Warning: Shazam (2023) is a direct sequel to events in Teen Titans Academy, Lazarus Planet, and Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods, so Late Arrival Spoilers for those comics may be unmarked on this page.
The Dork Knight Returns
Shazam! is an May 2023 relaunch of the DC Comics hero, written by Mark Waid and with art by Dan Mora. It is a spinoff of Lazarus Planet and part of the Dawn of DC publishing initiative.
The relaunch picks up Billy Batson and the Shazam Family's storylines in the aftermath of Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods, as they deal with Billy's return from the Rock of Eternity and the changes to magic in the wake of Lazarus Planet.
Shazam provides examples of:
- The Bus Came Back. Billy Batson gets his own ongoing monthly title for the first time since the conclusion of Shazam! (2018) in 2020 (and, to a lesser extent, 2021's Shazam: To Hell and Back mini-series). Billy also returns to the forefront of the contemporary DCU after having been sidelined during the Infinite Frontier era.
- Continuity Nod: #10 directly refers to Hera's coup in Wonder Woman (Rebirth); apparently the other Olympians are annoyed that Zeus let it happen. Yes, she killed him, but that's a purely temporary situation for a god, and they think he used it as an excuse.
- Costume Evolution: Dan Mora's cover for Shazam #1 reveals that Billy's design has been tweaked for the Dawn of DC era. Gary Frank's New 52 redesign, which has been the standard template for a decade, has been discarded in favor of a return to a more classic Captain Marvel look (albeit with a few minor tweaks here and there).
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Billy mentions he's not calling himself "Shazam" anymore because it confused a lot of people, reflecting how fans were annoyed by the change from "Captain Marvel" to the wizard's name (even though saying Shazam out loud is what caused Billy's transformation back and forth).
- Logical Weakness: Billy's sponsors having a greater influence on him results in him suffering from their psychological weaknesses, from Atlas's gullibility (since his most famous moment in legend is taking support of the sky back becase Herc told him it would just be for a second) to Zeus's Really Gets Around tendencies.
- Loophole Abuse: In #4, Billy is unconscious and possibly dying, and Zeus is frustrated that the agreement with the wizard is that he can't throw the transformative thunderbolt unless Billy says the word. Then Mary, after establishing to her current pantheon that this isn't adressed to them, says "Shazam" to trigger Billy's transformation, and even though she no longer has a pact with them, Zeus decides that's close enough.
- Meaningful Rename: Billy's superhero form is now known as The Captain, a happy medium between the contentious Shazam renaming and his more traditional "Captain Marvel" name. It should be noted this is due to magic shifting, so unlike the New 52 take on the character, if he says "Shazam" he will without fail transform, like every other version of the character prior to the New 52. The Captain in this case began as a nickname that stuck after a maritime rescue ended up with him needlessly drenched. It seemingly has caught on quickly as even news sources refer to him as The Captain, calling into question how long he WAS known as Shazam. In addition, some of his fans are calling him "Captain Marvel" in the comments to Billy's podcast, probably by analogy with Mary taking the Mary Marvel name in Revenge of the Gods.
- Mythology Gag: In #10, Freddy buys a beaten-up camper he calls the "Shaz-Van", which looks not unlike the RV from Shazam! (1974).
- Non-Human Sidekick: Anthropomorphic tiger Tawky Tawny, who will take on a more active role as Billy's sidekick in the field.
- One-Steve Limit - the wizard is called Shazam, but Billy is called The Captain, instead of Shazam. Mary, who in The New Champion of Shazam! used the name Shazam as well, reverted back to her original name Mary Marvel in Revenge of the Gods.
- Reimagining the Artifact: Billy as a child reporter for a radio station simply doesn't make sense in the modern world. Billy as a podcaster, on the other hand..
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Garguax is featured as a villain, when he started out as an adversary of the Doom Patrol.
- Shout-Out: #8 ends with Pedro yelling from off-panel that they might just have breakfast cereal for supper, and Tawky Tawny vetoing this while referring to the cereal as Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs. Bonus points for coming from a talking tiger.
- Spinoff: Of Lazarus Planet, picking up Billy and the Shazam Family's storylines in the wake of Revenge of the Gods.
- Superpowered Alter Ego: Following the first storyline and a shift in how the Shazam powers work, Billy and The Captain start seeing each other as different people. The Captain also has the ability to keep secrets from Billy, something Billy doesn't realise.
- Superpowered Evil Side: For while Billy's transformation leaves him vulnerable to mental manipulation by one of his six "sponsors", now scheming to make a move on the world through him. Downplayed in that, to paraphrase Futurama, they're not evil, but they are jerks.
- Take That!: Waid makes a pointed dig to the people who felt Billy wasn't believable as a happy, well-meaning kid who smiles. One of the comments about Billy smiling and having fun has him being called a "Soyboy" by a user named "MANCHILD95."
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In #2, when a tyranosaur in a suit arrives at the door to speak to Billy, he decides this just isn't something he wants to deal with right now. Everyone else thinks he's being very rude to a guest.Billy's narration: This is what we get for living with a talking tiger. Now everything seems normal in this family.
- Variant Cover: Evan "Doc" Shaner, Ariel Colón, Mike Deodato, and Mora himself contribute variant covers.
