#shazam novelization

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Reading the Shazam novelization and learning some more little quirks of the Shazamily

Mary: (Helping evacuate a burning building) Was that everyone?

Pedro: (Carrying someone out) I- [cough] got them!

Eugene: Pe- General Marvel what the heck are you doing here?!

Billy, still new to the fam and confused: ??

Pedro: I [cough, wheeze] I’m okay

Darla: I’m on it! (Speeds away)

Billy: what-

Darla: Got it! (Gives Pedro his inhaler)

Freddy: He’s got athsma

Billy: ohhh

[dcbinges]

The Power of Shazam! (1994) by Jerry Ordway

[kenandeliza]

[KD READS] Captain Marvel's Storybook: Captain Marvel And The Gargoyle Men

BE WARNED: LONG POST AHEAD

Recently, I have discovered that there are still other Captain Marvel-related book titles that I haven't found yet, one of them is the "Storybook", where most of the story is in short novels with occasional comic book panels. I'll be writing a TL;DR for the 4th issue of this title because it's the one that I could find a clear scan to

I recommend you read it yourself though, because words can't describe how I love Billy's descriptive broadcasting/thought process

Mr Morris sent Billy to Egypt for an exciting scoop accompanied by his old friend, Prof Parkman to Egypt to uncover a tomb. By the time he got to Egypt, he rode with the professor on a jeep

but it was a bumpy ride and Billy tightened his grip on his seat, the driver stepped on the gas and it lunged Billy off from his seat, in a split second, Billy wanted to summon Captain Marvel, but he didn't want to, not yet. Billy went unconscious after that.

The Professor and the driver carried the boy to camp and called the doctor to check on Billy. The Dr stripped Billy, and ran his fingers over the ugly abrasions and contusions, making sure he was all right after being thrown off a Jeep

By midnight, while doing his broadcast, the egg the crew had mentioned earlier hatched, Billy couldn't see the monster but he grabbed onto it. Normally he could hang on tight, but after the Jeep incident, he's still weak

Billy lets go of the monster and tells the crew about it. The professor and the doctor claim that an Egyptian Magician or the hot desert sun must've played tricks on Billy and write it off

"We shouldn't have let him go on the air at all. I'll give him some pills, He'll be all right tomorrow."

When Billy was put to sleep, The professor told Mr morris about the story, which Mr Morris gloated, "I knew Billy would Get a fresh slant on those old Egyptian tomb Stories!", thinking that the monster the boy encountered was fake

The next day, Billy and the Professor found the tomb and began uncovering it, only to have a land slide happening each time. While that's going on, Billy overhears a conversation between the driver and an arab, conspiring to kill the crew.

Billy later warns the professor and has several men guard them while Billy starts his broadcast. Back in the US, many people tuned in to WHIZ, and in a few hours, Billy's broadcasts were already on the top of the charts.

With Billy's voice stopping abruptly and the shouting of men, the shootings, heard by the listeners, they cheered on for the Boy Reporter to be safe.

Billy would apologize for the dead air, and described the creatures they'd shot: Bipedal creatures with faces like gargoyles-"Just a minute, THEY'RE COMING BACK!!" Billy shouted

more gunshots are heard, more wailings of the Gargoyle men terrify the listeners.

A ghastly silence filled the thousands of radios. The soldiers screamed but Billy Batson was off the air from his station in Egypt.

Scientists would calm the listeners down, telling them that Billy is having hot weather hallucinations as it is very common. The Listeners gradually relaxed after being comforted by an expert in the field.

Meanwhile, Billy and the professor returned to consciousness, finally meeting the gargoyle face-to-face, creatures that could imitate faces and voices of people around them, this gargoyle imitated the voice of their driver, and the driver himself had joined the gargoyles.

The gargoyles stuffed the crew in molds, making perfect duplicates of the crew

The monster duplicate saw Billy and grinned, "It was Billy's own grin. He looked like the kind of fellow you would be glad to know, glad to have in your home. And he walked right up to Billy, as though he were an old friend, and struck Billy a crushing blow in the teeth"

The sun sets and the professor discovered something dire about these gargoyles.

"What are we going to do?" asked Billy

The professor shrugged hopelessly, "I am a man of science, not of action. I don't know what to do!"

The crew would overhear the Gargoyle's plot to release their eggs to the International Egypt Airport to spread the Gargoyles around the world.

Once Billy found a small opening for his mouth to breathe after being enclosed in clay, he shouted the magic word.

Marvel would later catch a glimpse of the Queen controlling the gargoyles and charged towards her.

The queen commanded her gargoyles to kill Captain Marvel, but as the Captain dodged, she flung herself on him, Marvel would loosen his cape and flung her back, her body wrapped around the white cape. Her gargoyles, still mistaking her as Captain Marvel followed her orders, "KILL".

And so one by one, they struck her down, and Captain Marvel would hear a piercing agonizing scream. Once the queen was dead, the rest of the Gargoyles followed suit.

Billy would then return to his broadcast, not reporting the gargoyles ["I think we had better not say anything about this, we'll make excuses as much as we can, blaming it on the desert heat. The terror is over now, there's no need to frighten people unnecessarily"]. Instead, Billy reports on the tomb he was visiting earlier.

The ending has the driver going insane and dies, Billy read about his death on a newspaper

I love this type of storytelling because it shows me an insight to what Billy's thinking at a moment in greater detail, and a mutual of mine said that the ending is similar to a Greek story. IAlso love the part where Fawcett citizens are immediately panicking once they know their precious boy newscaster is in danger that they'd want to speak to the manager (MR Morris XD)

Honestly, there are so much that I left out in this story to make this tumblr post, if you are curious, here is the link to it

Bye for now!

[jonmcbrine-author]

So that’s who really appeared at the end of the first Shazam movie

[zannolin]

@define-lying replied to your post “writing my fics and planning the notes in advance...”:

Wait I’ve always been confused about this because of the scene in the first movie where the boys hide in Darla’s room and she learns the secret. Was there another bed in the room that I missed? Where was Mary during that scene? Genuinely would love your insight

​yes SO. i have two pieces of evidence for this and if you really wanted it to, it could go either way but i will discuss that shortly. so exhibit A, we have this passage in the shazam junior novel (chapter 8) which originally planted the thought in my mind:

They could hear Rosa coming up the stairs. There was no time- no way they'd make it to Freddy's room. Billy opened the first door they came to, yanking Freddy in behind him and slamming it shut. He turned around, heart hammering, and there, in the darkened room, was Darla. She was sitting up in bed, staring at them, her eyes wide with fear. In the other bed, Mary slept soundly, earplugs in and eye mask on. "Billy? Freddy?" Rosa called from the hallway. They heard her footsteps pass Darla and Mary's door and head farther back toward Freddy's room.

(they do explain why she doesn't wake up during this scene and yes it's because of the mask and earplugs and personally i thought it was hilarious)

so there's that, of course, and we'll come back to the canonicity of this momentarily. there's also exhibit B: the deleted scene of darla and billy having a tea party, wherein you can see a second bed (and two desks) in darla's room:

this bed is not visible at all during the main scene in darla's room so i actually thought the room was much smaller than it actually is. it's hard for me to make out some of the details because youtube quality but i'm not really seeing anything that's explicitly mary's, but the entire room DOES look lived in so take that as you will.

NOW. this can go either way for a couple reasons. first, the junior novel is arguably not canon. some events are changed towards the end, and it follows the earlier/alternate version of sivana's backstory from the deleted scenes. the wizard also like straight up dies, but then again it really seemed like he did in the original before fotg so i'll cut that some slack. however, this is dc we're talking about. doesn't everyone just cherrypick canon from the comics anyway? jk but really i do what i want. secondly, there's also the argument of the canonicity of deleted scenes, but i feel like that's kind of neither here nor there for this one since it seems to have just been cut for runtime or something, not because it alters the story in any way. thirdly you could just make the argument that there happens to be another bed in darla's room for purposes of, idk, taking more kids in at some future point, because there's actually two sets of bunk beds in billy and freddy's room.

i will elaborate on this because i've been wanting to talk about it for ages but could never find an excuse. you can see in the first scene in the room that one set is to the right of the door upon entering, are parallel to each other, and pretty low to the ground:

while the billy sneaks out scene shows the ones they sleep on has the bottom one perpendicular to the top. you can see in the scene where the kids come in after victor tells him off that billy is sitting on this bottom bunk, and the beds are placed across from the door, in the corner of the room we don't really see much in any other scenes, which is why it's not something i caught on my first or second watch:

sidenote this room is shaped so weirdly my brain cannot comprehend it. also did anyone else notice his fully packed backpack sitting there on the bed? he was totally gonna run after this :) anyway if you pay attention you can see they're a lot taller than the other set; they actually stand next to them when freddy is showing billy his batarang. more unnecessary shots to prove my point (note how you can see the unused set in the background):

point being if you wanted to give mary her own room you could just make the argument that the novel isn't official canon and the bed is just there for in case they get another kid. but i think the original intent is that mary and darla share a room, just going off the junior novel, which also gives a valid and entertaining explanation for where mary was during the scene that took place in darla's room (or alternatively, you can go with the option presented in the billy sneaks out scene that she's just up late when everyone else is asleep or something). it can go either way but my instinct is yeah they share a room (there's only so many rooms in this house, after all, and there's eight of them) it's just never explicitly stated in the movie.

thank you for coming to my highly unnecessary TED talk.

[waitingonher]

ELECTRIC TOUCH — [jason grace dating headcanons]

author's note: i need 2024 to be THE year. 2023 did me soooo dirty. im praying

dating JASON GRACE would be like dating someone from a regency era romance novel…he’s just SUCH a hopeless romantic but he would rather die than admit it.

in the initial first few weeks of dating, jason was sosososooooo shy about pda/physical touch. it’s not that he was uncomfortable, he LOVES physical touch, but he had just gone so long without it that he wasn’t used to it. but eventually, he warms up to it…and now he can’t go without having at least one part of him touching you 😭 

when it came to things like hugs, kisses, handholding, etc. jason would always wait for you to initiate it because he was so anxious about making you uncomfortable ?? fjsldfjs 

but when you communicated that he didn’t need to ask/wait for you all the time, jason started initiating things more. even still, he occasionally gets nervous to even hold your hand? like wdym you’ve been dating for over six months and you still get nervous doing simple couple things 😭 it’s very endearing though 

chivalry is NOT dead,, and it’s because of jason LMAO. he’s the type to swap shoes with you even though you’re wearing heels that are 3x too small for him, but hey, at least your feet don’t hurt anymore!

jason’s also hellbent on carrying things for you, opening doors for you, pulling out/pushing in chairs for you, etc… GOD HE’S SO CUTE. 

since dating him, you don’t think you’ve ever touched a single door or car handle when he’s with you. 

jason is NOT afraid to advocate or stand up for you, especially if you’re more on the quiet & non-confrontational side. if you’re in a group setting and someone interrupts you, he’s making sure you get your chance to say what you wanted to say. and he doesn’t do it in a way that leaves you embarrassed, he’s very very classy with it! 

if you’re a big music person, jason will literally learn your favorite artist’s entire discography so you guys have another thing to talk about. 

you guys also have a shared playlist of “your songs” and he’s so serious about it 😭 if jason hears a song that even remotely reminds him of you, he’s going to the ends of the earth to figure out what it’s called. 

rip to anyone around him if shazam doesn’t work! he’s gonna send voice messages to your big group chat humming the tune, but he’s so tone deaf that no one knows the song…and his search history is just variations of “song that goes du du ooh du ooh du du ooh” a for effort though babes…

jason’s love languages are definitely acts of service and quality time. over the years and throughout the many battles he’s fought, he’s come to realize that all he wants to do when he comes home is just spend time with his loved ones. 

after a busy day, you’ll come home to find your laundry folded, bed sheets washed & freshly made, along with a sweet little note from jason <3 

your guys’ thing are writing notes to each other. considering his and your busy schedule, you’ll write and leave tiny notes around the house for each other to find. it’s one of the many reasons why jason gets up in the morning. 

he loves coming home to you after a long day to simply melt in your arms. there’s just something so soothing about cuddling with you after a busy day. 

it does not matter where you are, you guys could literally be cleaning the camp toilets and he’d still be able to find the fun in it. you’re his home, and he’d follow you wherever you go. 

if you play sports, you already know he’s showing up to ALL your games. it doesn’t matter if it’s pouring rain or if it’s hours away, he’s absolutely determined to show his support. jason even makes posters with your jersey number and when you have big tournaments he’ll show up with posters of your face 😭 the refs are SO tired of jason help

i feel like if he really tried, jason would be a good cook. 

one day you sent him a recipe you saw online saying you wanted to make it with him, but then he decided to make it himself to surprise you. and it was actually so good??? 

JASON IN A “KISS THE COOK” APRON OMFG. that’s what you got him for his birthday and every single time without fail, he’ll wear it when he’s cooking. 

one of his hidden talents is that he’s super good at origami. he originally picked it up because he heard it was a good stress reliever, but now he also does it for you <3 

he loves your reaction when he gives you little paper rings or an origami version of your favorite animal! 

this guy DREAMS of domesticity. he’s always been the type to date to marry, and that’s just what he intends to do with you! even though you guys are still young, he’s been planning your proposal sfjfls

tell me why he already knows what kind of ring he wants to get you… omg. 

he really wants to just settle down with you in new rome. but honestly, he’s willing to do anything as long as you’re at his side. 

expect flowers from jason at least once a month! he even keeps one flower so he knows when it’s time to get you a new bouquet. and if he’s away, he’ll get one of his friends to deliver it! 

i have this headcanon that the aphrodite cabin teams up with the hephaestus cabin to throw a really elaborate party, essentially like prom. anyways, jason would go all out for your promposal jfdsls i feel like he would either do a super funny poster/proposal like y’know that one guy who did that medieval promposal 😭 yeah well jason would do something like that but like...more roman... LMFAO him pulling up to your place in a chariot 

or he would do something super super intricate and planned out…like a fancy picnic and then he’d have the fauns arrange fireflies to spell out “prom?” when it’s dark out. 

ugh! jason grace the man that you are… <3 best bf ever,, i can confirm btw

[yellowocaballero]

SHAZAM SHAZAM SHAZAM pls tell us about billy batson. ive only ever seen the movies o great comic knower

Very very very VERY far from comic expert (that's brawltogethernow) but I have read a lot of Shazam. His history is actually really, really fascinating and involves more than one lawsuit that really defined very early comics. I'll focus on one thing, though.

There are two Captain Marvels: One from the 1940s to around 2013, and one from 2013 til now. The Captain Marvel you're familiar with (who is named Shazam) is from 2013. He's a more realistic, grounded character. He was created to be pretty much the polar opposite of his original version. The best summary is to say that the Wizard chose Billy Batman 1940 because he had the purest heart, and the Wizard chose Billy Batson ~2013 because he was there. My personal 'best' Shazam story is the "Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil" graphic novel by the guy who made Bone. It's good because it's for elementary schoolers yet acknowledges this small child as homeless. Which, don't get me wrong, you shouldn't always do. My personal favorite is the 1970s ones.

As some background: Otto Binder was the creator/main writer of the very early Captain Marvel comics. He was by far and away the best writer of the early Superman Silver Age comics, because all of his comics were batshit insane. Shazam has a complicated and legal history with Superman, so the 1970 run was a super fun high camp tongue in cheek reinvention of the best Silver Age stories.

So the 1970 Captain Marvel comics are insane.

I can't even summarize them without sounding crazy. Basically the conceit is that Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, and Mary Marvel (Billy, Freddy, and Mary) are having 1940s Golden Age Adventures when they get somehow in suspended animation and are basically time travelled to the 1970s. This don't bother them too much. Why would it bother them. Nothing bothers these people. Nothing. I don't think anybody experiences a negative emotion in these comics. Not bc they were twee. Bc they were insane.

Many of the comics basically had three shorter comics inside it: one Billy story, one Mary story, one Freddy story. Interestingly, they all had different art styles, artists, types of story, genre, etc. Billy's stories had a cartoony art style with very over-the-top and silly plotlines that involved supervillain bad dudes. Freddy's art was slightly more realistic and was slighty more grounded, but still had some classic Marvel indescribable scifi that can best be summarized as that one meme panel people have seen where Sivana recites a science equation that lets him walk through walls. Mary's stories were much more realistically drawn and featured the most banal shit, like her starting a club with her friends. Somehow Mary Marvel gets involved in those.

Sometimes they worked together and did superhero things and fought bad guys. The average fight looked like this:

Billy was a twelve year old who lived by himself, in his own apartment, had his own radio show, a full-ass job, a whole thing as Captain Marvel. He paid fucking taxes. Everybody knew this and nobody cared. He's the most affable, good natured kid on the face of the planet. Nothing bothers him. Nothing. Nothing bothers any of these people. Sivana shows up and he's BIG MAD so he's creating another death ray and Captain Marvel shows up like "Oh you rascal! Time to punch this and go back to helping my friend eat his infinite Jello."

He has a friend named Talky Tawny, who is a talking tiger wearing a suit. He also has a friend named Sunny Smiles, a person of indeterminate gender who everybody falls in love with, for unexplained and unknown reasons. Not to be confused with Freddy's friend Gregory Gosharootie, the "World's Dullest Mortal", who is so boring that nobody notices him and he keeps accidentally comitting crime. There is also an old guy named Uncle Marvel who pretends he has superpowers, which they all find funny so they just roll with it. Freddy is a disabled orphan who has to sell papers on the street corner to make a living. Mary lives in a middle class suburban home with loving foster parents. It never once seems to occur to Mary's parents to adopt Billy, for Freddy to live with Billy. Everybody is happiest this way.

I do think this is partly why a good Shazam comic has to be aimed at the 6-12yo demographics. They have to be for small children, because Billy is living a complete and utter power fantasy that only a ten year old would think is a good idea. He's a kid, and he doesn't have drag parents or a lame family, but he can turn into Superman, and he can also do magic, and everybody loves him and thinks he's the nicest person, and his supervillains are Dr. Doofenschmirtz and a worm, and his supporting cast is like okay my sister if she HAS to be involved, but also my best friend who is a paperboy! but cool because he's disabled, and….

Look, you could engage with that seriously. You could go "holy shit this is a homeless child". That's fine. That's what they do these days, and that's what they did in the movies. Nothing wrong with that. Take the story more seriously.

But also they don't give a worm the electric chair in those stories, so.

To actually give some commentary on these comics: these comics really love people. I've never seen comics that were so entrenched in their community. The kids just know everybody they meet on the street. Freddy delivers paper up and down every block, so an average story for him is just talking to a butcher or baker or old man or grumpy housewife and helping them out with some batshit problem. Mary's a sweet girl who's always starting clubs with her friends and taking on neighborhood projects. Many Billy stories involve one of his many friends falling into some trouble and Captain Marvel helping them out - or just exploring some fun with Billy hanging out with Sunny Smiles, who is a person of indeterminate gender who for some reason has magic love brainwashing powers -

This isn't the biggest #Shazam take, but I think a good Shazam story stays grounded in that. These are poor street kids who love Fawcett City so damn much. They love fighting their supervillains, but they love helping out the random guy off the street with their problems even more. Way more so than Spider-Man or a lot of other guys, I think of the Marvel family as the friendly neighborhood superheroes. They're both larger than life and street level. They're Superman level powers but they just use the powers for wrapping up their hijinks. Isn't that nice? Aren't you tired of going apeshit? Don't you just want to be nice?

[pluckyredhead]

☕️judd winick

Judd Winick has written some very very good comics and some very very bad comics and a lot of comics that fall somewhere in between. Which I guess is true of everyone and not that helpful of an answer, lol.

He is hands down the best writer Jason has ever had - Under the Red Hood and Lost Days are excellent. Superman/Shazam: First Thunder is wonderful. His Green Lantern is largely very good. His Green Arrow started out strong, and his Outsiders run had excellent characterization and introduced some fantastic characters (Grace, Anissa, Shift).

And I think his heart is really in the right place: he came into comics like "I am going to right about GAY RIGHTS and HIV AWARENESS and NO ONE CAN STOP ME." The way he did that often wound up being kind of preachy, or, in the case of his Green Lantern run and the Terry Berg storyline, centering the feelings of the straight hero rather than the gay supporting character, but the more I study the queer history of comics, the more I realize how genuinely boundary-pushing this stuff still was in the early 2000s. (And to be clear, I was reading most of this as it came out in the 2000s and going "Judd, everyone knows this"...but everyone didn't, and the comics industry really didn't.)

But over the course of the 2000s, his work got worse and worse, and with the exception of Lost Days, most of his writing from the back half of the decade is just unreadably bad. I don't know how much of that was him and how much of that was editorial interference (because editorial was infamously meddle-y during that era and Winick's later work was very much in line with the tone they seemed to be looking for across the board), but everything was just relentlessly violent and hateful and exploitative. I ragequit Green Arrow after the issue where Dr. Light waxes rhapsodic about how much he loves raping women, and picked it up again for the Ollie/Dinah wedding only to drop it again when Ollie called Dinah a slut and she hit him and this was treated as foreplay. His New 52 Catwoman was so bad that his Wikipedia article talks about it being bad. Like, bro, what happened???

Anyway, he seems to be doing very well with his graphic novels for kids and I'm happy for him, but I do still wish he'd come back for one really homoerotic Red Hood/Arsenal team up. Just channel that one issue of Outsiders where Dick beats Roy up to cure his PTSD and the bit in Lost Days where Jason calls himself daddy and really go to town, that's all I'm asking.

[witchesoz]

The Wicked Witches of the West (4)

When creators try to diverge from the 1939 iconic look of the Wicked Witch of the West but still want to be inspired by it or pay homage to it, there are two different roads. One is to simply create something that looks like it enough but isn't the same (see my previous post). Another is to keep the defining features of the MGM witch, but sprinkle over it elements from the original description of the Wicked Witch. Like in this cover of the "Scary Fairy Tales" book series:

A demonstration of such a "mix" is the mini-series "Dorothy and the Witches of Oz", where they took back the overall look of the MGM Wicked Witch (black outfit, greenish skin, tall and skinny with "witch features") but added numerous details referencing the book version of the Witch. Being much more older looking, much more "dry" looking, having an eye-patch, holding an umbrella rather than a broom...

A more recent example would be the TV show "Agatha All Along", where the titular character of Agatha at one points is turned into a version of the Wicked Witch directly formed out of the MGM movie (black outfit, green skin, witchy-facial features) and of the Baum novel (the jacket is clearly designed as Denslow' outfit for the Witch of the West).

Also shout-out to Rio, who is also one of the Wicked Witch-coded characters of the mini-series, despite nobody seemingly acknowledging it? I mean come on... She has a green colored motif, even being "The Green Witch", she is the main antagonist after "Dorothy and her dog" (Agatha and "Toto"), she has the iconic witch cackle during the broom-flying scene, AND (spoiler alert) in the final episode she appears cackling on a rooftop the same way the Wicked Witch appeared on the roof of the Tin Man's cabin.

A third example of a "mixed-witch" pops up in the Shazam comics: in one of the recent re-creations of the "Monster Society of Evil", the Wicked Witch of the West appears, and she is basically designed after Denslow's drawings, but with her clothes being various shades of black and her skin being green - plus riding a broomstick.

Speaking of the use of Denslow's drawings, I want to make a shout-out to the episode "Tornado Prom", from "That 70s Show", who is one of the rare times an homage to Oz decided to go with the Denslow design for the Wicked Witch of the West instead of paying homage to the MGM movie.

Since we are talking about diverging "MGM Wicked Witches", alternate takes on the Hamilton-Witch, I want to speak about "Wild at Heart". David Lynch's movie is one of the famous "Oz movies not about Oz", as despite adapting a completely unrelated novel, Lynch worked in his film a LOT of his personal obsession with MGM's The Wizard of Oz. And while people speak a lot about the Munchkin references, the Yellow Brick Road lines, or the apparition of Glinda at the end of the movie, I want to highlight the character of Marietta Fortune, the main antagonist, who is explicitely compared to the Wicked Witch. At one point, when talking about her mother and the dark things she did for her, Lula hallucinates Marietta riding a broom in a witch-outfit right next to their car in the night-sky. And later, when Marietta has a mental breakdown, she covers her face and hands in lipstick, resulting in her skin looking bright red - a nod to the bright green skin of the Witch of the West (plus, her long pink fingernails evoke the green claws Hamilton wore).

[gangseysallhere]

EXCLUSIVE: Claire McCarthy has added seven to the cast of Shiver, her adaptation of the New York Times bestselling YA fantasy novel by Maggie Stiefvater. The newcomers are Sofia Wylie (The Map That Leads to You), Iman Vellani (The Marvels), Lyon Daniels (The Spiderwick Chronicles), Alexander Ludwig (Earth Abides), Ross Butler (Shazam! Fury of the Gods), Alicia Witt (Longlegs), and Oscar nominee Greg Kinnear (As Good As It Gets).

As previously announced, Maddie Ziegler and Levi Miller star. Production in Vancouver is underway.

Adapted for the screen by McCarthy and Jett Tattersall, Shiver follows Grace, who was attacked by a pack of wolves as a child. However, one of them—a yellow-eyed wolf — saved her, creating an inexplicable bond between them. Years later, she meets a young man named Sam with the exact same yellow eyes and immediately feels a connection to him. Their love story unfolds against the backdrop of mystical events, mysterious disappearances, and intrigues that reveal to Grace the true nature of Sam and his connection to the wolves. At the same time, as winter approaches, Sam must fight to hold on to his humanity — or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

(…) The film is being eyed as the first in a new franchise by the recently launched Simple House Films, which developed and fully financed the project.

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Top 7 things the Shazam novelization mentioned

Billy had a stick of dynamite in his mouth Freddy blew up

The deleted scene of Billy sharing his cheesesteaks with a homeless woman in the subway

Superhero insurance exists! Yay!

Sivana killing a mansions full of people

Billy got hit by a car once, ouchie

Billy trying to dead lift a building

Billy making exceptions about taking pictures and autographs for a fee when he saw a little girl get sad

[dcbinges]

The Power of Shazam! (1994) by Jerry Ordway

[smashpages]

Out this week: Barkham Asylum (DC, $12.99): 

This new young adult graphic novel is about Batman’s villains’ pets — specifically the Joker’s dog, Jester, who teams up with a stray cat named Penny while locked up in Barkham Asylum to investigate what a Shar Pei named Dr. Hugo Mange is really up to. Yehudi Mercado, creator of the recent Shazam! Thundercrack, is wrote and drew this one.

See what other comics and graphic novels will arrive at your local comic shop this week.

[protytwo]

My covers (front and back) for A Tale of Two Proties #111 in Interlac #289, June 2024. I repurposed panels from Superboy #220 by Mike Grell and Bob Wiacek. In my zine I discussed the Octobriana graphic novel published in the Czech Republic last year, a treasury sized Shazam reprinting classic Fawcett Captain Marvel stories, old Legion comics, and some conversation and responses to Interlac #288.

[phoenixtakaramono]

Re: Where to Read the Four Butchlander Threadfics on Twitter & Status Update about Them

Whelp, guess what, everyone? Your girl’s Twitter account got shadowbanned for the first time. And pretty much the threadfics are inaccessible until the ban gets lifted. (Let’s hope everything’s back to normal soon. 😭)

The threadfics in question (M3GAN-inspired AU, Fix-It AU, and Sugar Baby AU are the long WIPs; the Vampire & Lycan Hunter AU is the only one complete):

And like I was somewhat expecting, with my account currently submerged in the ether (fingers crossed nothing’s affected and everything’s back to normal once I’m back so we can return to our regular schedule threadfic updates on Twitter), another person’s reached out to me about it:

The Asks in question:

These threadfics were always intended to exist on Twitter as the first draft prototypes where I can write spontaneously and see what works, what doesn’t, and make them reader-interactive so pretty much my readers influence important story decisions for whichever threadfic it is. Then if I were to migrate these threadfics over to AO3, the intention was always to flesh them out more and polish them up, maybe change a couple story elements so there’s a point of difference between what’s on AO3 versus what’s on my Twitter (as an analogy, think of an author’s original webnovel version they uploaded on their website versus the professional light novel version they’ve polished up for publication) to keep it fresh. This migration was supposed to happen after all four chapters of Truce are complete and the only Butchlander fic I have left on AO3 that would still be ongoing would be The Name of the Game, which frees up my workload.

So currently, where we are right now, I am seriously considering moving up the schedule if, after 1 week (10/29/23), my account on Twitter is still Shazamed. I have heard shadowbans range from 2-3 days, to 3-5 days where it’s best if I don’t use the app in this duration of time, before escalating to Twitter Support if it persists. Same goes if my account is restored and I still get shadowbanned in the future for updating any of these 3 long threadfics.

Because, at that point, I might as well just port them over to AO3 if this keeps happening and save myself the headache. But this will have to be tested out. If I see it is truly unsustainable due to Twitter’s current unfriendliness to 🔞 threadfics (😒 …it used to be an ultra friendly platform for such, till you showed up El0n Musk), then I’ll just stop writing 🔞 threadfics all together.

The one thing I will have to say, though, is being a very detail-oriented multi-fandom writer who’s trying to be fair by adhering to the update schedule, for any new content, updates will be slow. Unlike Twitter where I can churn out 25 tweets at a time per update, you’ll be looking at weeks or months per chapter update on AO3 since three of them will be turned into genuine long stories. Quicker updates depend on how much content already exist on Twitter to be adapted from before the time of migration! Let’s see how it goes! ✌️

[ryukang1995]

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe counterparts/matchups

Superman = Raiden - The ultimate defenders of their worlds. Superman is like a god while Raiden is literally one...well, before New MK1 came along.

Batman = Liu Kang - The greatest human defenders of their respective teams...at least before Liu Kang became the Fire God. Both are expert martial artists and have an animal motif going on (Liu Kang has a dragon theme while Batman's is self-explanatory).

Wonder Woman = Kitana - Warrior princesses from other worlds. Depending on which version you're going with, they also have close relationships with Batman and Liu Kang.

Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) = Kuai Liang (Scorpion/Sub-Zero) - Members of councils who often share their mantles with other figures in the canon (Hal is part of the Green Lantern Corps while Kuai Liang is a member of the Lin Kuei clan, and later the Shirai Ryu clan in New MK1). Green Lantern's ring and Sub-Zero's ice often function similarly with both of them being able to create practically anything with them.

The Flash = Kabal - Super speedsters who often can be snarky.

Aquaman = Rain - Royal figures who are hydrokinetic and can manipulate the weather.

Deathstroke = Hanzo Hasashi (Scorpion) - Top ranking assassins who left behind their families from previous lives.

Catwoman = Sonya Blade - Arguably the most recognizable female characters besides Wonder Woman and Kitana, they're often on opposite sides of the law since Sonya is a Special Forces agent while Catwoman is a burglar. They too have close relationships with Batman and Liu Kang (mostly in my works based on MK, and even in the Jeff Rovin novel).

Dick Grayson (Robin/Nightwing) = Kung Lao - The partners/sidekicks to Batman and Liu Kang, they too are skilled martial artists.

Cyborg = Jax - African-American males who are cybernetically enhanced.

Starfire = Li Mei - Female fighters who can fire plasma/nova blasts. They also have close relationships with Dick Grayson and Kung Lao (at least in my works based on MK).

Raven = Ermac - Figures who use telepathy and dark magic.

Beast Boy = Nightwolf - Characters who can morph into animals.

Shazam = Fujin - Godly figures who are somewhat connected to Superman and Raiden.

The Joker = Kano - Psychopathic criminals with a penchant for knives and a twisted sense of humor.

Harley Quinn = Mileena - Seductive yet playful and twisted femme fatales.

Green Arrow = Kung Jin - Archers who are also skilled martial artists.

Black Canary = Sindel - Authority figures who are also mothers and have ultrasonic screams.

Blue Beetle = Takeda - Young heroes who have an insect motif.

Booster Gold = Johnny Cage - Egotistical celebrity heroes.

Katana = Kenshi - Japanese fighters who wield swords that have the souls of family members trapped in them.

Sinestro = Bi Han (Sub-Zero/Noob Saibot) - Darker foils to Green Lantern and Kuai Liang who used to fight for good until they became villains who invoke fear.

Killer Croc = Reptile - Sideshow freaks with a strong reptilian theme.

Lobo = Baraka - Deadly otherworldly beings.

Bane = Goro - Behemoth fighters with a level of intellect. They also have pivotal roles against Batman and Liu Kang (while Bane broke Batman's back, Liu Kang defeated Goro to become the Mortal Kombat champion).

Doctor Fate = Shang Tsung - Sorcerers.

Lex Luthor = Quan Chi - Power-mad and intellectual villains.

Darkseid = Shao Kahn - Tyrannical rulers bent on conquering worlds.

That's all for now. I did leave some characters out, but these are who I could think of at the moment. If you view them differently, it's all good.