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Doctor Sivana
Real Name: Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, Sr.
First Appearance: Whiz Comics #2 (February, 1940)
- "First New York ... then Jersey ... then the whole United States. Finally the whole world will be under my heel! Eh hah! Yes, heel!"
The world's foremost Mad Scientist, Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana is a spiteful, petty, raving troll of a man who will settle for nothing less than total global domination... if only he can get rid of that Big Red Cheese first.
The Golden Age version was a typical mad scientist who dreamed of not only ruling the world, but the entire universe. With the ability to whip up any gadget he can think of (as well as escape prison at a whim by literally walking through the walls - it's scientific!), he caused much more trouble than you'd imagine a small gremlin like him could cause. A little-known fact is that, at one point, he was explicitly stated to be the current human avatar of Pride, one of the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man.
The Post-crisis version followed Lex Luthor's example, starting as the CEO of Sivana Industries. However, his battles with Captain Marvel led to his financial ruin, which caused him to slip deeper and deeper into insanity. He was also the employer of Theo Adam, and accidentally provided him with the scarab that turned him into Black Adam; he later helped create the Four Horsemen who killed Isis and Osiris. Today, Sivana is a rogue scientist who has allied himself with the Secret Society of Super-Villains, the Injustice League, and the Oolong Island Science Squad.
In the alternate continuity of Jeff Smith's The Monster Society of Evil, Sivana is US Attorney-General, and betrays the human race to Mister Mind in exchange for his advanced technology.
- Arch-Enemy: Was Captain Marvel's archnemesis during the Golden Age (appearing in fully half his stories) and proudly proclaims himself the holder of this title in The Power of Shazam. Although these days he's more or less lost this status to Mister Mind and Black Adam.
- Bald of Evil: His normal appearance includes a complete lack of head hair, which together with his brow ridges and toothy grin makes his head look uncannily like a skull.
- Beware the Silly Ones: He strikes about all the "Evil Mad Scientist" cliché, including Evil Is Hammy, Card-Carrying Villain and the stereotypical look, which make him an incredibly cheesy villain hard to take seriously. However, he actually has a pretty good track record of being a genuine threat. His Golden Age once managed to steal Captain Marvel's powers and pulled a Near-Villain Victory against simultaneously him, Earth-1 Superman and Earth-2 Superman.
- Big Bad: Especially during the Golden Age. Seriously, would you expect a man who calls himself "the World's Wickedest Scientist" and "the Rightful Ruler of the Universe" to play second fiddle to anyone?
- Brains Evil, Brawn Good: Subverted. As brilliant as Sivana is, he is ultimately a brutish villain, with some of his schemes involving the mimicry or theft of Captain Marvel's powers so he can beat him to death. Billy, while less academically and intellectually inclined than Thaddeus, is still a clever lad and can thus outsmart and foil him even without Shazam's boons.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He proudly proclaims himself the World's Wickedest Scientist.
- Cartoonish Supervillainy: An early Trope Maker. He's a bit more serious and competent than the full parodies that came later, but only a bit - the World's Wickedest Scientist is still a Laughably Evil caricature of a human being most of the time.
- Cast from Hit Points: His New 52 and Rebirth version used to be a tall, strapping man of forty, but use of the magic that was infecting his body progressively withered him down to a gaunt, stooped shadow of his former self; by the end of "Curse of Shazam", he looks decades older and a hundred pounds thinner, and his previously white teeth have become a snaggled, rotten overbite.
- Catchphrase: Of the defeat variety, "Curses! Foiled again!". As a relic of the former popularity of the series, his Catchphrase is now more famous by far than he is due to
Memetic Mutation turning it into one of many Stock Phrases in fiction. - Complexity Addiction: In Thunderworld Adventures, he teams up with alternate versions of himself to construct a metaphysical eighth day of the week where evil has the advantage.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Starts out as one in modern continuity, only to lose it all during Captain Marvel's origin story.
- Dastardly Whiplash: He invokes a few of these traits, including his Evil Laugh and Catchphrase "Curses! Foiled Again!"
- Dirty Coward: Sometimes portrayed this way, particularly in the Monster Society of Evil continuity. In Superman/Shazam he has shades of this as well.
- Embarrassing First Name/Embarrassing Middle Name: Thaddeus Bodog Sivana. You'd be evil too if that was your name.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His children (his entire motivation to go up against Darkseid in Final Crisis is because Georgia had been brainwashed by the Anti-Life Equation), and not just the evil ones. In The Power of Shazam, when he and Captain Marvel are escaping from the Venusian worms, he is insistent that they also have to free his son Magnificus, who is very much the White Sheep of the family.
- Evil Cripple: Downplayed. Sivana is sometimes portrayed as needing the aid of a cane to walk due to his age.
- Evil Genius: Provides the page image. He is one of the most intelligent villainous minds in the DC continuity. Often seen as the older counterpart to Superman's Lex Luthor. He even has the distinction of displaying acts of brilliance that surpass even Luthor's such as his deep understanding of Magic and successfully cloning full-blooded Kryptonians, an act Luthor considered difficult/nigh-impossible which Sivana deemed simple. He usually has this role in most teams he joins.
- Evil Laugh: His "Heh! Heh! Heh!" is one of the oldest examples in comics. It's so distinctive that in one case it serves as a tip-off to Billy that he's actually arrested an Identical Stranger that Sivana himself kidnapped and framed - in all the time they were talking, the man didn't laugh like Sivana even once!
- Evil Makes You Ugly: His New 52 incarnation starts off looking normal, until he's exposed to magic. As the story goes on it starts warping his appearance, and by the end of it he's got the usual pointed ears, hunched posture and yellowed teeth.
- Evil Old Folks: No age has ever been given for Sivana, but given his wizened appearance, his adult children, and the fact that he leans on a cane, he has to be well into his sixties at least.
- The Family That Slays Together: His daughter Georgia and son Thaddeus Jr. frequently assisted in his criminal enterprises during the Golden Age.
- Fantastic Science: To the point where he could do math equations that let him walk through walls in the Golden Age.
- For the Evulz: Best summed up by the assassin Merlyn, who, when discussing why people kill comments that "Luthor and Grodd do it for power. Joker and Sivana do it for kicks."
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A zig-zagged example, he is completely ruthless and heartless to his enemies, and is fully willing to backstab his allies if they don't provide what he wants or he sees something to gain from it. But, he honestly loves all his children and cares for his wife.
- Grandfather Clause: Is probably one of the few comic book villains who can get away with saying the Defeat Catchphrase "Curses! Foiled again!" with no irony in today's Darker and Edgier era of comics because it has been his Catchphrase since his creation in the 1940s.
- Kavorka Man: The reason Venus broke up with him? He cheated on her with another woman.
- Lean and Mean: Physically, he looks a lot like a skeleton in a lab coat.
- Large Ham: An ur-Mad Scientist could be nothing else. Became even more pronounced over time as he became a cliche and the Captain Marvel writers leaned into the campy, old-fashioned ridiculousness of his persona. Again, 'Curses! Foiled again!' is his actual Catchphrase.
- Laughably Evil: He may be one of the most dangerous and well-established enemies of a Superman-tier hero, but let's be honest - Sivana is an absurd, hammy panto villain, and everyone, including the writers, knows it. His appearance, catch-phrases, and single-minded dedication to being as theatrically evil as possible are very, very easy to play for laughs, especially in a comic as light-hearted as this one.
- Mad Scientist: The Ur-Example in The DCUnote , and a classic one to this day. He could even be considered the Trope Codifier: aside from his Catchphrase being an early Memetic Mutation ("Curses! Foiled again!"), he was one of the first times that every single facet of the modern stereotype came together: a bald head, an Evil Laugh, using Fantastic Science, having Four Eyes, Zero Soul, always wearing a Lab Coat Of Science And Medicine, possessing a Morally Ambiguous Doctorate, reduced height, trying to Take Over the World — he's the full package, to the point where most pictures of mad scientists that don't feature Einstein Hair likely look like a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Sivana.
- Miniature Senior Citizens: His Golden Age version is roughly the same height as, or possibly an inch or two taller than, Billy Batson; in one story he even successfully disguises himself as Billy. Even his teenage kids are noticeably taller than he is. In Jeff Smith's Monster Society of Evil, he's even shorter, barely three feet tall.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Subverted in the 90s comics, where he appears to have sold out the human race to the Venusian worms, but was actually being braincontrolled by one of them. Played straight in Monster Society of Evil, where he does betray humanity to Mister Mind in exchange for access to his advanced technologies.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Though he does at least legitimately hold a doctorate.
- Obviously Evil: Just look at the guy!
- Riches to Rags: In the 90s comic.
- The Rival: First Thunder portrays him as one for Lex Luthor.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Sometimes, generally when he plots something evil.
- Scary Teeth: Has a positively enormous overbite, with teeth almost overlapping across his bottom lip. Georgia and Thaddeus Jr. bear it as well.
- Shorter Means Smarter: He's a genius, and incredibly short. One of the few other Shazam characters smarter than him is Mr. Mind... who's a literal tiny worm.
- Take Over the World: His stated goals are, in no particular order—1) Become Rightful Ruler of the Universe in fact as well as in name; 2) Spread evil, wickedness, and nastiness throughout the cosmos; and 3) humiliate, discredit, and ultimately KILL CAPTAIN MARVEL! Heh heh heh!
- They Called Me Mad!: The original version turned to villainy when his colleagues scorned his innovative theories. Unfortunately, this sparked a megalomaniacal grudge against humanity so insanely intense that when Captain Marvel revealed his beneficial inventions (that Sivana considered useless for his criminal plans) to the world and it granted him the Nobel Prize for Physics in gratitude, Sivana considered it an insult!
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Which explains why two of his kids didn't turn out hideous.
- Villainous Underdog: Is second only to Lex Luthor in this regard. In fact, he and Captain Marvel are the page image.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: When Sivana was bestowed the Nobel Prize for Physics because Captain Marvel revealed his beneficial inventions he himself considered useless, he considered it an insult. In fact, Sivana goes so far as to break out of jail and tried to start World War III with an special ray device that enflames mindless aggression. However, when he tries to launch it into space to affect the world for 12 hours, Captain Marvel intercepts and rewires it into a ray that induces peaceful behavior, thus causing 12 hours of world peace with lasting affect on some conflicts. As such, an amused Captain Marvel is delighted to tell Sivana that he's now nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, to the mad scientist's profound chagrin.
Venus Sivana
The ex-wife of Dr. Sivana and mother of his children, Magnificus and Beautia.
- Abusive Parents: Despite being amicable to her biological children, she blatantly voices her dislike and disparages her step-children, Georgia and Thaddeus Jr. She also ordered her son Magnificus to remove a feral Sobek from the family dinner table because he was ruining the peach cobbler she made for their charity dinner with the Black Marvel Family despite his blatant fear of Sobek.
- Amicable Exes: She originally had angrily divorced Dr. Sivana after finding out he cheated on her with another woman. It was later retconned in 52 that their marriage ended because of his obsession with Captain Marvel and that despite his madness she still loves him greatly.
- Meaningful Name: During the Golden Age, Sivana and his family lived on the planet Venus (obviously, this was before Venera). So it's only fitting that his ex-wife be named 'Venus'.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: She's where Magnificus and Beautia got their attractive looks from. Why she got with Dr. Sivana in the first place is unknown.
- Upper-Class Twit: She's notable ditzy and displays traits commonly seen with The Beautiful Elite. She's also somewhat prejudiced, as she referred to the Black Marvel Family as "camel jockeys" after Isis and Osiris had an argument in Arabic.
Beautia Sivana
- "Just call me 'Tia. Otherwise you're just stating the obvious."
The oldest daughter of Dr. Sivana, Beautia is stunningly pretty, and exceptionally pleasant, if vain. Initially willing to work for her father, she quickly turned on him, becoming an ally and friend of the Marvel Family during the Golden Age. In the Dark Age and Modern Age, we only meet her after her Heel–Face Turn. In both continuities, she has a serious crush on Captain Marvel.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Her younger brother, sister, and father are hideously ugly and are Card Carrying Villains. She looks like a swimsuit model and is a good guy.
- Brainless Beauty: Averted and lampshaded. In The Power of Shazam Beautia comments on how she's a Yale graduate. "I'm brains and beauty, kiddo."
- Celeb Crush: On Captain Marvel.
- Heel–Face Turn: In all continuities.
- Hero-Worshipper: Of Captain Marvel again.
- Loves My Alter Ego: Crushes on Captain Marvel without knowing he's actually a child/teenager.
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Somehow managed to avoid the apparent gnome genes that made her father, younger sister and younger brother what they are.
- Meaningful Name: Beautia and she's beautiful.
- Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: She and her brother Magnificus embodied this during the Golden Age.
- Mr. Vice Guy: Rather vain, and considerably shallow, but still a decent person, and one of the few adults to be unfailingly nice to Billy.
- Odd Name, Normal Nickname: In some versions, Beautia goes by "Tia." She quips that using her real name is just stating the obvious.
- Secret-Keeper: In the Golden Age she eventually found out the Marvel's secret identities. In the Post-Crisis world she remains oblivious.
- The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Look at her father, now look at her. Not a lot of family resemblance.
- White Sheep: She and her brother are this to the rest of the Sivana family.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: Treated this way within the Captain Marvel book, and especially during the Golden Age (in the modern age, she just happens to be the prettiest woman Billy's met).
Magnificus Sivana
Dr. Sivana's oldest son, Magnificus possessed Super-Strength during the Golden Age, and briefly worked for his father before performing a Heel–Face Turn and siding with Captain Marvel. In the Post-Crisis verse we only meet him post-Heel–Face Turn, without any powers, and working as an astronaut.
- Adaptational Villainy: For some reason, he sided with his father, Thaddeus Jr. and Georgia in The Multiversity: Thunderworld continuity.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: He and his sister Beautia are the attractive ones in the family, and the generally the good-aligned ones.
- Heel–Face Turn
- Mad Dictator's Handsome Son: He's much more good-looking than his father or younger brother.
- Meaningful Name
- Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: He and Beautia more or less embody the concept.
- Super-Strength: In his first appearance, he actually gave Captain Marvel a decent fight, and Cap commented that Magnificus was "almost as tough as I am!" However, this was abandoned after the Golden Age.
Georgia Sivana
Dr. Sivana's youngest daughter, and the twin sister of Thaddeus Sivana Jr, Georgia Sivana inherited her father's meanstreak, and regrettably, his looks. A miserable, resentful girl, she frequently clashed with the Marvels (and Mary Marvel in particular) during the Golden Age; she hasn't appeared much since.
- A-Cup Angst: Contemplates using superscience to make herself curvier.
- Archenemy: One could make a case for her being Mary Marvel's during the Golden Age.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Same as her father.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Loves her father, and idolizes him.
- Even Bad Women Love Their Mamas: She idolizes and adores her father Dr. Sivana.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She loves her twin brother, Thaddeus Jr.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Downplayed compared to her father, yet can be quite cruel when he wants to.
- Generation Xerox: Looks like her father in drag and acts like him too.
- Lean and Mean: Almost emaciated. Jack Binder's original design also gave her three or four inches on Mary.
- Mad Scientist: Not as shown as her father given her limited appearances, but quite cruel and cunning.
- Nerd Glasses: A given.
- Progressively Prettier: In the Golden Age she looked like her father in a wig. See above for her modern look.
- Punny Name: For the city of Savannah, Georgia.
- Remember the New Guy?: Both her and her brother weren't mentioned in all previous stories dealing only with Beautia and Magnificus, but apparently both were being raised in secret on Venus until they finally became teenagers. The fact that they each found similar members of the Marvel Family to fight against was merely a coincidence.
- The Resenter: Towards her pretty older sister Beautia.
- Shorter Means Smarter: The shortest of Sivana's kids, and probably the smartest after him.
- Teens Are Monsters: She's not growing out of the "awkward age" any time soon.
- The Un-Favourite: She along with her brother are blatantly disliked by her mother, Venus, and her siblings Beautia and Magnificus for taking after their father in appearance and his mad scientist tendencies. Her mother derogatorily refers to her and her brother as "The Butterfaces" in 52 and angrily told her to be silent over complaining about how her hair was ruined while coddling Beautia over the same issue after Sobek smashed through their home.
- Voice Changeling: In the Golden-Age, she can imitate anyone's voice.
Thaddeus Sivana, Jr.
- "When Freddie hits the pavement, it'll kill him ... and that'll also be the end of Captain Marvel, Jr. - - the only one who stands in my way of becoming the Rightful Prince of the Universe!"
Dr. Sivana's youngest son, and the twin brother of Georgia Sivana. Like his sister and her antipathy towards Mary, he found a nemesis of his own in Freddy Freeman, having been introduced to Captain Marvel Jr. by his father specifically to keep Freddy out of his way (also like his sister).
- Archenemy: To the entire Marvel Family, but specifically Captain Marvel, Jr.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Calls himself "the world's most wicked boy scientist".
- Daddy's Little Villain: Similar to his sister, loves and respects his dad.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His father, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, and his sister, Georgia.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Much like his sister downplayed compared to his father, yet still quite cruel.
- Generation Xerox: It's even commented upon in one story that he'll grow up to look exactly like his father once he loses his hair.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Aside from the omnipresent lab coat, he's often dressed like an old-timey golfer below the waist, with puffy black pants, argyle socks and brown loafers. It's not a good look.
- Lean and Mean: Extremely gangly, and even nastier than that.
- Mad Scientist: As his father.
- Nerd Glasses: Similar to his father.
- One Head Taller: The second-tallest kid in the family, right behind the Herculean Magnificus. Some artists, however, shrink him down to about Georgia's height to accentuate their similarities.
- Remember the New Guy?: First he, then Georgia were introduced this way (see above).
- Teens Are Monsters: Not only is he much more irritable and temperamental than either Thaddeus Sr. or Georgia, a great number of his crimes (aside from the occasional bid for world domination) are simply practical and cruel in nature, such as petty theft, delinquency or victimizing poor disabled Freddy - either to stop his interference, or just for the fun of it.
- The Un-Favourite: He along with his sister, Georgia, are blatantly disliked by their mother, Venus, and their siblings Beautia and Magnificus for taking after their father in appearance and his mad scientist tendencies.
