Flying Cobra wrote:Geoff Johns wrote:"You always want your heroes to have a lesson and a moral center -- even if they're screwed up like Billy Batson... it's okay, we're all a little flawed, and for Billy Batson to find the potential to become Shazam, that's more interesting than this perfect little kid that I've never met anyone like that before."
That . . . kind of sort of misses the point of Billy Batson completely. Billy Batson is not the average kid on the street. He's suppose to be the one person in the last 3,000 years that is worthy of wielding the Power of Shazam. Shazam screwed up before with Black Adam, he's determined not to screw up again, so he waited until someone truly worthy came along. Billy is the kind of person that, when he suffers a tragedy, rather than gets angry, snarky, and mean spirited, gains a lot of empathy for the people around him and wants to do right by them. Billy is suppose to be what Steve Rogers was in Captain America: The First Avenger, but with a dash of Spider-Man.
We don't need Billy to be this snarky little kid who is really good deep down but needs to connect with a family for his inner goodness to come out. It's such a cliche at this point it'd be simpler to just have him be a well adjusted human being instead of this little a**hole who is self centered with his own pain, being all 'woe is me' about how no one understands his suffering, making little girls cry, etc. The only good thing he's done is stand up for Mary and Freddy, complete with the 'I don't like bullies' line. So far that's the only redeeming quality the character's had.
This goes beyond Marvel Comics style 'humanizing' of heroes and is turning more towards early Image/Wildstorm style of psychologically damaged heroes. Billy could have been a bright spot of hope, idealism and purity, showing us that you can have someone who is just genuinely a good character that wants to help, even at age 12. But nope, we get Shazam, the crazy eyed bundle of anger issues.
