#talky tawny

[browsethestacks]

Shazam #018 (2024)

Art by Javier Pulido

Edit: Not by Dan McDaid but by Javier Pulido. Thanks to @vertigoartgore for the heads up. Today's lesson, don't post on public transportation.

[sarahreadstoomanycomics]

Shazam! # 11 variant cover by Brandt & Stein

[kamenwriter]

[wwprice1]

Two brilliant Chris Samnee covers arriving from DC Comics in September!

[the-antiapocalyptic-man]

Captain William "Thunder" Batson, photographed shortly before his sixteenth birthday, on the Kahndaqi front of the Third World War. Billy was always accompanied by his cat, Talky, pictured as well.

While Black Adam was well-known for getting into one-on-one altercations--"duels" if you will--with other metahumans, The Young Captain was his most frequent opponent. Batson would later write that the first time he and Teth ("Theo" as Billy often referred to Adam as in retrospect) fought, he spent the whole fight screaming about how Billy had "stolen his face, taken his face." Billy would eventually discover that the body Mamaragan had given him in his capacity as Champion of Shazam was the same one Teth's son had used eons ago.

By the end of the war, both Billy and Teth would completely withdraw from public life. Billy recommitted himself to his writing and work as a journalist and reporter, while Teth ceded control over Kahndaq to an elected council, with his loyalists--the Black Marvel Family--watching over the newly peaceful country and ousting any remnants of Intergang and Team 7 attempting to harass the populace.

[kilowogcore]

Look at his eyes! Those are the eyes of a man/tiger who is contemplating horrors...

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Tawny assures everyone he can drink, he’s never been one to turn down a few with his old pal Dudley and he isn’t one to turn down what the heroes have to offer. He just says Captain Marvel can’t have any for Champion reasons, being an enemy of the Seven Deadly Sins and all he can’t contribute to bad habits is the lie they go with.

Everyone who has a semi-normal metabolism is embarrassed that a talking tiger drank them under the table while Billy happily munched on snacks and became the sole reason the chocolate fountain ran dry half an hour into the event.

jl invites their new member captain marvel to a black tie event and says he can have a plus one so of course billy needs to bring mr tawky tawny

cue an entrance that involves a lot of panic and screaming

who let a tiger in here?!!

[dogwithglasses]

Mr Tawny was my gender for like a year in high school

[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?

[momachan]

"-Captain Marvel must never be daunted by the odds-- you are the guardian of all those who cannot defend themselves. -But I'm just a little kid. -You are Captain Marvel."

- Billy Batson and Tawny.

Shazam!: The monster society of evil.

[dccomicsnews]

Review: Shazam #14

Review: SHAZAM #14

  [Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writer: Geoff Johns

Artists: Dale Eaglesham, Scott Kolins

Colours: Michael Atiyeh

Letters: Rob Leigh

  Reviewed By: Derek McNeil

  Summary

Shazam #14: After a night battling robots across the globe, Billy Batson finds out not everyone loves superheroes when one of his teachers unleashes a lecture on the ethics of unchecked…

[browsethestacks]

Shazam

Art by Doc Shaner

[sarahreadstoomanycomics]

Shazam! #10 cover by Dan Mora

[thebestcomicbookpanels]

Shazam!  C.C. Beck draws Captain Marvel in this 1974 group shot.  Why isn’t Talky Tawny in this picture?  A talking tiger always spices up any art.

[easilydistractedandamused]

As it turns out, I really like writing out my Headcanon’s so here are some more that resolve mostly around Shazam (as always):

Billy is always thrown off by the height difference whenever he turns into Shazam. The magic makes it easier but for a few seconds he has to adjust to the new body. Vic is the only one who knows

Since his body always feels so foreign to him, he has to depend on his instincts and that’s where most of his mistakes when working with the League come from

He rarely makes the same mistake twice

Batman and Cyborg are the only ones who notice this

Because of his years on the street he has a hard time trusting people and showing that he cares which causes him frustration. 

he reacts badly when people sneak up on him 

The JL members all get it and tend to make sure not to sneak up on any members anyway as a lot of the members don’t react well to being snuck up on

he has food stashes hidden in multiple areas. One in his room at the Watchtower. Two in the rec room. Another in the infirmary. 

Batman and Superman are the only ones who’ve ever noticed these stashes. 

Clark doesn’t know who the food stashes belongs to and is concerned but thinks they might be for emergencies like the day Flash accidentally eats all the food. 

Bruce knows exactly what they are due to Jason who did the same thing when he adopted him that he never really grew out of and looked into it. He was very shocked it was Shazam but figured it was a left over habit from when he was kid and starts to keep a closer eye on him

Billy noticed and didn’t appreciate it but never knew what started Batman watching Shazam like a hawk

Everyone thinks Shazam doesn’t have taste buds because he can eat just about everything (including Wonder Woman’s first attempts at cooking) but Billy is just used to making himself eat foods he didn’t particularly like.

Billy, not Shazam, Billy, is a lot smarter than he looks. He acts naive because a lot of people will assume he is easier to manipulate when, in fact, he is manipulating them. Typically for information.

Black Adam is the only one of his enemies that realizes he’s smarter then he acts. Sivanna is too self absorbed to ever realize and Black Adam is too amused by this to tell him

Vic is the only member on the Justice League to know this though he isn’t aware of just how much smarter he is because he doesn’t know how to tell when he’s faking ignorance on a subject yet (he’s pretty sure Billy doesn’t understand advanced robotics and his confusion when they’re facing them and Batman using technical terms is real)

Darla and Freddy are perfectly aware of how smart Billy is and go to him when they need help with homework. He considers it a small price to pay for their silence when really he doesn’t mind helping them out

It has nothing to do with the Wisdom of the Gods. He is genuinely a smart person and is stifled in his current grade. 

He doesn’t mind too much as it made it easier for him to hide being homeless as he did the bare minimum of work to pass his classes without catching his teachers attention.

He knows how to read most ancient languages due to growing up surrounded by them and can keep up a casual conversation even before getting the Living Lightning which taught him more.

Black Adam insulted his accent once (”well excuse me for not remembering a language I learned at three”) but tends to help him out in the languages his powers aren’t much help with

He knows how to pick a lock with just about anything

is a bargaining master. he bought ten shirts for a dollar.

Catching him in a lie is nearly impossible as he has had to learn how to growing up to explain bruises and other injuries or that he was living on the streets.

he didn’t lie to Darla and Freddy because he knew they wouldn’t believe him anyway.

They were angry when they figured this out

He is good at planning ahead and thinking on his feet. The League was very surprised by this when a mission went sideways and he was able to handle himself perfectly despite being separated from everyone and managed to avoid a diplomatic incident with the locals

Vic was not surprised by this at all because their usual hang out was him planning ahead. Not too far from the city that he couldn’t reach it on foot but just far enough that no one would notice and investigate any sounds

his patrol is literally just him walking around town in costume and sometimes he’ll bring another member along. Fawcett citizens have long since gotten used to this and don’t even blink at the sight even more

He brings Vic the most because it’s the closest he can get to taking a casual stroll since the accident

Billy was touch starved for the longest time. he could handle going hungry but the loneliness was the worst part of being homeless if anyone asked him but he has an ongoing relationship with prostitutes and drug dealers and would often curl against them for hours if they’d let him.

They always did

Billy has what he refers to as a “quota” of human contact to keep loneliness at bay as he doesn’t like people touching him without his permission

Vic usually invites physical contact to work around this

He has a tendency of just...draping himself across people’s backs no matter the form he’s in because if they react badly to the touch, he has enough time to either cling to them or run away before they turn around.

the person he does this most to is Vic as touch is now rare for him since the accident and Billy doesn’t want him to feel lonely like he had. He tends to do it more as Shazam as it takes some careful positioning to do it in his human form due to the height difference

He has bodily thrown himself at Darla’s back once when he realized he hadn’t had any human contact in a while. The Vasquez’s assumed they were wrestling.

Due to his magic being electricity based, he has the ability to sense electrical impulses though it’s far stronger as Shazam (a fact that he’s glad for because as Billy it sometimes keeps him up enough as it is)

It also allows him to access computers and the like and if he wanted to, he could connect to the internet but he only does that during movie nights and is slowly getting better at it.

He doesn’t sleep longer then three to four hours at a time

He can still use magic in his human form but it tires him out quickly and when he first started learning, it would cause him physical pain.

The transformation left scars the first time and if he turns back into Shazam too quickly without giving his body proper time to rest, his human form gains more scars

He tends to hide the scars with makeup so as to not cause concern but only when he knows he won’t be able to wear his sweater in advance as it both takes time and makeup can be expensive so he’d rather not use it if he won’t need to

He sometimes dog sits for Hades and has been teaching the hell-hounds all sorts of tricks. He hopes to one day acquire a puppy hell hound

Has a genuinely good relationship with most of the Gods but plainly informed them that after cleaning up their messes for a certain length of time, he is allowed to talk to them however he wanted to.

He only really insults Zeus as the King of the Gods creates the most messes out of the rest and they, at the very least, show him gratitude for doing it and while a lot of them have the bad habit of acting like it’s an honor, they still give him small gifts.

Persephone adores him

He also gets along fairly well with the Seven Deadly enemies of man and will sometimes have conversations with them while he’s in the Cave of Eternity. They appreciate the company

he steals the clothes of people he is fond of because this way he will always have a part of them close by if they suddenly leave (with Vic it had been more or less because he was a football player he liked but now that he’s his friend it still counts).

asking for your clothes back won’t work. Vic has tried. 

Vic has accepted that he will never get his jersey back

Every once in a while, he makes a nest of the clothes he’s stolen and just lays them out and sees how many people he cares about that liked him back. It physically breaks him when he has to toss one of the clothes away because he refuses to keep the clothes of people who have hurt him.

sometimes he’ll wear the clothes and Vic will just give a sigh if he sees him wearing his jersey.

Vic thinks that Billy treats them like trophies

The first time he met Alfred Pennyworth, the entire League realized he could “turn the jerk off” (Darla’s words but Vic finds nothing else conveyed it better) as he spoke to Alfred politely. 

They’re still reeling over this

He bonds with Damian over a love of animals

Shazam can use his magic to contact others he shares his powers with

since Tawny has the Living Lightning he called him.

No one warned him against it and now Robin wants a magic tiger

Shazam is no longer allowed in the Batcave

He cannot be stopped though so he’ll sometimes purposely break into the Batcave just to bother him. 

Billy is nothing if not petty

He did, at least, manage to convince Robin that Tawny is literally one of a kind but that he would be willing to share custody if he wanted one so badly. 

he did but Damian wasn’t going to admit that

Batman never unofficially banned him so whenever he invites Shazam over, he makes a really huge deal (”but you said I wasn’t allowed back!”)

Alfred respects him because he actually cleans up after himself and offers to help out with the dishes if a meeting involved food. 

[the-antiapocalyptic-man]

"Lil' Captain Billy Batson and his companion Mr. Talky Tawny Tiger, on their adventure through Magicland, besieged by the machinations of the Witch-Boy Klarion Bleak and his familiar, Teekl, a Shape-Shifter and Agent to the Lords of Chaos (in eternal conflict with those of Order)"