I’m not pro Billy and Courtney because I prefer Billy with Cissie Sommerly and Courtney with Josh Hammon (who last appeared in the Stars and STRIPES comic in 2000). However, Courtney (who would’ve existed in the pre-Crisis Earth-Two comic the first Crisis saved the multiverse instead of merging into New Earth) would have a crush on Billy and Captain Marvel (who existed in the pre-Crisis Earth-S continuity) because she read all of his [and Captain Marvel’s] adventures in the Golden and Bronze Age of comics. I would prefer Billy Batson to be with Cissie Sommerly instead of Courtney Whitmore because of their interaction since the Golden Age in the 1940s. In my headcanon, if all the people (including the heroes) of Earth-S age in real time since Captain Marvel’s debut in 1939, then we would see Billy and Cissie spending time together from the early 40s to them being in suspended animation in 1953 to their return in 1972 all the way up to the present. After the first Crisis in 1985 (which resulted in the pre-Crisis multiverse being saved instead of merging into New Earth), Billy (who is chronically 58 years old but physically 39 years old at that time) would reveal his secret identity to Cissie, resulting in Cissie being shocked and impressed that Billy (as Captain Marvel) became a superhero and created a legacy and form relationships since his debut in 1939. The two would get married in 1988 (referencing a Shazam backup feature in Action Comics) and have twin children in 1994 named Clarence Charles “C.C.” Batson (named after C.C. Beck, the co-creator of Captain Marvel) and Marilyn “Lyn” Batson (named after his pre-Crisis father Merrill Batson and twin sister Mary Batson), referencing the Power of Shazam series by when it started and the pre-Flashpoint parents of Billy and Mary. By 2006, C.C. and Lyn would make their debut as the second Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, following their father’s legacy while forging their own path. By 2023, Billy and Cissie (who are both chronically 96 years old but physically 77 years old) would retire and would stay at the Rock of Eternity since 2016, where they would watch their children, friends, family members, reformed villains, and loved ones continue to be active on Earth-S while visiting them from time to time. Also, Courtney Whitmore (who, in my headcanon, should’ve existed on pre-Crisis Earth-Two if the first Crisis resulted in all the heroes saving the pre-Crisis multiverse and graduated as Starwoman in 2011 because of her maturity and character development) would have a crush on Captain Marvel from 1999 to 2004 because she read his adventures in Fawcett Comics (because a writer on Earth-Two tapped into Earth-S). This would result in naming her second-born son William (after Billy Batson Captain Marvel) in 2014 (and her first-born son Albert, named after Albert Rothstein Atom-Smasher, born in 2013) after her marriage to Josh Hammon (an obscure character from the Stars and Stripes series) in 2011.
Entirely pro. A shame they rushed what could have been a really solid subplot, and even worse that they axed it so awkwardly. "Wisdom of Solomon" my ass, though. Just insisting on Billy not revealing his ID to the JSA is sheer idiocy. I can understand why it's very dangerous to let Captain Marvel's weakness become public (he certainly had it exploited constantly pre-DC, Billy got tied up and gagged more than Marston's Wonder Woman) but your team-mates need to know, and if they can't understand that Cap is not really Billy and damn well better be treated as their equal - well, he's not their equal, is he? He's their superior. Maybe what really needed to happen was for Cap to demonstrate that. There's no one on that roster of the JSA that even comes close to rivalling Cap's power and as long as it isn't interpersonal advice to teenage boys Solomon's wisdom makes him a better planner than any of them. Especially that useless chump Hawkman. The JSA doesn't get to judge Cap based on Billy, and they sure don't get to tell Billy what to do with his life. He accepted the risks in that old subway tunnel and no one can take that away from him. If they don't like it they can take it up with the alphabet soup of patrons that spell SHAZAM. Would have put their judgmental "protective" BS toward Stargirl in a different light too. She made her choices too, and being 16 doesn't invalidate them. Try criticizing Bruce for deciding to dedicate his life to fighting crime as a actual child. Or Clark for his actions in Smallville. See how well they tolerate it. Or skip across the publishing line and remember that Peter took up the great responsibility that comes with great power while he was still in high school too. The burden comes when it comes for heroes, and it doesn't care if you're old enough to drive, or vote, or drink, or whatever arbitrary line you want to draw. You can try to reject it, but Uncle Ben is the case study in how that works out.
Pro Billy and Courtney. HAWKMAN jerk to everyone. Including adult JSAers with his "lifetimes of experience. WONDER WOMAN how much older than Steve Trevor is she again? Also tried to put a stop to Conner Kent dating Cassie Sandsmark because she assumed she had license to do so. BILLY BATSON worried about disrespect? C'mon, man1 Ya took worse crap from Batman when you were in the JLI!
Pro Courtney , & I believe she is lucky that it ended as it did , because Billy didn’t have the wisdom of Solomon, nor courage of Achilles to fight for their relationship 🖖🏾
Can definitely be an aspect of Solomon planning a grand scam using Billy as a way to be reborn into the mortal world. And one of the possibilities is attacking teenage love life?! How is the Almighty justifying this!!!!
I imagine it must be awkward for Billy to try and find a girlfriend considering the way his powers work. Like, it's one thing to have a romantic partner who knows about your secret identity; it's another thing entirely when your secret identity is a teenage boy and your superhero identity is an adult. That could get complicated really fast.
i have the perfect solution: a girlfriend the same age as his real self (teenage billy), who knows about his powers/superhero identity -and who is also just very kinky-
@@bojuu I think the problem then is who does Billy’s partner love. Like the whole Lois loves superman but not always clark or vice versa works and is funny because the only difference is a pair of glasses. With Billy and Captain Marvel they’re kinda different people, so more than a sexual problem it becomes an identity crisis.
I’d say he should find an immortal who happens to look like a teenager or can change their appearance at will. Works for the movies (they actually just did this in Shazam 2 and its really creepy but all it gets is a passing comment) and like any vampire teen drama.
@@vullord666 You just made me realize that Shazam is the reverse trope of the anime child character who's actually 4000 years old and now I have psychological damage
I remember reading this relationship, and thought it was a bit messed up the way it was ended. It seemed to me like it implied Billy was controlled by the gods more than I thought. He got with her as Billy, but then the relationship was ended by Captain Marvel. Then when they come back to it later Billy is upset about how things went down, it is almost as though he was forced to make the decision. The fear of the secret being revealed and being treated like a child, is that Billy's fear or is that the fear of the gods?
Maybe it’s less the gods controlling him and way more the fact that he does see the world more like an adult as Captain Marvel. The way we deal with the world is influenced by how we perceive it, and a 16 year old teenager just has a different perception than a 26 year old. Growing up we realize that ever so slowly, because we are given the time to do so. Maybe 26 year old Billy would actually agree with Captain Marvel‘s decision, doesn’t mean that his 16 year old self likes it or even agrees. The CM version may also realize better than Billy, what „working it out“ really means in that mess. So yeah, it may be less that the gods control Billy as CM, but that the wisdom of Solomon let’s CM see, what Billy wouldn’t and doesn’t like.
It always seemed like the wisdom is cruise control, providing guidance and will step in if it thinks a car crash will destroy everything. It may not have been that revealing his identity would be too devestating but revealing it then would. and with jay confronting him it would only be a matter of time so his only option wa to distance himself in order to allow what needed to happen happen.
@@GodShadowdeath The only problem I had with it was how things went down once Jay noticed them at the holiday dinner with the JLA. If Jay was concerned, he could have brought it up to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or even Hawkman who were with him in the JLA. They could have told him what the deal was WITHOUT having to reveal his identity. They've been keeping it a secret for years (Even though I hate it when Diana and Bruce call him William). But this is the biggest issue with Johns writing the JSA: He was too involved in having Jay and the rest of the original team come off as out of touch senior citizens. Back in the 70 and 80s, it was established that the JSA age VEEEEEERY slowly. So much so, they should only look to be 10-15 years older than the JLA, not decades. Moreover, characters from the Golden Age like Plastic Man, Miss America, and Neon possessed the ability to keep themselves young, and the Freedom Fighters were kept young due to their connection to Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, Johns' first instinct is to have Golden Age characters portrayed as senior citizens to create a generational dynamic between the JSA and JLA, which is unnecessary because it has already existed without having to do that. Which leads to my second problem: Another long-established fact is when Billy becomes Shazam, he is an adult. Not a boy in an adult's body. There is no way an ADULT with the wisdom of Solomon, no less, would have even thought to go into Courtney's room, never mind do anything that would be viewed as improper in front of the team.
When in doubt, Billy should have called the cops on the Wizard for brainwashing him into a second-class hero. The powers are cool, but the price is extremely rigged.
@@mrblaque I think it was a lot more charitable to Captain Marvel for Jay to give him the chance to explain himself, how would he have known those other characters had answers?
Most of the time Captain Marvel is a seperate personality. It's only a few instances before the last decade where it was clear it was one person (inconsistant writers). The last decade though has pretty much locked them in as 1 person.
Didn’t Solomon have 700 wives and 300 concubines? No wonder he was more concerned about maintaining Billy”s secret identity than whether or not Jay Garrick thought he was creeping on a 16 year-old.
Bear in mind to that adult in those times were like 13. Life expectancy wasn't what it is now. It's part of the reason women were married off almost as soon as they were able to ovulate because time was much shorter
The idea that Billy would rather be seen as a creep than be treated the way his girlfriend is treated all the time is actually a really interesting idea that has some really strong real-life resonance and meaning...and I think the problem with this story is that once it says that, there doesn't seem to be anywhere else for it to go, and we get the break-up as it happens here. I remember it being one of the reasons I stopped reading JSA, incidentally: that it felt like character subplots would just kind of speed through all of their plot beats without any time to actually feel like they were happening. To my memory, the moments in this video aren't just the highlights, they are the entire subplot; if there was more, it didn't feel like it, and it made a lot of these big characterization moments and shifts feel insubstantial to me. ...it also feels like this was the last time Billy Batson had anything close to a meaningful or interesting story before New 52 (that wasn't a flashback like First Thunder), parallel with Black Adam becoming the more important part of the DC Universe, so it's hard not to wonder if it kind of killed the character. The only place for the story to move was for Billy to come clean about his age to the JSA, and whether there was an editorial veto on that or whether Johns just thought it was better to end the story right here, it leaves Billy looking awful with no payoff or momentum to move away from it.
I think it is very interesting that Solomons' wisdom (which biblically had its limits where love is concerned) apparently had no problem with Cap and Courtney flirting, but had a problem with him revealing his identity, even at the cost of him exiting the JSA. That is one of many threads that I am curious about. Is it wiser for Billy to have a relationship than not? Is his relationship with Courtney actually unwise but allowed since Solomon won't let Cap do the wrong thing?
Like you said Solomon's wisdom had its limits I think the way it works is you can know what's right and wrong but the decision is still yours to make for example I know that if I workout constantly and eat healthy I'll look and feel better but I don't because ultimately I'm choosing the option that makes me more comfortable and Billy may be leaning more on his insecurities then he realizes
I had no idea Caption Marvel and Stargirl were a thing at one point. It’s a definitely different dynamic but I like it. It’s not the normal comic book relationship you would come to expect. Plus it seems wholesome how they can bond on their unique perspectives on being a kid hero and Courtney keeping Billy’s identity. I hope they bring it back even if every other hero knows Billy is a kid and that questions not there. I still think they work as a couple. Plus two of my favorite hero’s being connected is cool in its own right lol
Billy and Courtney is up there for me, right alongside Eddie and Rose in TT, for being some of the most often overlooked, but yet incredibly interesting short lived couples from the 2000’s. Hope to see them make a comeback someday!
As a subplot it probably had run it’s course, but I would have preferred them let Captain Marvel’s courage of Achilles reveal his secret to Jay , then still with the wisdom of Solomon leave the JSA while remaining in a relationship with Courtney , giving them time too find out if a relationship where they’re not always together could work…Keep Up The Outstanding Work Sasha 🖖🏾
I like the idea of a story with the courage of Achilles and the wisdom of Solomon pulling him in different directions. It's doesn't necessarily have to be about Stargirl or any kind of romantic relationship either. It could be told in a lot of ways.
@@BiggieTrismegistus its just Achilles and Solomon arguing in his head. "He needs to be brave enough to reveal that he cheated on his last math's test" "That would be illogical as he would get into trouble and detention, therefore losing time he could spend saving people"
I honestly think by "courage of achilles" they only meant the durability, not his actual braveness (I mean really, if he's indestructible aside from his heel which he didn't even know about, how brave is he?).
If Solomon prevents Captain Marvel from doing morally wrong things, and the relationship was able to continue while Billy was in his transformed state, then that shows that the relationship wasn’t considered morally wrong, which I agree with since it was two 16-year-olds in reality despite physical perception. It might have been interesting to see if Captain Marvel felt the same attraction to Stargirl that Billy did if they wanted to explore the whole idea of the two being more separate than people realize. This could act as a loophole to the whole “Solomon stops me from doing morally wrong” thing, since if Captain Marvel wasn’t in love with Stargirl, than he was technically just acting strange, and still doing nothing wrong as he wouldn’t have been in love with a teenager. If the separation between the two forms really was a thing, when Captain Marvel transformed back into Billy, he could have been shown being hit by a sudden wave of emotion that Captain Marvel had basically been holding back. I wish Billy had stayed on the Society, or returned for the next big event where the event would have given him the option to reveal his secret to save the day, to which he would take, in turn proving that his love was real and hopefully resolving the relationship issue (at least partly, IDK how Stargirl would feel at this point).
If I was Billy/Shazam I'd just wait until college before I started dating, or at least until I turned 18/19. It would make things much less complicated once there's less of an age gap between his secret identity and his superhero identity. Side Note: Does Shazam/Captain Marvel age at the same rate Billy does, or does he not age at all?
@@halfmettlealchemist8076 I assume he is like Black Adam. Captain Marvel does not age the human host does. It is like in Kingdom Come no one know adult Billy was not Captain Marvel and they looked the same.
@@BigBass63 still are in majority of world including the usa(around 70% of country is 16) with 16 being the age of consent give or take a couple years, europe for example has multiple places at 14 and 15.
@@blackrazer22 yeah, I always assumed the transformation was just his body being turned into an adult because his child body couldn't contain it, so as an adult he wouldn't age even further.
You know SHAZAM, Amethyst, Jakeem Thunder, Djinn, and Stargirl would probably make for a wholesome and fun group. It is surprising that they haven't made a show with that concept yet.
I'm not sure if you're aware but there is a Stargirl tv show or I guess was on hbo. No shazam as far as I watched but several JSA members appear (though it's more of a next generation thing). Production wise I'd put it at around the level of the new superman and lois show.
Why the most interesting ships always gets the shaft in favor of boring ones? Conner x Cassandra, Billy x Courtney, Tim and Stephanie, they all have so much potential and what DC does with it - Nothing!
I think there was a lot that could have been explored, but the ending was still satisfying. It was a realistic reason for a 16-year-old couple to break up on - they're struggling with themselves, with how they want others to perceive them, with what they think is right or important, and there are still feelings and care, even if they regret what could have been. Solidly done. That said, I would love to see this revisited, or explored more at the time. There was so much to explore in terms of Stargirl and Billy's insecurities. Maybe Billy could have encouraged Stargirl to stand up to Hawkman's dismissals. Jay finding out, and then helping these young people navigate the situation would have been potentially fun, or wacky. I think that rather than exploring the potential bleed-back of Billy's feeling for Stargirl bleeding into Captain Marvel, I think it would be fun to have Captain Marvel be distant from the relationship - caring, but more like an uncle when transformed. I especially think Stargirl roundly rejecting any implication she's into Captain Marvel as a relationship partner, while still being into Billy, is fertile ground for both comedy and emotional storytelling. Keep the suspicion/potential ick factor because of the people around them misinterpreting what they are seeing, but show Stargirl, Billy and Captain Marvel all being good about the boundaries because for them, Billy and Captain Marvel are (and always have been) different people. But that's just my thoughts!
It's a cute pairing that could have really done a lot more for both characters. For her Billy wasn't Captain Marvel, she understood the difference because she would refer to billy without really treating Shazam as Billy at times which is really nice.
This relationship has a interesting dynamic and touches on certain issues that are addressed in other media. For example if they did bring the relationship back they would definitely have to alter ages. Because in animated series like Justice League and young justice Billy is usually a kid, tween age at best, while Courtney is usually a teenager. So there definitely be a age difference that some may find problematic. Another thing is that in Young Justice, Billy’s identity is revealed to the justice league after a attack by Klerion, and Shazam is a member of the Justice League but after his identity is revealed they start treating him differently and even question whether they should remove him from the team with the exception of Batman that still stands by him. So it shows that those fears of the other members treating him differently or even rejecting him are founded. Though I do agree the idea of how much of billy is still there and how much are the gods are in control is a interesting concept they could explore with the relationship.
Adding another comment because I feel obligated to add an interpretation of what Johns was probably trying to do with this subplot that has nothing to do with creepy stuff: adolescents are caught between childhood and adulthood in general, and Billy's magical powers just heighten the contradictions in being an adolescent: the "adult" part of his personality is even _more_ well-realized than it is for most teenagers, so the "kid" part of him has a tougher time than normal. You can explore this in other ways, but relationships reveal a lot about characters. So Courtney and Billy both are mature enough to understand how their relationship might not be the best thing, given their responsibilities. But it's only Billy (via his alter ego) who's willing to go through with the tough decision that seems right. But like Sasha says, Johns does such a great job with his characterizations that we don't really know if breaking it off was the right call, because at the end of the day Billy is still a kid--and even as Shazam he starts from a kid's perspective.
The Wisdom of Soloman was one of the key things that was completely missing in the Shazam movies. Captain Marvel was way too dumb, dumber than Billy for some reason.
Have Amethyst/Amy Winston and Shazam/Billy Batson ever had a substantive conversation about the age jumps that come with their powers? Can't decide if that would be weirder or less weird than Billy and Courtney. But I'd definitely throw that in if I ever got the chance to write a Shazam or Amethyst book...
@@andresmarrero8666 I know, right? Maybe they were both on one of those crazy-detailed pages from Crisis on Infinite Earths. But I've read a decent amount of DC and can't recall them ever interacting
@@andresmarrero8666 Amethyst isn't a popular character compared to Shazam. She was only around from 1983 to 86 then disposed of in Crisis on Infinite Earths. She only came back after Infinite Crisis in the early aughts and then had only one 8 issue run during New 52, which was cancelled. It seems she then popped up in the Young Justice series in 2019 and deals with those younger characters, not Shazam.
10:50 Oh come on, that line is exactly kind of inept "it sounded romantic in my head" thing a real, slightly traumatized 16 year old boy would come up with. It's flawless.
I like the Billy and Star Girl dynamic and would have liked more, but from a writing perspective, i can see why it had to end because you essentially have to pick which character trait can continue: his romance or his secret identity as they cant really exist simultaneously. And his secret identity is just to fundamental to what makes Captain Marvel unique
When you first teased this video, I thought that it was Stargirl dating a kid Billy, not teen, and that THAT was the problem, not the other way around.
I think this is such an interesting relationship. It makes total sense that there would be chemistry between billy and courtney. Personally I don't think it's dangerous to explore since no one in the real world could possibly be in this situation. The situation doesn't even have close parallels in real life (a magic word that can instantly age you up or down ~10 years just doesn't exist). Something like having a secret identity has parallels to real life because people can hide key aspects of who they are from others, especially with the internet, but people can't shift between genuinely having an adult body and genuinely having a teenage body on a whim, so I personally don't think this relationship promotes inappropriate age gaps to the readers. I'm glad people in-universe find the flirting when billy is captain marvel weird, though I'm not sure why the wisdom of solomon would be ok with him flirting with a 16 year old in his hero form.
Ultimately I'm glad they broke up. I liked how much was left open to speculation. You can use it to inform how you view the Billy/Captain Marvel dynamic or Courtney's dynamic with the jsa for future stories without much conflict due to the ambiguity. Plus if it stuck around, especially in the 2000s, it could have easily fallen onto a writer who wouldn't handle it well. The worst case scenario is another writer picking this up and pulling a "Hal Jordan/Arisia" with Billy. Plus imo the relationship was doomed. Her begging him to become Billy again made me realize it. Having a boyfriend who turns into someone else has to create a divide, especially when you're so young and attached to him
I said this in another comment, but poor Billy must have a really difficult time finding a girlfriend his own age when his powers literally cause him to turn into an adult man. If I were him, I'd just wait until I was in college to start dating.
Holy Moley! HOW did I miss this? I thought I I read the JSA religiously. I would normally be a bit...not grossed out but...circumspect about the plot. But the fact that it's Billy and he's acting like a teen dork who'd rather save his pride than tell the truth is delicious. Very believable. I like the depth of characterization. I too sorely miss subplots. Why is it so disregarded? Is it because they can't fit into the Worlds Going to END event that's been going on 4 or 5 times a year with the big 2? They're driving me into the arms of Indies.
I like it. It seems like it had potential. Would like to see a redoo here. I mean in just such a short time, Billy and Courtney had more chemistry then Tim Drake or Jonatha Kent currently has with their Bf's. Maybe it is easier when both have character rather then one ;-D
I kinda like the idea that Billy and the Captain are two different people, rather than Billy just being put in the body of an adult. It creates some interesting conflict, especially if the Captain is still Billy but fully as an adult not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Or perhaps that takes away from other avenues for conflict and creates problematic scenarios. Honestly, I think the Captain is such a difficult character to write for, due to him being such a product of his time that modernizing him in some ways feels like a betrayal of the character but keeping the not-to-serious, light hearted camp of the original is not as appealing to new readers.
Captain Marvel and Billy are a fascinating piece of Golden Age wish fulfillment that can be interesting to gently deconstruct for modern readers. You can't help but see parallels in the 1993 Prime character from Malibu, another kid who gained what amount to "instant adult" powers - although in his case there was no mental maturation or supernatural wisdom boost while empowered, with predictably unfortunate results a lot of the time.
I never knew of this sub-plot but I like it. Sub-plots like these make characters seem more like people. I'm wondering if it wasn't that the Wisdom of Solomon wouldn't let him tell the secret but rather that the Wisdom let him understand how the JSA would react and the Billy side of him was afraid to deal with that. That would make sense since most teens know that all adults were born that way and would never take a kid with the Wisdom of Solomon seriously, despite the fact that they HAD been and for quite some time.
As someone old enough to have been a fan of original run Shazam comics, I really like this. Even though the OS was very tongue in cheek, it had depth to it too. It is fairly easy to comprehend physical aspects like the strength of Heracles, power of Zeus or even the speed of Mercury, but the Wisdom of Solomon tends not to be thought of. It is literally super-wisdom. It is no more the Gods telling him to do any given thing than it is the Gods lifting anything for him or picking him up and carrying him at high speeds. If the wisdom was particularly fallible, it would not be any better than the wisdom of Billy (although hopefully would be at least better than the questionable wisdom of Zeus :P ). If he had told Jay, who knows what side repercussions there could have been? What if Jakeem decided if it was good enough for Billy, he too should be a were-adult, by way of the power of his lightning bolt, but without Solomon's wisdom to guide him in adult form? Just the first possible repercussion that comes to mind....
I can understand why people may find the romantic aspect uncomfortable but I'd love to see more plots of Shazam/Billy developing close friendships with other young heros. That tension between him also being a kid so he understands them but at the same time is not treated like a kid on the team - could lead to some interesting drama
I loved this plot when it came out. Old school Captain Marvel (Modern Shazaam) was so much more interesting and complicated. He was the best person, but often in very difficult situations.
I actually thanked Geoff Johns for doing this storyline. It's about time we see how Billy Batson dates. Of course, this is within a context of a superhero team. It wouldn't be the same with a modern Cissy Sommers since she wouldn't be hanging out with an adult superhero.
I should also add that very recently as a indie screenwriter, I was told to remove all references to childhood, all dialogue about childhood and children, in my film which is partially set in a nudist community. I may have even have to bar minors from being extras in the museum scenes. Four pages were deleted and though it improved the pacing of the script, I now have 19 year olds with no childhood. Yeah . . . totally believable. The paranoia about problematic elements are real, and though my goal in my college career was to tackle the issue of child abuse, I will never be able to. Ever.
It's certainly an interesting scenario to present in the story. On the one hand, they are both 16. On the other, one of them looks much older, is hiding his real age from most people. I think the real problem is the Wisdom of Solomon in this. Like, if Shazam thinks about something (anything really), then changes back to Billy, does Billy retain those thoughts? If not, I think it would probably be fine if Billy and Stargirl dated, but with a rule that it's strictly business when he's Shazam. But if he does retain it, then the entire relationship likely gets unbalanced in a grooming sort of way, which sucks for Billy. And that brings me to the other part of this story that makes me give it a little bit of side-eye: was this an attempt to cast real-life groomers as 'just immature for their age', or was it just exploring this unfortunate side-effect of the Shazam powers that gets in the way of Billy being able to have anything approaching a normal romantic relationship?
@@RadMan224 I thought that at first, but wouldn't that mean that the act of transforming would have already made him cheat irreparably? Or did he have the flash of conscience the moment he turned into Shazam, and therefore Shazam never pondered any of the test questions?
Billy and Courtney's relationship should have continued. They should even have been given their own title. DC comics constant rebooting damaged some origins but also killed great story lines! Still waiting on you to do a post on The New Teen Titans the Judas Contract. Or, did you do one and I missed it.
I would prefer Billy Batson to be with Cissie Sommerly instead of Courtney Whitmore because of their interaction since the Golden Age in the 1940s. In my headcanon, if all the people (including the heroes) of Earth-S age in real time since Captain Marvel’s debut in 1939, then we would see Billy and Cissie spending time together from the early 40s to them being in suspended animation in 1953 to their return in 1972 all the way up to the present. After the first Crisis in 1985 (which resulted in the pre-Crisis multiverse being saved instead of merging into New Earth), Billy (who is chronically 58 years old but physically 39 years old at that time) would reveal his secret identity to Cissie, resulting in Cissie being shocked and impressed that Billy (as Captain Marvel) became a superhero and created a legacy and form relationships since his debut in 1939. The two would get married in 1988 (referencing a Shazam backup feature in Action Comics) and have twin children in 1994 named Clarence Charles “C.C.” Batson (named after C.C. Beck, the co-creator of Captain Marvel) and Marilyn “Lyn” Batson (named after his pre-Crisis father Merrill Batson and twin sister Mary Batson), referencing the Power of Shazam series by when it started and the pre-Flashpoint parents of Billy and Mary. By 2006, C.C. and Lyn would make their debut as the second Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, following their father’s legacy while forging their own path. By 2023, Billy and Cissie (who are both chronically 96 years old but physically 77 years old) would retire and would stay at the Rock of Eternity since 2016, where they would watch their children, friends, family members, reformed villains, and loved ones continue to be active on Earth-S while visiting them from time to time. Also, Courtney Whitmore (who, in my headcanon, should’ve existed on pre-Crisis Earth-Two if the first Crisis resulted in all the heroes saving the pre-Crisis multiverse and graduated as Starwoman in 2011 because of her maturity and character development) would have a crush on Captain Marvel from 1999 to 2004 because she read his adventures in Fawcett Comics (because a writer on Earth-Two tapped into Earth-S). This would result in naming her second-born son William (after Billy Batson Captain Marvel) in 2014 (and her first-born son Albert, named after Albert Rothstein Atom-Smasher, born in 2013) after her marriage to Josh Hammon (an obscure character from the Stars and Stripes series) in 2011.
Relationships where part of the conflict comes from others having a misconception about the maturity levels can be pretty interesting. I feel like it creates a lot of good drama, and then also allows the characters around the couple to show their character. there are a few webcomics I'm reading where the main character was either an adult and then woke up as a teenager in a fantasy novel or simply has memories of another timeline and then regressed back to a certain point. There is often some conflict with her and her love interest since she perceives him as younger than her. When if fact, the love interest also has memories of another timeline and so is the same mental maturity as her. none of these stories have gotten to the point where its revealed that the love interest also has memories, so I don't know how its handling it. but over all, very interesting. Haha, that's sort of a different situation, but I feel like it's almost the opposite, a character who sometimes looks older, but maturity wise is closer to a teenager than an adult. It takes the main conflict of a lot of superhero romances (weird love triangle between two people) and ups it because its now an external and internal, as opposed to just be inbetween the two people.
Honestly this seemed like a cute relationship and instead of billy ending it as Shazam I would’ve loved it if the whole league confronts captain marvel like he was a creep and with no other choice he reverts back to billy and everyone just slaps their head going “OH THANK GOD HE’S A CHILD” we the audience knew it so the greatest moment in comics could’ve been born if they wanted to play into the “JOKE” of captain marvel being too friendly with star girl
I and my friends reading at the time thought that the moving fast to a kiss was not just the danger but the emotional draining effect of the Shadow Realms. Sasha said Courtney was giving Billy a confidence boost, in the Shadow Realm being afraid might kill you.
This is amazing. I think it's a great way to showcase all the insecurities a teenager has with age and adults. It's also cool to see different heroes take issue with their relationship, revealing that they will not excuse pedophilia even if the person committing it is a valued hero and the victim is almost an adult. Good on Flash and that other kid for recognizing that a hero has to be heroic in all aspects.
1) I watched my foster sister go from boyfriend to boyfriend back, in the day. Didn't blink at Courtney's deciding she liked Billy so quick. 2) This was the best handling of the Billy / Cap dichotomy since the Crisis. Pre-Crisis, the two were more distinct. Started in "A New Beginning" they decided to go more with the "Big" approach. This handling made the two more distinct again, without violating the new status quo. 3) I liked Billy and Courtney together; that said teen romances rarely work out. 4) Dr. Mid-Nite (Pieter Cross) saw Cap switch to Billy in "Vitue and Vice". Apparently he never told anyone. 5) "Smell of Hair/Cracked Jaw" line: It's goofy, but it shows Billy wanted to be complimentary and that he was glad to see her. 6) I don't remember that particular issue with Per Degaton. I wonder if Johns had already started flanderizing Degaton, or was that just a bit of bullsh*t from the current iteration. 7) Johns is such a better writer when he has a co-writer. So is Goyer. 8) That Dark Mary thing was such horrible f*cked up horsesh*t.. 9) There is a huge, huge disconnect in this story, and it isn't so much about how Jay confronted the Captain. It's like this: Per "Infinity Inc." #1 Albert Rothestein was a college student when he became Nuklon. And had been for a while. All of "Infinity Inc." happened. The JSA went to Limbo, came back. had some adventures, then got F-ed by "Zero Hour". Al, in the meantime spent some time with the post-Giffen Justice League America, and was hurt falling to Earth in "JLA" (1997) #1. He healed, indicating a passage of time. Then he joined the Justice Society as Atom Smasher. While comic book time is weird, enough events happened that there is no way to believe Albert wasn't at last 22 or 23. Well before the Captain ever joined the JSA, the whole Courtney-Albert thing was already very inappropriate. And no one on the JSA ever gave two sh*ts about that relationship; no one ever called Al about it. And Jay, Alan, and Ted knew Albert when he was a kid; they'd be MORE likely to call Albert on his shenanigans (especially with Teri Rothstein and Al Pratt gone). Jay confronting the Captain made sense, but it made the fact that Jay didn't confront Albert about it stand out like a sore thumb.
Keep in mind the Albert and Courtney thing started when she was 14 or 15, as JSA #54 was at least the 2nd Thanksgiving of that iteration of the JSA; "Virtue and Vice" being the 1st. Also, the S-word should be in parentheses, not Billy's proper codename.
I remember really enjoying their relationship when reading JSA and was sad when it ended how it did. I didn't even catch all the implications of the Wizard influencing Billy. I think at the time I read it more as just Billy being unable to bring himself to cheat on a test, though this interpretation makes way more sense with the context looking at it again. It was just really saddening to see a likable relationship that could've seriously brought some levity to those characters and the book itself be sacrificed like that. Especially when most other romance plots in the series are either killed by stuff outside the book like Ollie coming back from the dead, or are tragic or bombastic like Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Plus Courtney's love life becoming a means to an end for a villain plot involving Atom Smasher felt unfair to her character and left a bad taste in my mouth. I think a solid writer on Stargirl or Shazam could seriously get away with bringing this relationship back and doing something fun with it. In a solo book and not JSA, there might be a better chance of that getting to be properly explored and not nixed as part of editorial or just the shifting needs of a team book. it is heartening to see that so many people also liked this subplot and remember it.
This actually seems like a nice couple. It makes sense the two teenagers w/ powers in the league get together... As long as they don't like, kiss while Billy is Shazam cuz that looks creepy. And he also tells everyone in the league he's 16 too.
This channel is so great. I love all your discussion on the silver age and 80s comics and the sillier or weirder elements but also i am really enjoying these deep dives into the various subplots and character moments of more recent comics. I used to collect everything all the time but havent been current in years so this id great. I get little snipets, little cliff notes/coles notes of whats been happening. Anyway just to say great stuff! Thanks for putting it out there!
I've never read that run of JSA - there were just too many interesting comics around at the time, too many for my budget. Looks from this wee snippet like I may have missed out on something good. I'll have to find a few issues and tr out. Will it be worth the effort?
Absolutely worth the time. I've read all of JSA volume 1 (the series that started in 1999 and went for 87 issues) and a chunk of the Justice Society of America run that was a direct continuation of that (started in 2006). Like we see in this video, Johns wrote some really great character-driven stories during those runs
I like the “ship” for these two. It also makes me think of the perils of office relationships. Sure, Green Arrow & Black Canary make it work, but they are full-fledged adults. Can the adolescents keep hormones in check until they take out the bad guy? Also, the idea of Billy having to be heroic without his powers is cool, like Superman under a red sun.
I mean say interesting concept but honestly and it gives something for Billy to have outside of the Marvel family and it does have a connection for Courtney who I think was one of the youngest members of the JSA at the time and honestly since stargirl in the JSA is backup you can easily have her make appearance in the new Shazam run and you can have Billy make an appearance in the new JSA in stargirl runs as well just to make it a little bit more interesting just so they can kind of revisit but do it I guess right this time
By far my favorite video you ever made. Didn't know about this subplot line, and now that I do I thoroughly enjoy it. I like weird but plausible scenarios that come with powers and secret identities. I think more mileage could have been drawn from this. I'm not sure there is a good conclusion to this subplot, especially with the wisdom of Solomon angle involved. I do know it is worth a read, or at least to know it exited.
Let's be real. It is good for Billy that it was Jay confronting him and not Wildcat XD ...not that Wildcat would even be threat but still. He is a verbal threat XD
Billy and Marvel being separate people also would explain how he’s able to witness and engage in events that would traumatize a 16 yr old from all the violence and inhuman crimes he witnesses
Great Vid! That JSA run was really one of the best of that era. I'd be curious to see DC revisit the relationship somehow... But I'd be far more interested in Sasha doing a video on one of the worst canon funny book relationships of all time: Hal Jordan & Arisia! (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't even the work of Gerard Jones either...)
I feel sorry for Billy. Because it would be even more problematic if he got with an adult as Captain Marvel. But he only had to wait a couple more years.
I like this subplot, i think is an interesting idea of exploring the complexities of a character like shazam even tho i didnt like everything... and its certainly less creepy than that time Harley had a thing for him
@@ZeldaWayne_Letsplays In Injustice Harley got a thing for Shazam, then she realized Shazam was Billy and started hanging out with him and getting him out of school?
I think all the nuanced but hyper specific drama of their relationship sounds really interesting. Wouldn't mind them revisiting their relationship in the future.
Had completely forgotten this sub plot. Although some of the covers come back to me, as do the panels. The covers largely because I read issue fifty sitting in the bandstand in Regents Park London. In the middle of the pouring rain. In a similar vein I read the Punisher Max annual 2009 sitting under an umbrella at the foot of a hill in the middle of a military firing range. It was pouring. It was July. British summer weather. Weirdest place you've read a comic might be an interesting topic. But I digress... The JSA romance I never forgot though was Dr Midnite Pieter Cross and Black Canary. He was way better for her than Ollie! But we know how that ended out. Another dating subplot that didn't last but I did like was in Legion of Super Heroes in the 90's. When Bouncing Boy went on a date with Shrinking Violet. Which had the lovely line in the last panel 'at the end of the evening, two very shy people feel just that little bit less alone.' But then both of them seemed happy to make that a one off after, so it never went anywhere. The word the Internet has killed for me is Trope. Except when you use it, because you're talking about attitudes and responses. And that makes it interesting.
I loved the StarGirl Billy batson relationship..it was 1 of the subplots of the Geoff’s JSA run. This was a great analysis of a small part of a great run
Most of the time in DC, Shazam is a separate mental personality. This doesn't seem like it would be an issue in those settings. Because Billy and Captain Marvel are different people.
I have never heard of this relationship but now that I have I am so interested. So many ways to go about it and I'm glad they eventually broke up but I wish it lasted longer and/or they delved into it more later on. Great video!
Great episode (as usual) I was reading JSA as it was coming out at the time and was really into this subplot. I was happy for the two of them for the brief period before things got complicated and I was thoroughly entertained and intrigued by some of the obstacles and the whole Jay Garrick angle. It sucks that it ended the way it did and so quickly, but that also feels accurate to a teenage romance. As far as the writing and drama of it all goes, I think Geoff Johns handled the whole thing well, including the break-up. However, I feel like it is a missed opportunity that no one has ever rekindled it. Maybe we'll still see it revisited at some point. The Dawn of DC seems to be doing a good job of touching on some past elements without totally rehashing old rope... but you already know that.
Ngl, when I saw the thumbnail I worried the situation would have been an Adult Super Hero dating Shazam and Billy hiding that he's underage. This is a pleasantly in depth surprise
I think this is actually a quite interesting and not too weird exploration of age and the way that age makes people treat each other differently, It’s cool
The idea that Billy was more willing to protect his adult personality than his relationship is interesting 🤔. Most fascinating, however, is the speed of the courtship! 😅
The fact that Marvel and Billy have different thoughts on things is kind of wild to me. Also Billy, buddy, you can fight. Show them your age and gently remind Hawkman that there really isn't anything he can do about it. If you prove your worth, that shouldn't change based on age.
I remember there was age shifting plot shenanigans in the WITCH cartoon (not sure if it was from the original comic or something written for the show). Because the main characters look older when they transform, one of them used it to her advantage to date and older boy and her main love interest at the same time by partially transforming back and forth
Cute and sweet. Wish it had continued, but I think there was a purpose to the story arc. The way it ended and the fact that Shazam is perceived as an adult highlight how the combination of youth and the responsibility of being a hero is really rough . Too much responsibility robs kids of the right to be who they are - kids. Growing up & finding out who you are shouldn't be rushed. Life doesn't afford you another chance to act like the young. Lost innocence can't be reclaimed. Sure, people often try, but it's never the same. "Youth is wasted on the young" is never more true than it is for heroes. All young heroes. Illustrating this so clearly could only be accomplished with a hero no one knew was young. Good writing, IMHO.
I remember this sub-plot, and I kinda like Billy and Star, a shame but it was obvious that this can't continue for long... But something I learned from this is that Billy's super power is having integrity. Thank you for the video.
Like what I do support the channel on Kofi :) Also are you pro Billy and Courtney?
ko-fi.com/casuallycomics
I’m not pro Billy and Courtney because I prefer Billy with Cissie Sommerly and Courtney with Josh Hammon (who last appeared in the Stars and STRIPES comic in 2000). However, Courtney (who would’ve existed in the pre-Crisis Earth-Two comic the first Crisis saved the multiverse instead of merging into New Earth) would have a crush on Billy and Captain Marvel (who existed in the pre-Crisis Earth-S continuity) because she read all of his [and Captain Marvel’s] adventures in the Golden and Bronze Age of comics.
I would prefer Billy Batson to be with Cissie Sommerly instead of Courtney Whitmore because of their interaction since the Golden Age in the 1940s. In my headcanon, if all the people (including the heroes) of Earth-S age in real time since Captain Marvel’s debut in 1939, then we would see Billy and Cissie spending time together from the early 40s to them being in suspended animation in 1953 to their return in 1972 all the way up to the present.
After the first Crisis in 1985 (which resulted in the pre-Crisis multiverse being saved instead of merging into New Earth), Billy (who is chronically 58 years old but physically 39 years old at that time) would reveal his secret identity to Cissie, resulting in Cissie being shocked and impressed that Billy (as Captain Marvel) became a superhero and created a legacy and form relationships since his debut in 1939.
The two would get married in 1988 (referencing a Shazam backup feature in Action Comics) and have twin children in 1994 named Clarence Charles “C.C.” Batson (named after C.C. Beck, the co-creator of Captain Marvel) and Marilyn “Lyn” Batson (named after his pre-Crisis father Merrill Batson and twin sister Mary Batson), referencing the Power of Shazam series by when it started and the pre-Flashpoint parents of Billy and Mary.
By 2006, C.C. and Lyn would make their debut as the second Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, following their father’s legacy while forging their own path.
By 2023, Billy and Cissie (who are both chronically 96 years old but physically 77 years old) would retire and would stay at the Rock of Eternity since 2016, where they would watch their children, friends, family members, reformed villains, and loved ones continue to be active on Earth-S while visiting them from time to time.
Also, Courtney Whitmore (who, in my headcanon, should’ve existed on pre-Crisis Earth-Two if the first Crisis resulted in all the heroes saving the pre-Crisis multiverse and graduated as Starwoman in 2011 because of her maturity and character development) would have a crush on Captain Marvel from 1999 to 2004 because she read his adventures in Fawcett Comics (because a writer on Earth-Two tapped into Earth-S). This would result in naming her second-born son William (after Billy Batson Captain Marvel) in 2014 (and her first-born son Albert, named after Albert Rothstein Atom-Smasher, born in 2013) after her marriage to Josh Hammon (an obscure character from the Stars and Stripes series) in 2011.
Entirely pro. A shame they rushed what could have been a really solid subplot, and even worse that they axed it so awkwardly.
"Wisdom of Solomon" my ass, though. Just insisting on Billy not revealing his ID to the JSA is sheer idiocy. I can understand why it's very dangerous to let Captain Marvel's weakness become public (he certainly had it exploited constantly pre-DC, Billy got tied up and gagged more than Marston's Wonder Woman) but your team-mates need to know, and if they can't understand that Cap is not really Billy and damn well better be treated as their equal - well, he's not their equal, is he? He's their superior.
Maybe what really needed to happen was for Cap to demonstrate that. There's no one on that roster of the JSA that even comes close to rivalling Cap's power and as long as it isn't interpersonal advice to teenage boys Solomon's wisdom makes him a better planner than any of them. Especially that useless chump Hawkman. The JSA doesn't get to judge Cap based on Billy, and they sure don't get to tell Billy what to do with his life. He accepted the risks in that old subway tunnel and no one can take that away from him. If they don't like it they can take it up with the alphabet soup of patrons that spell SHAZAM.
Would have put their judgmental "protective" BS toward Stargirl in a different light too. She made her choices too, and being 16 doesn't invalidate them. Try criticizing Bruce for deciding to dedicate his life to fighting crime as a actual child. Or Clark for his actions in Smallville. See how well they tolerate it.
Or skip across the publishing line and remember that Peter took up the great responsibility that comes with great power while he was still in high school too. The burden comes when it comes for heroes, and it doesn't care if you're old enough to drive, or vote, or drink, or whatever arbitrary line you want to draw. You can try to reject it, but Uncle Ben is the case study in how that works out.
Pro Billy and Courtney.
HAWKMAN jerk to everyone. Including adult JSAers with his "lifetimes of experience.
WONDER WOMAN how much older than Steve Trevor is she again? Also tried to put a stop to Conner Kent dating Cassie Sandsmark because she assumed she had license to do so.
BILLY BATSON worried about disrespect? C'mon, man1 Ya took worse crap from Batman when you were in the JLI!
Definitely pro. Chemistry seems good and believable
Pro Courtney , & I believe she is lucky that it ended as it did , because Billy didn’t have the wisdom of Solomon, nor courage of Achilles to fight for their relationship 🖖🏾
Taking relationship advice from Solomon is like taking abstinence advice from Zeus.
"Never have sex....unless you turn into a bird first."
lmao!
Well, he has that guy into his head too.
Yep
Solomon had so many relationships man, he must know how they work. 400 odd wives must have taught him something.
You could argue that having the wisdom of Solomon means making questionable relationship choices.
Can definitely be an aspect of Solomon planning a grand scam using Billy as a way to be reborn into the mortal world. And one of the possibilities is attacking teenage love life?! How is the Almighty justifying this!!!!
300 wives and 600 concubines, right?
For the win!!
I was looking for this comment.
Very good point.
I imagine it must be awkward for Billy to try and find a girlfriend considering the way his powers work. Like, it's one thing to have a romantic partner who knows about your secret identity; it's another thing entirely when your secret identity is a teenage boy and your superhero identity is an adult. That could get complicated really fast.
i have the perfect solution: a girlfriend the same age as his real self (teenage billy), who knows about his powers/superhero identity -and who is also just very kinky-
@@bojuu I think the problem then is who does Billy’s partner love. Like the whole Lois loves superman but not always clark or vice versa works and is funny because the only difference is a pair of glasses.
With Billy and Captain Marvel they’re kinda different people, so more than a sexual problem it becomes an identity crisis.
I’d say he should find an immortal who happens to look like a teenager or can change their appearance at will. Works for the movies (they actually just did this in Shazam 2 and its really creepy but all it gets is a passing comment) and like any vampire teen drama.
@@vullord666 You just made me realize that Shazam is the reverse trope of the anime child character who's actually 4000 years old and now I have psychological damage
Loly babas and Shota o-sans are really a couple of tropes that western comics should try too 😂.
I remember reading this relationship, and thought it was a bit messed up the way it was ended. It seemed to me like it implied Billy was controlled by the gods more than I thought. He got with her as Billy, but then the relationship was ended by Captain Marvel. Then when they come back to it later Billy is upset about how things went down, it is almost as though he was forced to make the decision. The fear of the secret being revealed and being treated like a child, is that Billy's fear or is that the fear of the gods?
Maybe it’s less the gods controlling him and way more the fact that he does see the world more like an adult as Captain Marvel. The way we deal with the world is influenced by how we perceive it, and a 16 year old teenager just has a different perception than a 26 year old. Growing up we realize that ever so slowly, because we are given the time to do so.
Maybe 26 year old Billy would actually agree with Captain Marvel‘s decision, doesn’t mean that his 16 year old self likes it or even agrees. The CM version may also realize better than Billy, what „working it out“ really means in that mess.
So yeah, it may be less that the gods control Billy as CM, but that the wisdom of Solomon let’s CM see, what Billy wouldn’t and doesn’t like.
It always seemed like the wisdom is cruise control, providing guidance and will step in if it thinks a car crash will destroy everything. It may not have been that revealing his identity would be too devestating but revealing it then would. and with jay confronting him it would only be a matter of time so his only option wa to distance himself in order to allow what needed to happen happen.
@@GodShadowdeath The only problem I had with it was how things went down once Jay noticed them at the holiday dinner with the JLA. If Jay was concerned, he could have brought it up to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or even Hawkman who were with him in the JLA. They could have told him what the deal was WITHOUT having to reveal his identity. They've been keeping it a secret for years (Even though I hate it when Diana and Bruce call him William).
But this is the biggest issue with Johns writing the JSA: He was too involved in having Jay and the rest of the original team come off as out of touch senior citizens. Back in the 70 and 80s, it was established that the JSA age VEEEEEERY slowly. So much so, they should only look to be 10-15 years older than the JLA, not decades. Moreover, characters from the Golden Age like Plastic Man, Miss America, and Neon possessed the ability to keep themselves young, and the Freedom Fighters were kept young due to their connection to Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, Johns' first instinct is to have Golden Age characters portrayed as senior citizens to create a generational dynamic between the JSA and JLA, which is unnecessary because it has already existed without having to do that. Which leads to my second problem: Another long-established fact is when Billy becomes Shazam, he is an adult. Not a boy in an adult's body. There is no way an ADULT with the wisdom of Solomon, no less, would have even thought to go into Courtney's room, never mind do anything that would be viewed as improper in front of the team.
When in doubt, Billy should have called the cops on the Wizard for brainwashing him into a second-class hero. The powers are cool, but the price is extremely rigged.
@@mrblaque I think it was a lot more charitable to Captain Marvel for Jay to give him the chance to explain himself, how would he have known those other characters had answers?
The insinuation that Billy does not have full autonomy is something I wish they'd explore. This breakup would have been a perfect setup for it.
Kind of a similar setup to what we see with Fate sometimes
@@Psychospacecow oh yeah! I mean can you imagine a pantheon of god's arguing in his head? It would be fantastic drama.
I thought you said anatomy not autonomy lol. That'd be a much different problem
@@nomorenames5568 very interesting downside lol
Most of the time Captain Marvel is a seperate personality. It's only a few instances before the last decade where it was clear it was one person (inconsistant writers). The last decade though has pretty much locked them in as 1 person.
Billy and Courtney makes sense, I like it. They should bring it back
They really should, it seems so nice
Put this in Young Justice.
Isn't he a kid currently?
@@reitakanashi532in 2020, he is 20 years old in Young Justice
@@johnpaulgontor2362I think 18 actually. I might be wrong, also seem next season might focus on him.
Didn’t Solomon have 700 wives and 300 concubines? No wonder he was more concerned about maintaining Billy”s secret identity than whether or not Jay Garrick thought he was creeping on a 16 year-old.
Solomon probs had a few teen wives himself 😂
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!
@@Notsbaby A lot of adult men had teen wives back then. Didn't even have to be a king. Just a dude that her parents fixed her up with.
Lol he probably didn't even get what Jay's problem was 😂
"She's 16 Captain."
"...Yes, and...?"
Bear in mind to that adult in those times were like 13. Life expectancy wasn't what it is now. It's part of the reason women were married off almost as soon as they were able to ovulate because time was much shorter
The idea that Billy would rather be seen as a creep than be treated the way his girlfriend is treated all the time is actually a really interesting idea that has some really strong real-life resonance and meaning...and I think the problem with this story is that once it says that, there doesn't seem to be anywhere else for it to go, and we get the break-up as it happens here.
I remember it being one of the reasons I stopped reading JSA, incidentally: that it felt like character subplots would just kind of speed through all of their plot beats without any time to actually feel like they were happening. To my memory, the moments in this video aren't just the highlights, they are the entire subplot; if there was more, it didn't feel like it, and it made a lot of these big characterization moments and shifts feel insubstantial to me.
...it also feels like this was the last time Billy Batson had anything close to a meaningful or interesting story before New 52 (that wasn't a flashback like First Thunder), parallel with Black Adam becoming the more important part of the DC Universe, so it's hard not to wonder if it kind of killed the character. The only place for the story to move was for Billy to come clean about his age to the JSA, and whether there was an editorial veto on that or whether Johns just thought it was better to end the story right here, it leaves Billy looking awful with no payoff or momentum to move away from it.
Sad times. We need more fleshed out stories and subplots.
I think it is very interesting that Solomons' wisdom (which biblically had its limits where love is concerned) apparently had no problem with Cap and Courtney flirting, but had a problem with him revealing his identity, even at the cost of him exiting the JSA. That is one of many threads that I am curious about. Is it wiser for Billy to have a relationship than not? Is his relationship with Courtney actually unwise but allowed since Solomon won't let Cap do the wrong thing?
Like you said Solomon's wisdom had its limits I think the way it works is you can know what's right and wrong but the decision is still yours to make for example I know that if I workout constantly and eat healthy I'll look and feel better but I don't because ultimately I'm choosing the option that makes me more comfortable and Billy may be leaning more on his insecurities then he realizes
Yeah, you’re not wrong. Wisdom of Solomon ≠ wise relationship decisions! 😂
Solomon had like 300 wives and 600 concubines, im pretty sure he’d buy Billy a beer and give him a high five
This has always been my problem with "Shazam". He isn't even as wise as Billy, no more or less Solomon... (Solomon Grundy, maybe...)
@@michaelcarter9395, yeah especially the movie version. At least these writers acknowledged it.
I had no idea Caption Marvel and Stargirl were a thing at one point. It’s a definitely different dynamic but I like it. It’s not the normal comic book relationship you would come to expect. Plus it seems wholesome how they can bond on their unique perspectives on being a kid hero and Courtney keeping Billy’s identity. I hope they bring it back even if every other hero knows Billy is a kid and that questions not there. I still think they work as a couple. Plus two of my favorite hero’s being connected is cool in its own right lol
Too late. Post new 52 and rebirth everyone knows Billy secret identity.
Billy and Courtney is up there for me, right alongside Eddie and Rose in TT, for being some of the most often overlooked, but yet incredibly interesting short lived couples from the 2000’s. Hope to see them make a comeback someday!
As a subplot it probably had run it’s course, but I would have preferred them let Captain Marvel’s courage of Achilles reveal his secret to Jay , then still with the wisdom of Solomon leave the JSA while remaining in a relationship with Courtney , giving them time too find out if a relationship where they’re not always together could work…Keep Up The Outstanding Work Sasha 🖖🏾
I like the idea of a story with the courage of Achilles and the wisdom of Solomon pulling him in different directions. It's doesn't necessarily have to be about Stargirl or any kind of romantic relationship either. It could be told in a lot of ways.
When Jay said "you're 25", Captain Marvel should have said "actually, I'm 16" and then proved it by saying Shazam.
@@BiggieTrismegistus its just Achilles and Solomon arguing in his head. "He needs to be brave enough to reveal that he cheated on his last math's test"
"That would be illogical as he would get into trouble and detention, therefore losing time he could spend saving people"
I honestly think by "courage of achilles" they only meant the durability, not his actual braveness (I mean really, if he's indestructible aside from his heel which he didn't even know about, how brave is he?).
If the two did have a legacy kid, they would of been called Star Captain and have intergalactic magical adventures.
Or "Marvel Girl", LOL.
If Solomon prevents Captain Marvel from doing morally wrong things, and the relationship was able to continue while Billy was in his transformed state, then that shows that the relationship wasn’t considered morally wrong, which I agree with since it was two 16-year-olds in reality despite physical perception.
It might have been interesting to see if Captain Marvel felt the same attraction to Stargirl that Billy did if they wanted to explore the whole idea of the two being more separate than people realize. This could act as a loophole to the whole “Solomon stops me from doing morally wrong” thing, since if Captain Marvel wasn’t in love with Stargirl, than he was technically just acting strange, and still doing nothing wrong as he wouldn’t have been in love with a teenager.
If the separation between the two forms really was a thing, when Captain Marvel transformed back into Billy, he could have been shown being hit by a sudden wave of emotion that Captain Marvel had basically been holding back. I wish Billy had stayed on the Society, or returned for the next big event where the event would have given him the option to reveal his secret to save the day, to which he would take, in turn proving that his love was real and hopefully resolving the relationship issue (at least partly, IDK how Stargirl would feel at this point).
If I was Billy/Shazam I'd just wait until college before I started dating, or at least until I turned 18/19. It would make things much less complicated once there's less of an age gap between his secret identity and his superhero identity.
Side Note: Does Shazam/Captain Marvel age at the same rate Billy does, or does he not age at all?
@@halfmettlealchemist8076 I assume he is like Black Adam. Captain Marvel does not age the human host does. It is like in Kingdom Come no one know adult Billy was not Captain Marvel and they looked the same.
perhaps the age difference was not morally wrong in Solomon's eyes, things used to be like that a few millennia ago
@@BigBass63 still are in majority of world including the usa(around 70% of country is 16) with 16 being the age of consent give or take a couple years, europe for example has multiple places at 14 and 15.
@@blackrazer22 yeah, I always assumed the transformation was just his body being turned into an adult because his child body couldn't contain it, so as an adult he wouldn't age even further.
I get that Sasha's red and gold color scheme is to reflect Captain Marvel's colors, but all I can see is ketchup and mustard. Now I want a hot dog.
Not BIG RED CHEESE...??? 😋😂
You know SHAZAM, Amethyst, Jakeem Thunder, Djinn, and Stargirl would probably make for a wholesome and fun group. It is surprising that they haven't made a show with that concept yet.
I'm not sure if you're aware but there is a Stargirl tv show or I guess was on hbo. No shazam as far as I watched but several JSA members appear (though it's more of a next generation thing). Production wise I'd put it at around the level of the new superman and lois show.
Why the most interesting ships always gets the shaft in favor of boring ones? Conner x Cassandra, Billy x Courtney, Tim and Stephanie, they all have so much potential and what DC does with it - Nothing!
At least stephanie became a hero and one of the best dc female heroes after
WE WILL GET BATMAN X WONDER WOMAN AGAIN?! I swear it only happens in The DCAU and in that on Alternate Darkverse Batman
I think there was a lot that could have been explored, but the ending was still satisfying. It was a realistic reason for a 16-year-old couple to break up on - they're struggling with themselves, with how they want others to perceive them, with what they think is right or important, and there are still feelings and care, even if they regret what could have been. Solidly done.
That said, I would love to see this revisited, or explored more at the time. There was so much to explore in terms of Stargirl and Billy's insecurities. Maybe Billy could have encouraged Stargirl to stand up to Hawkman's dismissals. Jay finding out, and then helping these young people navigate the situation would have been potentially fun, or wacky. I think that rather than exploring the potential bleed-back of Billy's feeling for Stargirl bleeding into Captain Marvel, I think it would be fun to have Captain Marvel be distant from the relationship - caring, but more like an uncle when transformed. I especially think Stargirl roundly rejecting any implication she's into Captain Marvel as a relationship partner, while still being into Billy, is fertile ground for both comedy and emotional storytelling. Keep the suspicion/potential ick factor because of the people around them misinterpreting what they are seeing, but show Stargirl, Billy and Captain Marvel all being good about the boundaries because for them, Billy and Captain Marvel are (and always have been) different people.
But that's just my thoughts!
I ship it!!!
Ha! TH-cam asked me to rate your comment. Funny, Shows appreciation to the content creator, and Inspired me to watch. Those were my picks. 😁
@@MoesTube1 thanks
It's a cute pairing that could have really done a lot more for both characters. For her Billy wasn't Captain Marvel, she understood the difference because she would refer to billy without really treating Shazam as Billy at times which is really nice.
They're perfect for each other considering neither one will ever age beyond their teenage years.
This relationship has a interesting dynamic and touches on certain issues that are addressed in other media.
For example if they did bring the relationship back they would definitely have to alter ages. Because in animated series like Justice League and young justice Billy is usually a kid, tween age at best, while Courtney is usually a teenager. So there definitely be a age difference that some may find problematic.
Another thing is that in Young Justice, Billy’s identity is revealed to the justice league after a attack by Klerion, and Shazam is a member of the Justice League but after his identity is revealed they start treating him differently and even question whether they should remove him from the team with the exception of Batman that still stands by him. So it shows that those fears of the other members treating him differently or even rejecting him are founded.
Though I do agree the idea of how much of billy is still there and how much are the gods are in control is a interesting concept they could explore with the relationship.
Adding another comment because I feel obligated to add an interpretation of what Johns was probably trying to do with this subplot that has nothing to do with creepy stuff: adolescents are caught between childhood and adulthood in general, and Billy's magical powers just heighten the contradictions in being an adolescent: the "adult" part of his personality is even _more_ well-realized than it is for most teenagers, so the "kid" part of him has a tougher time than normal. You can explore this in other ways, but relationships reveal a lot about characters. So Courtney and Billy both are mature enough to understand how their relationship might not be the best thing, given their responsibilities. But it's only Billy (via his alter ego) who's willing to go through with the tough decision that seems right. But like Sasha says, Johns does such a great job with his characterizations that we don't really know if breaking it off was the right call, because at the end of the day Billy is still a kid--and even as Shazam he starts from a kid's perspective.
The Wisdom of Soloman was one of the key things that was completely missing in the Shazam movies. Captain Marvel was way too dumb, dumber than Billy for some reason.
Have Amethyst/Amy Winston and Shazam/Billy Batson ever had a substantive conversation about the age jumps that come with their powers? Can't decide if that would be weirder or less weird than Billy and Courtney. But I'd definitely throw that in if I ever got the chance to write a Shazam or Amethyst book...
I'm not sure they've ever been on the same page of a comic, let alone spoke to each other.
Wait a minute, Amethyst/Shazam would actually be a really good couple when you put it like that
@@danielseelye6005 they haven't? They work in the same general magic side of things so you would think that they would just naturally interact.
@@andresmarrero8666 I know, right? Maybe they were both on one of those crazy-detailed pages from Crisis on Infinite Earths. But I've read a decent amount of DC and can't recall them ever interacting
@@andresmarrero8666 Amethyst isn't a popular character compared to Shazam.
She was only around from 1983 to 86 then disposed of in Crisis on Infinite Earths. She only came back after Infinite Crisis in the early aughts and then had only one 8 issue run during New 52, which was cancelled.
It seems she then popped up in the Young Justice series in 2019 and deals with those younger characters, not Shazam.
That “E is for edgy” joke got me 😂
Honestly one of my favourite undeveloped relationships
10:50 Oh come on, that line is exactly kind of inept "it sounded romantic in my head" thing a real, slightly traumatized 16 year old boy would come up with. It's flawless.
I like the Billy and Star Girl dynamic and would have liked more, but from a writing perspective, i can see why it had to end because you essentially have to pick which character trait can continue: his romance or his secret identity as they cant really exist simultaneously. And his secret identity is just to fundamental to what makes Captain Marvel unique
Someone who thinks the wisdom of Solomon keeps you from making bad relationship decisions obviously doesn't know much about Solomon.
When you first teased this video, I thought that it was Stargirl dating a kid Billy, not teen, and that THAT was the problem, not the other way around.
I think this is such an interesting relationship. It makes total sense that there would be chemistry between billy and courtney. Personally I don't think it's dangerous to explore since no one in the real world could possibly be in this situation. The situation doesn't even have close parallels in real life (a magic word that can instantly age you up or down ~10 years just doesn't exist). Something like having a secret identity has parallels to real life because people can hide key aspects of who they are from others, especially with the internet, but people can't shift between genuinely having an adult body and genuinely having a teenage body on a whim, so I personally don't think this relationship promotes inappropriate age gaps to the readers. I'm glad people in-universe find the flirting when billy is captain marvel weird, though I'm not sure why the wisdom of solomon would be ok with him flirting with a 16 year old in his hero form.
Solomon wasn’t exactly most appropriate man. He had 600+ concubines at lest one of theme was teenager.
Ultimately I'm glad they broke up. I liked how much was left open to speculation. You can use it to inform how you view the Billy/Captain Marvel dynamic or Courtney's dynamic with the jsa for future stories without much conflict due to the ambiguity. Plus if it stuck around, especially in the 2000s, it could have easily fallen onto a writer who wouldn't handle it well. The worst case scenario is another writer picking this up and pulling a "Hal Jordan/Arisia" with Billy.
Plus imo the relationship was doomed. Her begging him to become Billy again made me realize it. Having a boyfriend who turns into someone else has to create a divide, especially when you're so young and attached to him
I said this in another comment, but poor Billy must have a really difficult time finding a girlfriend his own age when his powers literally cause him to turn into an adult man. If I were him, I'd just wait until I was in college to start dating.
But if it had been maintained, I would not see a problem because in time Courtney would be an adult with Billy.
Holy Moley! HOW did I miss this? I thought I I read the JSA religiously. I would normally be a bit...not grossed out but...circumspect about the plot. But the fact that it's Billy and he's acting like a teen dork who'd rather save his pride than tell the truth is delicious. Very believable. I like the depth of characterization. I too sorely miss subplots. Why is it so disregarded? Is it because they can't fit into the Worlds Going to END event that's been going on 4 or 5 times a year with the big 2? They're driving me into the arms of Indies.
I like it. It seems like it had potential. Would like to see a redoo here. I mean in just such a short time, Billy and Courtney had more chemistry then Tim Drake or Jonatha Kent currently has with their Bf's. Maybe it is easier when both have character rather then one ;-D
I kinda like the idea that Billy and the Captain are two different people, rather than Billy just being put in the body of an adult. It creates some interesting conflict, especially if the Captain is still Billy but fully as an adult not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Or perhaps that takes away from other avenues for conflict and creates problematic scenarios. Honestly, I think the Captain is such a difficult character to write for, due to him being such a product of his time that modernizing him in some ways feels like a betrayal of the character but keeping the not-to-serious, light hearted camp of the original is not as appealing to new readers.
Captain Marvel and Billy are a fascinating piece of Golden Age wish fulfillment that can be interesting to gently deconstruct for modern readers. You can't help but see parallels in the 1993 Prime character from Malibu, another kid who gained what amount to "instant adult" powers - although in his case there was no mental maturation or supernatural wisdom boost while empowered, with predictably unfortunate results a lot of the time.
I never knew of this sub-plot but I like it. Sub-plots like these make characters seem more like people. I'm wondering if it wasn't that the Wisdom of Solomon wouldn't let him tell the secret but rather that the Wisdom let him understand how the JSA would react and the Billy side of him was afraid to deal with that. That would make sense since most teens know that all adults were born that way and would never take a kid with the Wisdom of Solomon seriously, despite the fact that they HAD been and for quite some time.
As someone old enough to have been a fan of original run Shazam comics, I really like this. Even though the OS was very tongue in cheek, it had depth to it too. It is fairly easy to comprehend physical aspects like the strength of Heracles, power of Zeus or even the speed of Mercury, but the Wisdom of Solomon tends not to be thought of.
It is literally super-wisdom. It is no more the Gods telling him to do any given thing than it is the Gods lifting anything for him or picking him up and carrying him at high speeds. If the wisdom was particularly fallible, it would not be any better than the wisdom of Billy (although hopefully would be at least better than the questionable wisdom of Zeus :P ). If he had told Jay, who knows what side repercussions there could have been? What if Jakeem decided if it was good enough for Billy, he too should be a were-adult, by way of the power of his lightning bolt, but without Solomon's wisdom to guide him in adult form? Just the first possible repercussion that comes to mind....
If shazam hadn’t gotten a movie it would have been a fun cw show the tone and style fits the cw style very well
I can understand why people may find the romantic aspect uncomfortable but I'd love to see more plots of Shazam/Billy developing close friendships with other young heros. That tension between him also being a kid so he understands them but at the same time is not treated like a kid on the team - could lead to some interesting drama
I love it when you call him by his name,Captain Marvel!
I loved this plot when it came out. Old school Captain Marvel (Modern Shazaam) was so much more interesting and complicated. He was the best person, but often in very difficult situations.
I actually thanked Geoff Johns for doing this storyline. It's about time we see how Billy Batson dates. Of course, this is within a context of a superhero team. It wouldn't be the same with a modern Cissy Sommers since she wouldn't be hanging out with an adult superhero.
I should also add that very recently as a indie screenwriter, I was told to remove all references to childhood, all dialogue about childhood and children, in my film which is partially set in a nudist community. I may have even have to bar minors from being extras in the museum scenes. Four pages were deleted and though it improved the pacing of the script, I now have 19 year olds with no childhood. Yeah . . . totally believable. The paranoia about problematic elements are real, and though my goal in my college career was to tackle the issue of child abuse, I will never be able to. Ever.
I thought I had saw your JSA omnibus moving positions in previous videos, I’m glad you’re covering this series, it’s super underrated
I like how Shade keeps popping up on this channel. I think this would be an interesting couple to revisit
Excellent,you’re hair is back in place.😊
Of course I meant your not you’re.🤣
It's certainly an interesting scenario to present in the story. On the one hand, they are both 16. On the other, one of them looks much older, is hiding his real age from most people.
I think the real problem is the Wisdom of Solomon in this. Like, if Shazam thinks about something (anything really), then changes back to Billy, does Billy retain those thoughts? If not, I think it would probably be fine if Billy and Stargirl dated, but with a rule that it's strictly business when he's Shazam. But if he does retain it, then the entire relationship likely gets unbalanced in a grooming sort of way, which sucks for Billy.
And that brings me to the other part of this story that makes me give it a little bit of side-eye: was this an attempt to cast real-life groomers as 'just immature for their age', or was it just exploring this unfortunate side-effect of the Shazam powers that gets in the way of Billy being able to have anything approaching a normal romantic relationship?
Considering that story billy told about taking the test, I would say yes, those thoughts do carry over to his kid form
@@RadMan224 I thought that at first, but wouldn't that mean that the act of transforming would have already made him cheat irreparably? Or did he have the flash of conscience the moment he turned into Shazam, and therefore Shazam never pondered any of the test questions?
So wait, has Billy never unmasked in front of the hero community at large? That seems so weird.
Not according to the JLA comic going around that time. In that most of the older JSA members knew!
Billy and Courtney's relationship should have continued. They should even have been given their own title. DC comics constant rebooting damaged some origins but also killed great story lines! Still waiting on you to do a post on The New Teen Titans the Judas Contract. Or, did you do one and I missed it.
Dan Didio's DC Prime Directive:
There shall be no happiness in the DC multiverse.
😡
I would prefer Billy Batson to be with Cissie Sommerly instead of Courtney Whitmore because of their interaction since the Golden Age in the 1940s. In my headcanon, if all the people (including the heroes) of Earth-S age in real time since Captain Marvel’s debut in 1939, then we would see Billy and Cissie spending time together from the early 40s to them being in suspended animation in 1953 to their return in 1972 all the way up to the present.
After the first Crisis in 1985 (which resulted in the pre-Crisis multiverse being saved instead of merging into New Earth), Billy (who is chronically 58 years old but physically 39 years old at that time) would reveal his secret identity to Cissie, resulting in Cissie being shocked and impressed that Billy (as Captain Marvel) became a superhero and created a legacy and form relationships since his debut in 1939.
The two would get married in 1988 (referencing a Shazam backup feature in Action Comics) and have twin children in 1994 named Clarence Charles “C.C.” Batson (named after C.C. Beck, the co-creator of Captain Marvel) and Marilyn “Lyn” Batson (named after his pre-Crisis father Merrill Batson and twin sister Mary Batson), referencing the Power of Shazam series by when it started and the pre-Flashpoint parents of Billy and Mary.
By 2006, C.C. and Lyn would make their debut as the second Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, following their father’s legacy while forging their own path.
By 2023, Billy and Cissie (who are both chronically 96 years old but physically 77 years old) would retire and would stay at the Rock of Eternity since 2016, where they would watch their children, friends, family members, reformed villains, and loved ones continue to be active on Earth-S while visiting them from time to time.
Also, Courtney Whitmore (who, in my headcanon, should’ve existed on pre-Crisis Earth-Two if the first Crisis resulted in all the heroes saving the pre-Crisis multiverse and graduated as Starwoman in 2011 because of her maturity and character development) would have a crush on Captain Marvel from 1999 to 2004 because she read his adventures in Fawcett Comics (because a writer on Earth-Two tapped into Earth-S). This would result in naming her second-born son William (after Billy Batson Captain Marvel) in 2014 (and her first-born son Albert, named after Albert Rothstein Atom-Smasher, born in 2013) after her marriage to Josh Hammon (an obscure character from the Stars and Stripes series) in 2011.
I've only heard about this pairing from references or factoids so it was very nice to see a video that dove into all of it. Thanks!
Relationships where part of the conflict comes from others having a misconception about the maturity levels can be pretty interesting. I feel like it creates a lot of good drama, and then also allows the characters around the couple to show their character. there are a few webcomics I'm reading where the main character was either an adult and then woke up as a teenager in a fantasy novel or simply has memories of another timeline and then regressed back to a certain point. There is often some conflict with her and her love interest since she perceives him as younger than her. When if fact, the love interest also has memories of another timeline and so is the same mental maturity as her. none of these stories have gotten to the point where its revealed that the love interest also has memories, so I don't know how its handling it. but over all, very interesting.
Haha, that's sort of a different situation, but I feel like it's almost the opposite, a character who sometimes looks older, but maturity wise is closer to a teenager than an adult. It takes the main conflict of a lot of superhero romances (weird love triangle between two people) and ups it because its now an external and internal, as opposed to just be inbetween the two people.
I don't know if it was intentional, but I love your Jesse Quick look! It fits very well in a JSA video
Honestly this seemed like a cute relationship and instead of billy ending it as Shazam I would’ve loved it if the whole league confronts captain marvel like he was a creep and with no other choice he reverts back to billy and everyone just slaps their head going “OH THANK GOD HE’S A CHILD” we the audience knew it so the greatest moment in comics could’ve been born if they wanted to play into the “JOKE” of captain marvel being too friendly with star girl
I and my friends reading at the time thought that the moving fast to a kiss was not just the danger but the emotional draining effect of the Shadow Realms. Sasha said Courtney was giving Billy a confidence boost, in the Shadow Realm being afraid might kill you.
This is amazing. I think it's a great way to showcase all the insecurities a teenager has with age and adults. It's also cool to see different heroes take issue with their relationship, revealing that they will not excuse pedophilia even if the person committing it is a valued hero and the victim is almost an adult. Good on Flash and that other kid for recognizing that a hero has to be heroic in all aspects.
1) I watched my foster sister go from boyfriend to boyfriend back, in the day. Didn't blink at Courtney's deciding she liked Billy so quick.
2) This was the best handling of the Billy / Cap dichotomy since the Crisis. Pre-Crisis, the two were more distinct. Started in "A New Beginning" they decided to go more with the "Big" approach. This handling made the two more distinct again, without violating the new status quo.
3) I liked Billy and Courtney together; that said teen romances rarely work out.
4) Dr. Mid-Nite (Pieter Cross) saw Cap switch to Billy in "Vitue and Vice". Apparently he never told anyone.
5) "Smell of Hair/Cracked Jaw" line: It's goofy, but it shows Billy wanted to be complimentary and that he was glad to see her.
6) I don't remember that particular issue with Per Degaton. I wonder if Johns had already started flanderizing Degaton, or was that just a bit of bullsh*t from the current iteration.
7) Johns is such a better writer when he has a co-writer. So is Goyer.
8) That Dark Mary thing was such horrible f*cked up horsesh*t..
9) There is a huge, huge disconnect in this story, and it isn't so much about how Jay confronted the Captain. It's like this:
Per "Infinity Inc." #1 Albert Rothestein was a college student when he became Nuklon. And had been for a while. All of "Infinity Inc." happened. The JSA went to Limbo, came back. had some adventures, then got F-ed by "Zero Hour". Al, in the meantime spent some time with the post-Giffen Justice League America, and was hurt falling to Earth in "JLA" (1997) #1. He healed, indicating a passage of time. Then he joined the Justice Society as Atom Smasher. While comic book time is weird, enough events happened that there is no way to believe Albert wasn't at last 22 or 23. Well before the Captain ever joined the JSA, the whole Courtney-Albert thing was already very inappropriate. And no one on the JSA ever gave two sh*ts about that relationship; no one ever called Al about it. And Jay, Alan, and Ted knew Albert when he was a kid; they'd be MORE likely to call Albert on his shenanigans (especially with Teri Rothstein and Al Pratt gone).
Jay confronting the Captain made sense, but it made the fact that Jay didn't confront Albert about it stand out like a sore thumb.
Keep in mind the Albert and Courtney thing started when she was 14 or 15, as JSA #54 was at least the 2nd Thanksgiving of that iteration of the JSA; "Virtue and Vice" being the 1st.
Also, the S-word should be in parentheses, not Billy's proper codename.
Best comic to deal with subplots is Legionnaires from 1994. Having a huge team and each character gets a super interesting angle to their stories
I remember really enjoying their relationship when reading JSA and was sad when it ended how it did. I didn't even catch all the implications of the Wizard influencing Billy. I think at the time I read it more as just Billy being unable to bring himself to cheat on a test, though this interpretation makes way more sense with the context looking at it again. It was just really saddening to see a likable relationship that could've seriously brought some levity to those characters and the book itself be sacrificed like that. Especially when most other romance plots in the series are either killed by stuff outside the book like Ollie coming back from the dead, or are tragic or bombastic like Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Plus Courtney's love life becoming a means to an end for a villain plot involving Atom Smasher felt unfair to her character and left a bad taste in my mouth.
I think a solid writer on Stargirl or Shazam could seriously get away with bringing this relationship back and doing something fun with it. In a solo book and not JSA, there might be a better chance of that getting to be properly explored and not nixed as part of editorial or just the shifting needs of a team book.
it is heartening to see that so many people also liked this subplot and remember it.
I'll never forget that subplot, that's how I got introduced to Stargirl and that's been a love story with that character ever since :)
This actually seems like a nice couple. It makes sense the two teenagers w/ powers in the league get together... As long as they don't like, kiss while Billy is Shazam cuz that looks creepy. And he also tells everyone in the league he's 16 too.
Sasha Champagne is a perfect name for a Bond Girl.
This channel is so great. I love all your discussion on the silver age and 80s comics and the sillier or weirder elements but also i am really enjoying these deep dives into the various subplots and character moments of more recent comics. I used to collect everything all the time but havent been current in years so this id great. I get little snipets, little cliff notes/coles notes of whats been happening. Anyway just to say great stuff! Thanks for putting it out there!
I've never read that run of JSA - there were just too many interesting comics around at the time, too many for my budget. Looks from this wee snippet like I may have missed out on something good. I'll have to find a few issues and tr out. Will it be worth the effort?
Absolutely worth the time. I've read all of JSA volume 1 (the series that started in 1999 and went for 87 issues) and a chunk of the Justice Society of America run that was a direct continuation of that (started in 2006). Like we see in this video, Johns wrote some really great character-driven stories during those runs
Seconded. It's really good and the character stroies are some of the best of the era, right up there with Ultimate Spiderman.
@@MrAnim8orVideos Thanks to both you and Pallaeon's Remnant for your replies. I'll definitely keep an eye out for both series.
I like the “ship” for these two. It also makes me think of the perils of office relationships. Sure, Green Arrow & Black Canary make it work, but they are full-fledged adults. Can the adolescents keep hormones in check until they take out the bad guy?
Also, the idea of Billy having to be heroic without his powers is cool, like Superman under a red sun.
I mean say interesting concept but honestly and it gives something for Billy to have outside of the Marvel family and it does have a connection for Courtney who I think was one of the youngest members of the JSA at the time and honestly since stargirl in the JSA is backup you can easily have her make appearance in the new Shazam run and you can have Billy make an appearance in the new JSA in stargirl runs as well just to make it a little bit more interesting just so they can kind of revisit but do it I guess right this time
The Shade throwing shade? Lmao😂
This sub plot needs to be revisted, loved the relationship between these kid characters.
By far my favorite video you ever made. Didn't know about this subplot line, and now that I do I thoroughly enjoy it. I like weird but plausible scenarios that come with powers and secret identities. I think more mileage could have been drawn from this. I'm not sure there is a good conclusion to this subplot, especially with the wisdom of Solomon angle involved. I do know it is worth a read, or at least to know it exited.
Just wanted to say how I love theway you color-coordinated your look for this video with that of Captain Marvel. 👍
Let's be real. It is good for Billy that it was Jay confronting him and not Wildcat XD
...not that Wildcat would even be threat but still. He is a verbal threat XD
Lol he does try to beat up Billy when they're looking for Captain Marvel in the later issues.
@@CasuallyComics Sounds like Ted alright. Nothing called soft paws on that kitty XD
Well this would’ve been super awkward if they did this in live action
This becomes more weird when you know Batman knew the entire time what was going on.
Billy and Marvel being separate people also would explain how he’s able to witness and engage in events that would traumatize a 16 yr old from all the violence and inhuman crimes he witnesses
Love the eye shadow and hair color! 😍
0:56 ok that’s a relief
Great Vid! That JSA run was really one of the best of that era.
I'd be curious to see DC revisit the relationship somehow...
But I'd be far more interested in Sasha doing a video on one of the worst canon funny book relationships of all time:
Hal Jordan & Arisia! (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't even the work of Gerard Jones either...)
3:50 the movie’s take was probably easier for casuals to understand also different universe different rules
I feel sorry for Billy. Because it would be even more problematic if he got with an adult as Captain Marvel. But he only had to wait a couple more years.
I enjoyed your recap of this subplot, and I wish to see more of Billy/Shazam and Stargirl than I got to see.
I like this subplot, i think is an interesting idea of exploring the complexities of a character like shazam even tho i didnt like everything... and its certainly less creepy than that time Harley had a thing for him
Quinzel did what?
@@ZeldaWayne_Letsplays In Injustice Harley got a thing for Shazam, then she realized Shazam was Billy and started hanging out with him and getting him out of school?
SHAZAM was definitely treated different in Young Justice when his age was found out. I loved this storyline.
I think all the nuanced but hyper specific drama of their relationship sounds really interesting. Wouldn't mind them revisiting their relationship in the future.
Had completely forgotten this sub plot. Although some of the covers come back to me, as do the panels. The covers largely because I read issue fifty sitting in the bandstand in Regents Park London. In the middle of the pouring rain. In a similar vein I read the Punisher Max annual 2009 sitting under an umbrella at the foot of a hill in the middle of a military firing range. It was pouring. It was July. British summer weather. Weirdest place you've read a comic might be an interesting topic. But I digress...
The JSA romance I never forgot though was Dr Midnite Pieter Cross and Black Canary. He was way better for her than Ollie! But we know how that ended out.
Another dating subplot that didn't last but I did like was in Legion of Super Heroes in the 90's. When Bouncing Boy went on a date with Shrinking Violet. Which had the lovely line in the last panel 'at the end of the evening, two very shy people feel just that little bit less alone.' But then both of them seemed happy to make that a one off after, so it never went anywhere.
The word the Internet has killed for me is Trope. Except when you use it, because you're talking about attitudes and responses. And that makes it interesting.
I loved the StarGirl Billy batson relationship..it was 1 of the subplots of the Geoff’s JSA run. This was a great analysis of a small part of a great run
I really like this plot!! I wish they would extend it in the future
Most of the time in DC, Shazam is a separate mental personality. This doesn't seem like it would be an issue in those settings. Because Billy and Captain Marvel are different people.
I have never heard of this relationship but now that I have I am so interested. So many ways to go about it and I'm glad they eventually broke up but I wish it lasted longer and/or they delved into it more later on. Great video!
Great episode (as usual) I was reading JSA as it was coming out at the time and was really into this subplot. I was happy for the two of them for the brief period before things got complicated and I was thoroughly entertained and intrigued by some of the obstacles and the whole Jay Garrick angle. It sucks that it ended the way it did and so quickly, but that also feels accurate to a teenage romance. As far as the writing and drama of it all goes, I think Geoff Johns handled the whole thing well, including the break-up. However, I feel like it is a missed opportunity that no one has ever rekindled it. Maybe we'll still see it revisited at some point. The Dawn of DC seems to be doing a good job of touching on some past elements without totally rehashing old rope... but you already know that.
Ngl, when I saw the thumbnail I worried the situation would have been an Adult Super Hero dating Shazam and Billy hiding that he's underage. This is a pleasantly in depth surprise
I think this is actually a quite interesting and not too weird exploration of age and the way that age makes people treat each other differently, It’s cool
The idea that Billy was more willing to protect his adult personality than his relationship is interesting 🤔. Most fascinating, however, is the speed of the courtship! 😅
You should do a video on DC’s Secret Six. That’s a weird Gail Simone creation I think would be fun to dive into.
The fact that Marvel and Billy have different thoughts on things is kind of wild to me. Also Billy, buddy, you can fight. Show them your age and gently remind Hawkman that there really isn't anything he can do about it. If you prove your worth, that shouldn't change based on age.
I remember there was age shifting plot shenanigans in the WITCH cartoon (not sure if it was from the original comic or something written for the show). Because the main characters look older when they transform, one of them used it to her advantage to date and older boy and her main love interest at the same time by partially transforming back and forth
Cute and sweet. Wish it had continued, but I think there was a purpose to the story arc.
The way it ended and the fact that Shazam is perceived as an adult highlight how the combination of youth and the responsibility of being a hero is really rough . Too much responsibility robs kids of the right to be who they are - kids. Growing up & finding out who you are shouldn't be rushed. Life doesn't afford you another chance to act like the young. Lost innocence can't be reclaimed. Sure, people often try, but it's never the same.
"Youth is wasted on the young" is never more true than it is for heroes. All young heroes. Illustrating this so clearly could only be accomplished with a hero no one knew was young.
Good writing, IMHO.
Courtney's been 16 for years now. They really got to let that girl grow, she should be a brighter star in the comics.
Sasha, we appreciate you!
I remember this sub-plot, and I kinda like Billy and Star, a shame but it was obvious that this can't continue for long... But something I learned from this is that Billy's super power is having integrity.
Thank you for the video.