I don't blame your confusion. This version of Dr. Sivana is based on the Geoff John's drastic reinvention of him starting in New 52 and ongoing. Judging from Mr. Mind's dialogue, he might also end up being based on his reboot self (assuming we're getting a sequel, which seems like a safe bet now), which is still being developed in the current "Shazam" ongoing series.
Sivana and his family had any number of schemes in the old comics. This is based on Geoff Johns New 52 Revamp. You can see how close they are Tough in that run the powers eventually caused him to shrivel up like the classic version And the old comics had him get powers a few times The closeness isn't a surprise as Geoff Johns was one of the producers in charge of that move and Aquaman.
He also got powers in his first of two major appearances in the "Batman: Brave and the Bold" animated series (the second one is a shared spotlight with Mr.Mind).
I finally saw the movie a little while ago. They made a few changes to the character... not nearly as much as the other Captain Marvel... and most of the changes here I can actually overlook because they were necessary and didn't ruin the over all story. There is one major change that does have a pretty major impact but I'll get into later. First the good changes: The kids are never referred to as orphans... kinda makes sense as we don't really use that term anymore. They're foster kids now. This is basically just a modern update of the same concept so no problem there. I think originally all the kids were around 10 years old but now there's a wide range of different ages which actually makes it more realistic as you wouldn't see that many kids all around the same age realistically living together like that. Not every kid is a 10 year old. There is one exception to this that I'll get into later. Billy Batson is now 14 instead of 10... which seems kinda arbitrary and random. I kinda wish as the main character that at least his age was kept to the original. However this by itself doesn't really effect the story that much so I could over look it... Now for the bad part: Mary is now about 17 or 18 years old. She's a high school senior. It's shown in the movie that she's applying for colleges and finishing her last year of high school. Of all the kids Billy and Mary should still be the same age. While I would prefer that they both stayed 10 I could much more easily accept Billy being 14 if Mary was also 14. The reason that there two characters have to be the exact same age where no one else does is because in the comics Billy and Mary were twins. They're actually biologically related to each other. The reason they have different last names is because they were separated as babies and only later found out that they were twins. Mary was adopted and took on the last name of her adoptive parents while Billy kept their birth name Batson. In the movie it's doubtful that they'll even be able to do this story at all because of the age difference. Billy's mother mentioned she was 17 when she got pregnant. Which means in order for them to even be biological siblings that their mother would now have to of had Mary when she 13 or 14 and you would think that she would of mentioned at the same time that she had another child so it really seems like Billy is an only child here. Though another possibility is that they share the same father but not the same mother so Billy's mother might not of known Mary existed and this movie never even mentions who Billy's father was. Anyway... maybe they made this change because the whole twins separated as infants and not knowing they're twins thing sounds an awful lot like Luke and Leia which Disney also owns... They already can't call him Captain Marvel anymore because of Marvel Comics and when Marvel and Star Wars are both owned by Disney that's a lot of ripping off character names and stories going on. Anyway... Billy and Mary are suppose to be twins and given they in the movie are now three to four years apart in age the twin thing is kinda impossible... they might still be brother and sister but I doubt it. I think they're just going to ignore the fact that they're actually biological siblings cause it is a little bit too much of a coincidence that after being separated when they're too young to really remember each other that they would later just happen to end up in the same foster home. Also Mary actually has the same last name as the foster parents in the movie which makes me think that she's actually their biological daughter and not even really a foster child at all... I mean why would they officially adopt her and change her last name but none of the other kid have their foster parents last name?
Good point, though to be fair, they seem to be basing the Mary stuff on the New 52 version, where she might not be related to Billy. In the back stories of the new ongoing, the Broomfields are her biological parents instead of her foster ones. In the reboot, they were very abusive towards her to the point of her running away, though in the film (I"m trying to remember, I only saw the film once), I think she said her biological parents died during her rant at Billy at the way he treated Darla. SO if the film verse is keeping Billy and Mary unrelated, they're just following what the very recent comics are doing as opposed to the other 75+ years of material.
Not likely, they showed Mary's biological parents recently. They're implied to be separate people from the Bastions. (By showed, I mean word balloons coming from off panel in flashbacks, not designed yet as far as I know)
The wiki page I read called her Lady Shazam rather than Mary Marvel and still referred to her as Billy's twin sister. Given the name change from Marvel to Shazam I assumed this was the most recent version of the character in the comics since almost every previous incarnation of the character has been called Mary Marvel... which by the way is really dumb having your real name also be your hero name. Lady Shazam at least allows her to have a secret identity... though that wiki also said their identities were public so kinda defeats the purpose of not having Mary in her hero name if everyone knows Lady Shazam is Mary.
Over the bro-sis relation thing, the film's theme is that family is who you open your heart to, and blood doesn't have to be a factor. So it fits with Mary not being related to Billy. It's hinted that they could be related, with both having the red color suit. But I don't know if they'll go with it, or how. And the Shazam/Marvel name controversy is silly IMO. There are other titles for Marvel besides the most famous one, and the Capt Marvels of each comic are as different as can be.
Two things... 1. You can still have that same message even if two of the characters are blood relatives because no one else is. In fact I think it would make that message stronger if they could show that a adopted relative is treated exacted the same as a blood relative. 2. They wouldn't even know they're brother and sister anyway since they literally just met. I think that's something they could saved to be revealed in a potential sequel. Hopefully without doing a Luke/Leia kissing scene before finding out they're siblings... They didn't know they were related at the time but I'd still be really grossed out after wards if I kissed a girl and later learned she was my sister... or more realistically given my family history... it's more likely I would hook up with a cousin not knowing we're related. I know I don't have any sisters but I also know there are a lot of cousins I've never met... Including a female the same age as me that my uncle abandoned... and then inexplicably adopted another woman's daughter that wasn't even his... my family is confusing... I don't think that means anything. Mary's costume was originally white and they seemingly just changed it to make he look more like the male counterpart. They also seem to have gotten rid of the mini skirt that she use to wear... Which by the way... having a skirt on a flying character makes no practical sense and is kinda creepy when that character is a child. I mean I know she LOOKS like an adult but she's still a child inside. Although the movie version practically is an adult herself... They explicitly say how old she is but given it's stated that she's finishing high school and getting ready to go to college in a year she has to be 17 or 18 years old so either a legal adult or about about to become one. I agree but it's still a thing that they can't call him Captain Marvel anymore. It use to be they could call him Captain Marvel in the fiction but just couldn't put that name as the title. And that's kinda understandable. People need to be able to easily differentiate Captain Marvel comics from Shazam comics. It's really annoying to have to give a history lesson on DC and Marvel every time either of these characters comes up in conversation. Saying Shazam as the title of the comic or movie eliminates a lot of that. It would be very confusing if they were both called Captain Marvel and then had to explain which one you're talking about. In the context of the story there's not really any confusion because you've already started with the premise that you're reading/watching Shazam so at that point you don't need to keep explaining that this is a different character from the other Captain Marvel. The part that really gets me... making the character's name Shazam makes it impossible to keep a secret identity. He can't say his name without turning back into Bill Batson. They kinda work around this in the movie calling him by a lot of different names and never actually setting on anything. The public still doesn't know he's called Shazam since he's never been publicly introduced that way. But they never call him Captain Marvel either cause they can't. Why did they change the previous agreement that allowed them to call him Captain Marvel in story as long as they didn't title the story that way? I'm guessing probably merchandising... like toys... as it would be hard to sell toys of Captain Marvel if they can't call him that on the packaging.
Well, bad news for you, because all the kids, including Billy, have no super hero names in the current comics whatsoever, and constantly call each other only by their real names. On the other hand, it doesn't much matter, because they're all common names. And even if someone on the street thought a hero had a secret identity, they typically wouldn't suspect someone with a completely different body type and a different age. Also, historically in the comics, nearly all of Billy's villains found out his real identity pretty much from the beginning. They were constantly kidnapping Billy and gagging him to keep Billy from saying "Shazam." So at that point, F it. What's the point of having a hero name anyway? I think he's operating under a misconception based on something Kieth Giffen set up in a retcon when he used the Marvel Family characters in the early 2000s.
OK apparently it was red first and the white costume showed up later... and there was a black version I didn't know about till just now before being changed back to red. Anyway... still doesn't mean anything... This might just be me being color blind but I think... Marvel Jr./Freddy and Darla are both wearing the same color but no way they can be related. (Possibly Freddy is Blue, Darla is Purple and I can't tell the difference.) Eugene and Pedro are also wearing the same color... again no way they're related. Eugene is a darker Green than Pedro but they both appear to be wearing Green. Pedro by the way seems to have also worn different colors over the years. Seen an image with him in an orange costume rather than the green one he has in the movie. Eugene seems to have always been green. Mary's costume also seems to have two shades of Red, while Billy's is just one Red. It's possible since they all have the white cape that the two tone Red of Mary's costume, the darker parts could be a reference to her Black costume... Maybe they didn't want to go all the way black so just put some darker reds in there. Though it's kinda weird that Eugene who was green to begin with has a darker color than Pedro who is some times depicted in orange. I don't know what they were thinking with the costumes in the movie. I actually didn't even know about Eugene, Pedro, or Darla before the movie. I thought it was just Billy, Mary, and Freddy who were super heroes. But having six of them in different colored costumes with the same pattern, and two of them are girls... kinda sounds like a different super hero team... Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks they look like Power Rangers without the helmets.
Yeah, Giffen retconned it so that Mary started with the white costume, and there was a reason I don't really want to get into here that it suddenly became red.
That's a good point. I wonder if Johns considered it. Wonder Woman and Supergirl wear skirts. As for Mary being dressed in white, I don't think the lightning bolt would show up well on an outfit of that color. You're color blind, so you can't see colors properly. On that claim, let me just say that Freddy and Darla are wearing blue and purple, while Eugene and Pedro are wearing gray and green. All four colors are different and distinct. I did like that Darla had a distinctly different outfit that fit a speedster well. I liked her race with the Flash in the credits.
Wonder Woman originally had more of a bathing suit kinda look before they gave her a skirt. Supergirl at least isn't a child... Though her actual age is kinda questionable since she kinda appears like a teenager but is suppose to be older than Superman. I've also seen a few updated versions of Supergirl where someone finally thought to give her pants... or at least shorts rather than a skirt.
