![]() ![]() Mind, looking like a novelty villain who will be squished by issue’s end or sent off to Venus or stuffed in a bottle in the Rock of Eternity (as we first see him in the Shazam! movie) 12 pages later, right? Wrong. Sivana was a notable exception, and he even pre-dated other, more famous (and similarly recurring) baddies like The Joker or fellow bald dickheads like Lex Luthor and the Red Skull. Hell, even recurring villains were still a relative rarity at this stage of the game. It’s incredibly quaint to imagine a time when superhero comics were actually more self contained than actual modern day superhero movies, but hey, that’s how it was. In other words, short form storytelling was the order of the day, every day, and cliffhangers that continued month to month were pretty rare. ![]() In 1943, all comics were anthologies, whether featuring multiple characters in short stories per book, or just multiple short stories per book featuring the same character. Beck, the writer/artist team who are responsible for more of the Shazam legend than likely any other pair in the comics pantheon. Mind first appeared in 1943, fairly early in Shazam history (which began in 1939 with Whiz Comics#2). Yes, a telepathic green worm with an appetite for brainwaves and a tiny radio speaker around his neck that allows him to amplify his thoughts to communicate with villains is not only one of the most important villains in Shazam history, but also a fairly groundbreaking little baddie in his own right. When you think of Shazam comics, three villains spring to mind: Black Adam, Dr. In any case, Sivana, who has clearly never been one for making human connections, needs a friend. It’s not really obvious whether or not that has happened on screen here, but there’s something about the way he’s hunched over, mumbling, appearing completely broken might hint at a kind of physical degeneration as well. Much of that comic book story mirrors what we see on screen in the movie, although there’s one flourish from the comics that isn’t explicitly spelled out on screen: Sivana’s mortal body wasn’t meant to contain those magical powers in the first place and started to degrade, and the loss of those powers aged him far beyond his approximately 40 years (and as a result, brings him closer to the more traditional, frail physicality the character is known for). Sivana was now physically fit and imposing, much like how Mark Strong portrays him in the film. That changed when Geoff Johns and Gary Frank revamped the Shazam origin story in 2011, and re-imagined Sivana as a man obsessed with the acquisition of magical artifacts and powers. ![]()
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