A New Truth about Who Billy Batson and Captain Marvel/Shazam really are in this week's DC Comics (Spoilers)

Captain Marvel, also known as Shazam and now The Captain was created by C. C. Beck and Bill Parker in 1939 for Whiz Comics #2, published by Fawcett . He is the alter ego of the ten-year-old boy Billy Batson, who, by speaking the magic word SHAZAM, made up of the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury, is transformed into the adult Captain Marvel.

In the eighties, after the Crisis On Infinite Earths that was changed so that the personality of young Billy Batson is retained when he transforms into Captain Marvel, rather than treating them as two separate personalities. Future stories would emphasise that Captain Marvel was wiser than Billy Batson due to the power of Solomon, but would take the New 52 relaunch in 2011 to make a further change with Billy Batson now a cynical fostered fifteen-year-old, who learns the more heroic personality through experience as Captain Marvel, or Shazam. The DC Rebirth of 2016 aged Billy Batson and his siblings up further, and the Shazam films kept this distinction, basically a superhero version of Tom Hanks' Big. Now he has been renamed The Captain, but in tomorrow's Shazam #15, we learn a new way to define who Billy Batson and The Captain are in relation to one another. As, courtesy of a twisty turney plot they can speak to each other, separating them as personalities once again. But not quite.

The Captain is the same version of Billy Batson, just who has lived longer, much longer. And that is the Wisdom of Solomon in action. And Mark Waid gets to tell everyone what he thinks the relationship is, and make it as canon as it comes. Until the next time...

Shazam #15 by Josie Campbell and Emanuela Lupacchino is published tomorrow by DC Comics.