost always come back to the Shazam mythos.  

In the ‘90s they reworked him into Mary’s imaginary friend only to return to his talking anthropomorphic tiger form in the mid-2000s now with the ability to turn into a giant tiger.  The giant tiger form was how he appeared most recently in the comics but given the cameo by the Crocodile-Men in Shazam and the ending promise of the “7 Realms” (a VERY recent concoction) I wouldn’t be surprised if we returned to the classic Tawky Tawny for the second film, which is probably for the best as a well-spoken and bespoke suited tiger man is his best iteration. 

UNCLE MARVEL

This is one I’m a bit unsure of but Uncle Marvel, like Tawky Tawny, is such an ingrained part of the Shazam lore it’s hard to imagine them cutting him out of the movies entirely.  See, in the original comics, Billy was an orphan save for his uncle Dudley, who would sporadically act as Billy’s guardian, a role he shared with Tawky Tawny.  Mostly he shared the role because Uncle Dudley was a cowardly con man, usually looking to swindle or scam someone.  

He’s a cartoon uncle in the same vein as Wimpy from the Popeye cartoons.  He’s also the only adult to know Billy’s secret and so created his own costumed identity Uncle Marvel (this was back when Shazam was called Captain Marvel) even though he didn’t have any powers.  It’s an adorable idea and he usually makes for a fun character, caught between his desire for easy money and his genuine love for Billy.  I’m not sure there’s room for Uncle Dudley with the Foster Family stuff we’ve already seen established but I’m not ready to write him off just yet. 

THE SIVANA FAMILY

This is the good weird stuff.  So my biggest complaint about Shazam was easily their vision of Dr. Thaddeus Bodawg Sivana.  We were never going to get a comics-accurate Sivana, largely because that character is a pointy-eared little troll of a person with an unplaceable accent, he’s basically a living cartoon character you can’t adapt.  However, my hope for the sequel is that we do get the mad science version of Sivana that he was in the comics for DECADES before the nowhere near as good version from the recent stories.  

Aside from the mad science angle comic, Sivana has also been defined by his role as a single father.  Yes, someone had kids with this weirdo and not only that they had 4 kids: Sivana Jr. and Georgia, who take after their dad, and Beautie and Magnificus, who take after their mother Venus.  Sivana’s family has always been a humanizing element, much as it was in Shazam with the way his origin is basically about getting even with his monster of a father.  I’d love to see him actually sporting a family maybe even with the resolution that he’ll never be the kind of dismissive jerk his own dad was. 

LORD SATANUS AND LADY BLAZE

Now we’re getting pretty obscure and unlikely, though I would relish these two getting recycled back into the Shazam continuity already.  Cooked up by Shazam mega-fan and mega-scribe Jerry Ordway in the ‘90s, Satanus and Blaze were initially Superman villains who later transitioned into Shazam foes after it was revealed they were the children of the old Wizard that gave Billy his powers.  This was about the most development the old Wizard got before the more recent New 52 stuff, which is why I'm more dubious to its inclusion.  

All the more recent Shazam comic stuff was written by Geoff Johns who, aside from running DC Entertainment, has some serious hang-ups about making his version of things the ONLY version, hence why stuff like the 7 Realms and 7 thrones got integrated into Shazam (2019) despite being introduced in 2019.  Still, they would probably make a solid set-up for a third film if we saw them banging around the Rock of Eternity or whatever the 7 realms end up being, especially given their family connections are a natural set-up for a through line. 

ISIS

Here’s another Black Adam related character and one I’d expect to see in the form of an Easter Egg or Reference rather than a full-on cameo.  Isis was a fairly obscure character from the 1970s, originally appearing as a new superhero on the live action Shazam TV show before she got a very short-lived DC comic series.  She never made main continuity appearances until the mid-2000s when she was introduced as Black Adam’s new wife.  In that continuity, her powers were derived from a special necklace and were based around the same magic as the Shazam family.  

Given the plans for the Black Adam movie and how much Shazam used the Rock of Eternity as a treasure room full of Easter Eggs having the Isis necklace pop up in the background would be a really easy way to set up her presence for future films.  She’s actually proved fairly popular in a reworked form on Legends of Tomorrow but that will probably have concluded its run by the time Shazam 2 hits theaters. 

WONDER WOMAN

This one feels the most unlikely given how disconnected the DC movies are at this point but given the shock Superman cameo at the end of Shazam it seems like anything might happen.  I mainly favor Wonder Woman for a spot in Shazam 2 because of how much they’re both caught up in big mythic magical ideas, Shazam even draws his powers from Zeus and Wonder Woman, in the DCEU, is the daughter of Zeus.  

Obviously, they shouldn’t play up this parallel too much as “continuity” seems to be the bane of the DCEU’s existence and the fact Zeus is dead in Wonder Woman and yet powering Shazam in Shazam absolutely does not need a whole movie to explain.  This would be most interesting to just have Diana or even Paradise Island pop up as part of exploring the various mystic realms the Rock of Eternity is tied to, or even just having her show up to meet a fellow hero. 

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