Shazam!: The New Beginning (1987—1987)

Shazam!: The New Beginning was a four-issue limited series published from April to July of 1987. It re-introduced the character of Captain Marvel into the continuity of the Post-Crisis DC Universe and brought back some of his classic adversaries, including Black Adam and Doctor Sivana. Due to a second Post-Crisis reboot in the title The Power of Shazam! (Volume 1), this series is no longer considered part of the canonical DC continuity.

In this interesting continuity, as main differences, Black Adam was exiled in other dimension, and not reincarnated, having been returned by Sivana's gadgets; Doctor Sivana and Dudley were real uncles to Billy Batson; Billy's relatives died in a car accident; the Wizard Shazam died soon after give powers to Billy; no Marvel Family, just Captain Marvel. The most notable change that Thomas, Giffen and DeMatteis introduced into the Captain Marvel mythos was that the personality of young Billy Batson is retained when he transforms into the Captain. This change would remain for most future uses of the character as justification for his sunny, Golden Age personality in the darker modern-day comic book world, instead of the Golden Age depiction, which tended to treat Captain Marvel and Billy as two separate personalities.

This revised version of Captain Marvel also appeared in one story-arc featured in the short-lived anthology Action Comics #623–626 (October 25 – November 15, 1988).

Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Compendium stated this series and related material detailed events that happened on Earth-85.

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Shazam!: The New Beginning: 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (2017)
ISBN: 978-1401274849

Shazam!: The New Beginning (1987—1987)

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