| Captain Marvel | |
 | |
| General Information | |
| Real name: | Billy Batson |
| First Appearance: | Kingdom Come #2 (June, 1996) |
| Created by: | Mark Waid Alex Ross |
| Sex: | Male |
| Eyes: | Blue |
| Hair: | Black |
| Universe: | Earth-22 |
| Affiliations: | Mankind Liberation Front |
Billy Batson was active as a superhero known as Captain Marvel, until the world had changed around him to the point where he stopped calling on the name of Shazam.
History[]
Somewhere along the line as he grew into adulthood, Billy became a servant to Lex Luthor, becoming brainwashed through torture into believing that all superheroes were monsters and that he also had a monster within himself. Bruce Wayne, who temporarily aligned himself with Luthor's Mankind Liberation Front to discover his plans concerning the Justice League and the metahuman prison, the "Gulag", tried to reason with Billy when he also discovered Luthor's torture methods. Instead of listening, Billy fled and called on Shazam to become Captain Marvel, using the lightning power to break open the "Gulag" and to cause a massive meta-human war that threatened to engulf the Earth.
As the Secretary-General of the United Nations sent the Blackhawk Squadron to drop nuclear bombs that would destroy most meta-human lifeforms, Superman found himself relentlessly pummeled by Captain Marvel's lightning bolts until he ended up having Billy be struck by one of them, changing him back to Billy Batson. After Superman told Billy about the nuclear bomb that's about to drop on the warring superheroes, he transformed back into Captain Marvel and outraced Superman to reach the bomb first, calling upon Shazam's lightning power to ignite the bomb before it struck the earth, sacrificing himself in the process. The surviving heroes remembered this sacrifice by having Captain Marvel's cape be hung among the flags of the United Nations member countries as a memorial.
Influences in Other Media[]
- Captain Marvel's use of the Shazam lightning bolt against Superman during their one-on-one confrontation would be repeated in another similar battle between the two heroes in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Clash".
Trivia[]
- This version of Billy is one of the oldest, and looks exactly like his hero form.