Film / SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods

Oh. My. Gods.

"I'm an idiot. I don't deserve these powers, if I'm being honest. Like, what am I even contributing? There's already a superhero with a red suit with a lightning bolt on it. Aquaman is literally huge, and he's so manly. And Batman, he's so cool! And I'm just me. I feel like a fraud. It doesn't matter."

—Billy Batson/Shazam

SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods is a superhero film, the sequel to 2019's SHAZAM!, and the twelfth film in the DC Extended Universe, coming after the SHAZAM! spinoff Black Adam. It is once again directed by David F. Sandberg and starring Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Caroline Currey, and Djimon Hounsou. Newcomers include Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, and Rachel Zegler.

The film sees Billy Batson/Shazam and his adoptive family doing battle with the Daughters of Atlas, who are coming after them for their use of magic.

The film was released on March 17, 2023. A Graphic Novel called Shazam: Thundercrack was published February, 2023 that bridges the movies and an anthology written by the cast, Shazam: Fury Of The Gods Special: Shazamily Matters.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2

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SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods includes examples of:

Tropes # to D

• 11th-Hour Ranger: Wonder Woman turns up at the very end of the movie, after the Final Battle is already over and Billy has died in a Heroic Sacrifice and been laid to rest by his family, to restore the staff's magic and bring Billy Back from the Dead.
• Accidental Misnaming: The Wizard initially calls Freddy "Freebie", somewhat combining his first and last names. It then moves into Malicious Misnaming with calling him "Jeff", even though, as Freddy points out, Anthea had just addressed him by name a moment before. He's thrilled when the Wizard finally addresses him correctly later as a sign of respect. This becomes an affectionate version in the denouement, where the Wizard visits the family and jokingly calls Freddy "Jeff" again.
• Action Girl: Mary and Darla have both wholeheartedly grown into this after getting their powers. Mary saves more civilians from the bridge collapse than the rest of her siblings combined, and both sisters arrive to back up Shazam-Billy when he's on the losing end of his fight with Hespera. Mary is also able to avoid a De-power from the Daughters of Atlas for longer than any of her siblings (minus Billy, who is never de-powered), being the last of them to get Brought Down to Normal.
• Actor Allusion: Billy tells his parents "Don't freak out", which was the catch phrase of one of Zachary Levi's previous characters.
• Always Save the Girl: Mary is hit with a shot from Kalypso's staff and de-powered in midair and falls to what would be her death, dropping the golden apple, which Kalypso and Ladon then pursue. Shazam is the only family member left who still has his powers, and despite knowing how much of a disaster it will be if Kalypso gets the apple, he doesn't even hesitate in saving his sister instead of retrieving it, though he does clearly take a moment to see if he had the time to get both.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Steve, the magic, sentient pen in the library, who looks exactly like a normal calligraphy pen and cannot speak, but does express itself by gesturing with its thread wrapped around the top (such as seeming to say "Hi" or "You're welcome" to respond to the Shazamily). It also appears to be all-knowing, able to answer any questions the various family members ask by writing the response down, writing Pedro's book reports for him, and can transcribe letters too (albeit a bit too literally).
• Artifact Title: It seems that "SHAZAM" is this for whoever the chosen Champion and holder of the titular powers is. In the first movie, before making Billy his Champion and giving him his powers, the Wizard introduced himself by saying "My name is Shazam." Here, though, he is never addressed or referred to by that name, exclusively going by "the Wizard", and makes it clear that he no longer has any direct power or magic of his own because he gave it to Billy. And when Billy later asks what his superpowered form is supposed to be called, the Wizard responds, "Your name is Shazam."
• Audience Surrogate: In the mid-credits scene, when Billy is asked by Emilia Harcourt and John Economos to join the Justice Society of America, Billy lampshades the confusion between the Justice League and the Justice Society.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Before going after a stolen armored car, Freddy makes his phone play "Sabotage".
• Back from the Dead: Diana reigniting the Wizard's staff not only returns life to the God Realm, signified by the natural flora and fauna beginning to regrow there, but also brings Billy back to life after his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The Daughters of Atlas, Hespera, Kalypso and Anthea, who seek to take the Shazamily's powers in order to rebuild their homeland. Eventually, Kalypso's fanatic hatred and ruthlessness towards humanity grows too great, prompting Hespera and Anthea (who has a soft spot for humans, even falling for one) to defect and pull a Heel–Face Turn, leaving Kalypso as the film's sole Big Bad.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Pretty quickly subverted twice in a row in the Shazamily's (minus Freddy) first fight with Hespera and Kalypso. The former has managed to freeze Eugene and Darla in place, only for Shazam to free them by slamming her through the floor into an underground storage area, but then she quickly starts getting the better of him in the subsequent fight. Things turn in the siblings' favor again when Darla and Mary arrive to help and they briefly stun Hespera unconscious, but then she turns the nearby pipes into wires that put both sisters in Choke Holds and start squeezing them to death—giving Shazam a time limit to defeat her before they suffocate—and starts totally whaling on him in return.
  • Right after Freddy succeeds in stealing the golden apple while the Daughters of Atlas are arguing with each other, he accidentally knocks over the stand it was sitting on and attracts their attention. Luckily, Shazam arrives right then to rescue him and the Wizard, which also gives Freddy the chance to touch the staff with his cane, shout "Shazam!", and get his powers back in the confusion.
  • Freddy and Anne, who are both Brought Down to Normal at this point, are cornered by Kalypso and Ladon, the latter of whom is just about to eat them...when Shazam shows up and pulls him away by the tail, giving his brother and Anne a chance to escape.
• Black Comedy Burst:
  • Hespera shows up to the meeting with Shazam in a Stealth Hi/Bye, and when he lampshades this, she replies that a silent arrival is good for being able to quickly slit the enemy's throat. He chuckles in response to what he perceives as a joke, before quickly realizing she's actually dead serious.
  • During the otherwise-heartwarming scene where Anthea saves Freddy and the Wizard in return for the former having tried to protect her from bullies earlier, she remarks that before he intervened, she was about to use her Powers of Axis to completely rearrange their insides...but then sweetly adds that, of course, Freddy didn't know that, so his actions were still heroic.
• Blatant Lies: After the kids return home from the bridge collapse, Darla has one of the kittens she rescued tucked into her sweater. Victor asks, "Is that a kitten?" and Darla just pauses, says "Nope!", and keeps walking.
• Bond One-Liner: "Taste the rainbow, mother-" - from Darla, no less!
• Bowdlerise: The trailer and movie proper feature a shot of Shazam crashing to the ground with his suit on fire. A cut of the trailer attached to the PG-rated DC League of Super-Pets edits out the fire.
• Brick Joke:
  • Billy and Mary are vaguely alluding to the latter being clearly hungover from going out partying the previous night, but to keep it rated G in front of their younger siblings, they go along with Darla's assumption that Mary made new friends at her "eye doctor appointment". When the three of them later stun Hespera and think they've beaten her, Darla gives her a Bond One-Liner about how she (Hespera) didn't see that coming because she didn't go to the eye doctor, at which point, Mary and Billy attempt to explain to her that it was a metaphor (also distracting them long enough for Hespera to recover).
  • The Shazamily (minus Freddy, who's been de-powered and kidnapped) is talking about how they'll have to avoid the Daughters of Atlas's attempts to De-power them too "like dodgeball", and Pedro laments that he sucks at dodgeball, in both regular and superhero form. He ends up being the first of them to be Brought Down to Normal (and is briefly the only one after Freddy temporarily gets his powers back before losing them again), and says glumly, "Told you I suck at dodgeball".
  • The random burning violin in the Rock of Eternity, which Shazam remarks that he doesn't know what it's supposed to be for, but it does keep the lair nice and cozy. Later, Shazam brings this violin to the God Realm to use as a Look Behind You distraction while he steals the staff from the Daughters of Atlas.
  • Freddy, in his superhero form that he now calls "Captain Everypower", lies to a few citizens he saves from the bridge collapse that Shazam is his sidekick, "Captain Everypower Jr.", to the latter's annoyance. As Billy bids Freddy, Rosa, Victor, and Anne goodbye before heading off to make his Heroic Sacrifice, he refers to himself by this name.
  • Billy has a dream about going on a date with Wonder Woman before her face turns into the Wizard communicating with him, and later wonders if Steve's letter-delivering powers work for demigods like her. In the denouement when Billy has died, his family has put him to rest, and the staff of Shazam has lost its powers, Diana shows up to reignite it—with the confirmation that she knew of Billy's existence because he did indeed send her a letter offscreen—and this also brings him back to life, at which point he tries to ask her out.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: A rather extreme example, as it's actually Died Punching Out Cthulhu. Shazam-Billy is able to power up his staff with his lightning in order to destroy Kalypso and Ladon (an actual dragon), but uses his transformation lightning from shouting "Shazam" to make the final blow powerful enough to win. Naturally, this also turns him back into teenage Billy, who, as a normal human, is killed in the process. When Freddy, Anne, and the rest of his family find his body afterwards, he's covered in burn marks.
• Brought Down to Badass: Downplayed, but all five of Billy's foster siblings get to prove that they're still no slouches in their normal forms.
  • Freddy is incredibly resistant to both Kalypso's Mind Control and Ladon's Supernatural Fear Inducer breath, even moreso than the Wizard in the former case.
  • Darla, Mary, Pedro, Eugene, and the Wizard are able to befriend the unicorns thanks to Darla, and ride them in battle against the Tree of Life-spawned monsters to protect the civilians of Philadelphia while Shazam faces Kalypso and Ladon.
• Brought Down to Normal: Happens to all of the Shazamily except for Billy himself, courtesy of Kalypso, at different points, including twice for Freddy as he's able to get his powers back after the first time, only to have them taken away again not long after. And then happens to Anthea as well not long before the climax. It's seemingly permanent at the end once Billy dies and the staff is extinguished in his Heroic Sacrifice defeating Kalypso and Ladon, but then Diana shows up and re-lights the staff, which returns Anne's powers and revives Billy, and he in turn re-powers the rest of his siblings.
• …But He Sounds Handsome:
  • Freddy in his superhero alter-ego shamelessly piles on the compliments about himself when talking to Anne. Unusually for this trope, Anne actually compliments Freddy more than Freddy does himself.
  • In the first stinger, when Emilia and John appear in front of Shazam and state that they're looking for Billy Batson, Shazam denies being or knowing him, but states that he'd probably be a really great person to know because he sounds very cool and awesome and fun and pretty handsome. They're not impressed, and make it clear they already know who he is.
• Cain and Abel: Ultimately, Kalypso turns out to be the Cain to Anthea's and (to a lesser extent) Hespera's Abel. While Hespera is far less innocent than the typical Abel, she still has standards and turns on Kalypso after hearing her plan to make humanity suffer instead of restoring the gods' realm. Kalypso responds by killing her (even if she ends up being Not Quite Dead for a while), takes Anthea's powers away, and later tries to kill her too.
• The Cameo: Loads!
  • In the big final battle, Michael Gray pops up as a bystander who calls Billy "Captain Marvel".
  • Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman has a pretty plot relevant one, seeing as how she both plays off a Brick Joke from earlier in the movie and resurrects the main character!
  • John Economos and Emilia Harcourt show up in the first stinger to recruit Shazam into the Justice Society.
  • Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind show up in the second stinger.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: In-universe. Billy finally asks the Wizard what his superhero name is supposed to be, having always just gone by the many varying nicknames that Freddy and the civilians of Philly have called him. The Wizard replies, "Your name is...Shazam," and the entire family reacts along the lines of "Ohhh, that makes sense." It's Played for Laughs since Billy's superhero form has always been referred to out-of-universe since the first movie as "Shazam", and also in the ending credits of both films.
• Captured on Purpose: Billy is able to defeat Hespera in their first fight with help from Darla and Mary, and brings her back to the Rock of Eternity to imprison her. She easily breaks out once they've left her alone and steals the golden apple from their library before heading to the room of doors to return to her realm, and the siblings realize that this was her plan all along.
• Casting Gag: The teacher Mr. Greckle is played by Diedrich Bader, the voice actor of Batman in Harley Quinn and Batman: The Brave and the Bold^note Plus Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and the Bold, so the Shazamily have sort-of encountered all of the DC Trinity.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • Billy at one point in the references The Fast and the Furious franchise while talking to Hespera (Helen Mirren). At the time of the film's release, Mirren had already been in three Fast films as Queenie Shaw, and Djimon Hounsou (the Wizard) was in the franchise as Mose Jakande, and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) Was Gisele Yashar.^note Also, not from this film but in the broader DCEU, there's Dwayne Johnson (Black Adam) as Luke Hobbs, Scott Eastwood (Lieutenant GQ Edwards) as Eric Reisner, John Cena (Peacemaker) as Jakob Toretto, Michael Rooker (Savant) as Buddy, Jim Parrack (Jonny Frost) as Kenny Linder, and Idris Elba (Bloodsport) as Brixton Lore.
  • It happens again when Billy is up against Kalypso riding a dragon and calls her "Khaleesi", since Jason Momoa (Aquaman, whom he directly references at the pediatrician's office) also played "Khaleesi"'s husband Khal Drogo. And in a more indirect example, Pedro Pascal, who played Oberyn Martell in the series, also appeared in the DCU in Wonder Woman 1984 as Max Lord, one of the villains of the movie.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Less than a minute after a woman narrowly escapes being impaled by the roots of the Tree of Life, she is stabbed by a manticore that hatches from the tree.
• Chekhov's Gun: We have Darla being obsessed with Skittles a few times throughout the movie. It comes to a head when she uses them to tame a herd of murderous unicorns (they're shockingly close to ambrosia of the gods, it turns out).
• Choke Holds: In Hespera's fight with the Shazam forms of Billy, Mary, and Darla, she uses her Power of Elements to turn nearby metal pipes into wires that bind both of the girls from head to toe and begin choking them. Billy actually rips the cords away from both of their throats so they're not strangled by them, but Hespera yanks him away to keep fighting before he can free them, and the wires continue to squeeze them tighter and tighter, nearly suffocating them until Billy beats Hespera (which puts a stop to it).
• Company Cross References: There are some ShoutOuts to other Warner properties, like a Mortal Kombat II arcade cabinet at the Rock of Eternity, and Freddy and Billy evoking the most famous dialog from Pinky and the Brain.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the first movie, Shazam attracted Freddy's attention by holding up a notebook to the window with "Don't scream" written on it, only for Freddy to start screaming. This time, the Shazamily (all of whom are in their superhero forms except for Pedro) accidentally emerge from the Rock of Eternity in their foster parents' room and quickly urge them not to panic; cue Victor and Rosa (understandably) completely freaking out.
  • In the previous film, Billy and Dr. Sivana knocked the head off the William Penn statue atop Philadelphia City Hall. Here, an establishing shot shows William Penn has been repaired, but the head is significantly shinier than the rest of the statue.
• Costume Evolution: The Shazam costumes have undergone some changes between films:
  • Everyones' costume has more added detailing on both the undersuit and the gauntlets/greaves pieces. The lightning bolt is a solid symbol made of gold and no longer a perpetual light source but can be seen illuminated in dark environments.
  • Darla's Shazam suit has Mercury Wings at the shoes.
  • Pedro's suit is a darker shade of green with gray added.
• Cow Tools: The Rock of Eternity has been made into the Shazamily's Home Base, but they have no mentor figure to explain every detail. One of Eugene's hobbies is to explore and catalogue every door in the cave of doors, and there is a violin perpetually on fire but never actually burning that they use as a constant fireplace. But Pedro did discover a sentient calligraphy pen named Steve at some point and introduces it to the others, and it's able to answer some questions and provide them with info.
• Crash-Into Hello: Freddy and Anne first meet by accidentally colliding in the school hallway.
• Creative Closing Credits: A combination of both illustrations akin to a mythology book and some more resembling a Golden Age Captain Marvel comic, all being drawn by Steve. It includes drawings of the characters along with the actors' names.
• Creator Cameo: Both director David F. Sandberg and his partner Lotta Losten receive cameos, the latter when Shazam rescues her from falling off a bridge and the former when he gets torn apart by Kalypso's demons.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • Freddy, upon waking up in a cell in the God Realm, looking out the window, and seeing where he is, says "Holy sh—", which blends into the Wizard's "shhhhh" in response because he's trying to sleep.
  • Combined with Gosh Dang It to Heck!, Shazam starts to tell his family that he's going to go kick Kalypso's and Ladon's "goddamn ass", but cuts himself off halfway through the first word since his whole family is there (with everyone in their normal forms except for him) and changes it to "god-danged butts".
  • Hilariously, Darla of all people, after the unicorn she's riding (which she tamed by feeding it Skittles) spears a monster with its horn, shouts "Taste the rainbow, motherfu—", cut off by the unicorn's whinny.
• Cuteness Proximity: Darla with the basket of kittens that she saves during the bridge collapse, such that she brings one home with her for the day before eventually bringing it back to its owners.
• Dark Action Girl: The Daughters of Atlas, though only Kalypso plays it straight for the whole movie.
  • Anne subverts the "dark" part pretty quickly, since she really only uses her powers against the heroes when she and her sisters are kidnapping Freddy. Afterwards, she uses them to save him and the Wizard and escape Kalypso, and subverts it even further once she's Brought Down to Normal, at which point she plays no more direct role in the Final Battle.
  • Hespera plays it straight for most of the runtime until Kalypso mortally injures her, at which point, she uses her powers one last time to help Shazam beat her treacherous sister.
• Demoted to Extra: Played with. Billy himself is still the main character, of course, but spends almost all of his screentime as Shazam, to the point that Asher Angel playing his teenage form is in the movie for well under ten minutes total. While he switched forms back and forth quite a bit in the first movie, in this one, he only shouts "Shazam!" onscreen a total of four times throughout the runtime.
• De-power: Once the Daughters of Atlas have had the staff of Shazam repaired, they can shoot beams of light from it that will subject anyone they hit to this:
  • Freddy undergoes this twice. He's the first of the kids to be de-powered the first time when Hespera and Kalypso confront him on the school roof, and they then use him as a hostage against his siblings. He's able to take his powers back when Shazam shows up to rescue him by touching his cane to the staff in the confusion and shouting "Shazam!", but then once the Daughters break through the Rock of Eternity into the human realm with Ladon, he's soon zapped and powered down again right after Darla and Eugene (see below).
  • Pedro is hit and de-powered during the meeting-turned-fight with Hespera and Kalypso, and has to be brought back to the Rock of Eternity by his siblings. Notably, when Victor and Rosa find out that their kids are actually superheroes, Pedro is the only one in his normal form during this time, as he can't transform like the rest of them currently can.
  • Once the Daughters break back into the human realm with Ladon in tow this time, Kalypso starts blasting away with the staff, and hits both Eugene and Darla as they try to flee. She then gets Freddy again right after.
  • Mary dodges numerous shots as she tries to flee with the golden apple, but is finally hit in midair after blasting Ladon with lightning, and nearly falls to her death until Shazam saves her.
  • Shortly after killing (or at least attempting to kill) Hespera, Kalypso decides to take away Anthea's powers just for the "crime" of sympathizing with humans. Anne tries to use her abilities to escape the shot, but it eventually catches up with her and she loses them anyway.
  • Just when it looks like the de-powers are going to be permanent in the denouement, Diana appearing to re-light the staff returns life to the God Realm and restores Anne's magic, and also revives Billy, allowing him to give his siblings their powers back too.
• Description Cut:
  • Hespera warns Kalypso that they mustn't underestimate the Wizard's Champions of the human realm, noting that he searched for centuries to find them and they must be some of the strongest, wisest, most formidable heroes the world has ever seen. Cut to Shazam's first appearance in the movie, at the pediatrician's office, where his first line is, "I'm an idiot," and proceeds to vent about how inferior and subpar he is compared to other heroes of the realm.
  • Billy then leaves the doctor's office saying that he has to leave to go resolve a hostage situation. The next scene shows him accidentally killing hostages...as his teenage self, while playing a video game with Eugene.
• Deus Exit Machina: Anthea's Power of Axis has the potential to be a Story-Breaker Power in the climax during the fight against Kalypso and Ladon, since she could easily rearrange the landscape to get them closer or farther away or slam them with buildings. So to ensure that the Final Battle remains between Shazam and Kalypso, the latter subjects Anne to a De-power—stating that, if she sympathizes with humans so much, she should become one as well—which keeps her from playing any further major role in the fight.
• Deus ex Machina: A Downplayed but literal version. In the denouement, despite having saved the day, Billy is dead, the other kids and Anthea are Brought Down to Normal, the Gods' Realm that Anne and her sisters (or at least Hespera) were trying to save remains dead thanks to Kalypso planting the golden apple on Earth, and there's seemingly no way to reverse any of this because the staff has lost its magic after Billy used it to defeat Kalypso and Ladon. But then Wonder Woman shows up and reignites the staff, which revives the realm, restores Anne's powers, and brings Billy Back from the Dead, and he promptly re-Shazam-ifies his siblings, too. It's downplayed because it was already established that Diana is the daughter of Zeus (another source of Shazam's powers along with Atlas) and there was Foreshadowing to her making an appearance at multiple points in the movie, but it still does count as an example of an actual god showing up out of nowhere, with no indication given of how she knew why she should come there or what needed to be done, to fix the heroes' problems. (Although the line "You got my bird letter" might explain some of it).
• Diegetic Switch: The first person Shazam saves during the bridge collapse is a woman (played by Lotta Losten) who has "Holding Out for a Hero" playing on her car stereo. He quickly lampshades how incredibly apropos this is, and then the song shifts into playing as the background music while the Shazamily saves all the other civilians on the bridge.
• Disgusting Public Toilet: In this case, the disgusting toilet is a stinky porta-potty in inner-city Philadelphia that the kids use to transport back and forth. Hespera enters the porta-potty and is later remarked to have picked up the potty's reeky odor, while Kalypso opens the door of it only to find a fat guy on the toilet. Emphasis is placed on the stench of the porta-potty for comedic reasons, but the potty just borders on the edge of the trope as the potty is visually not as icky-looking as most public city johns.
• Distressed Dude:
  • The Wizard was captured by the Daughters of Atlas offscreen before the start of the movie, and Kalypso uses Mind Control to force him to repair the staff against his will.
  • Freddy is de-powered by the Daughters of Atlas quite a bit earlier than any of his other siblings and taken hostage, with Hespera threatening to snap his neck if the rest of the Shazamily tries to attack. He's then kidnapped to the God Realm, thrown into lockup with the Wizard, interrogated by the Daughters, and they're both thrown into Ladon's pit to be devoured, although Anthea secretly rescues them and sets them free.
• Double Standard: Possibly in regards to Billy's and Freddy's respective much-older crushes. Billy's thing for Wonder Woman is Played for Laughs and rightfully treated like the Precocious Crush it is, and Diana just seems amused by it and clearly doesn't take it seriously, probably in large part because she looks like an adult human woman in her thirties. Meanwhile, Freddy's feelings for Anthea are depicted completely in earnest, likely mostly because she looks like a teenager, and he meets her at school and genuinely thinks she's around his age until she corrects him right before the climax. Still, Anne always knew that Freddy's a tiny fraction of her age, and the most objection anyone gives to it is Victor and Rosa seeming a bit unsure if it's acceptable or not; otherwise, the family seems to support his feelings.
• The Dragon: Kalypso serves as this to her older sister Hespera, the leader of the Daughters of Atlas, although she shows signs of being The Starscream. She also has her own literal example with Ladon. Once Kalypso betrays Hespera and ascends to the true Big Bad of the movie, Ladon's an even more literal example.
• Dragon Rider: Most of Ladon's screentime in the movie has Kalypso riding on his back.

Tropes E to H

• Everybody Knew Already: When the Shazamily, all of whom are currently in Shazam form except Pedro, decide that they need to "confess" to Victor and Rosa, the rest of the kids admit that they're superheroes, but Pedro misunderstands and instead confesses that he's gay. His parents and siblings all gently assure him that they already knew, making it clear that they love and support him, and he smiles in relief.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Hespera certainly has no love for humanity after some of them stole her father Atlas's powers, but she's nowhere near as bloodthirsty about it as her younger sister Kalypso.
  • She has no problems with kidnapping Freddy for leverage and even threatening to break his neck if his siblings try to intervene; at the same time, she is willing to spare him if he gives the Daughters the info they want. Plus, during her meeting with Shazam to discuss terms, despite speaking casually about slitting the enemy's throat, she initially only talks to Billy—albeit fairly menacingly—and doesn't actually get violent with him until the other four Shazam-siblings show up to ambush her. And once she breaks out of her cell at the Rock of Eternity, she neither attacks any of the Shazamily nor causes any destruction, and instead just quietly takes the golden apple (what she was actually looking for) and leaves.
  • Partly a mix of Pragmatic Villainy as well. Ultimately, Hespera's main goal is not to take revenge, but to re-plant the Tree of Life in the God Realm to revive it. She had to remind Kalypso more than once that their mission takes precedence over revenge or "fun", and sees no point in creating senseless violence on Earth at the expense of the opportunity to revive the God Realm. When Kalypso becomes so obsessed with Revenge Before Reason that she decides to plant the tree on Earth (where it can't thrive properly) just to spite humanity for the past, Hespera turns against Kalypso and is mortally wounded for that. She helps Shazam by shrinking her dome down at his request, so that his final battle with Kalypso and Ladon would minimize casualties.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Hades apparently has a fanatical attitude similar to Kalypso's in this continuity, since Hespera compares her to him once Kalypso really starts going off the deep end.
• Exact Words: Freddy pleads with the Daughters of Atlas not to hurt his teacher, Mr. Greckle, who happened to walk in at the wrong time, and Kalypso assures him she won't touch him. She instead mind-controls the man to kill himself by walking off the edge of the roof and falling to his death.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Shazam intends to have his siblings arrive to his meeting with Hespera to ambush her right when he says "Family!", but they miss their cue, and then miss it again the second time.
  Shazam: Guys, that was the signal! C'mon, we practiced this like four times!
• Fake Shemp: As with Superman in the previous movie, Wonder Woman in Billy's dream only appears from the back or the neck down (except when she has the Wizard's face). The real Wonder Woman, on the other hand, is played by the real Gal Godot.
• Fan Disservice: Billy is dreaming of Shazam dating Wonder Woman. And then the Wizard does his astral projection and his face is pasted on Diana's head (Billy even notes "didn't your face used to be more beautiful?").
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When "Captain Everypower" appears before Anne on the school roof, she asks him how he knows Freddy (not knowing they're the same person), and he claims they met at ComicCon, only for her to respond by asking "What's ComicCon?", getting a slightly confused look from Freddy that a high school girl in the modern world hasn't heard of it. The scene then moves to the rest of the siblings researching the Daughters of Atlas, and it's revealed that "Anne" isn't really a human teenager at all, but actually Anthea, the third Daughter.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: The scene in the first movie where Billy broke the staff is replayed in this one, with Mary in her powered form appearing the same as her regular form instead of Michelle Borth.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Downplayed. When Darla states her love for unicorns early in the movie, Eugene scoffs that they don't exist. In the third act, Darla asks Steve what the monsters from the Tree of Life are afraid of, and it responds with "unicorns"; Eugene at first repeats his belief that they're not real, but after looking out the van window and seeing all the other monsters running around in the streets, quickly retracts this and admits it's not so far-fetched after all.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the beginning when visiting the Wizard in his cell, Hespera shows that she has the ability to melt metal by doing so with one of the bars on the door. Later, once the Shazamily have captured her and locked her up in her own cell at the Rock of Eternity, she breaks out as soon as they've left her alone by melting through the lock.
  • In her first scene in the movie, Darla is shown to have built a diorama of herself and her family riding Unicorns into battle. She, Pedro, Eugene, Mary, and the Wizard do exactly this as their contribution to the Final Battle once she's able to tame them with Skittles.
  • After Billy receives a warning from the Wizard in his dream and the latter is suddenly electrocuted a second before the former wakes up, a plasma ball in his room overloads with electrical energy until it breaks after its dome is shattered. In the film's climax, Shazam defeats Kalypso and Ladon by overloading the magic dome with electricity, causing the staff to absorb the energy until it explodes (with the final blow coming as he attacks them while invoking his transformation lightning), killing all three of them.
  • In the cafeteria scene, Anne states that her only family are some sisters, one of whom is a Control Freak. Now what pair of characters in this movie fit that description?
  • When presented with paper that can contact the gods, Shazam asks if it works for demigods like Wonder Woman. Guess who appears to when a god is needed to reignite the magic staff?
• Freudian Couch: Parodied. Billy as his Older Alter Ego Shazam is venting his frustrations about his superheroing to a doctor while lying on his back on a couch... only for the doctor to remind him he's a pediatrician.
• Friend to All Living Things: Darla, unsurprisingly. Not only does she start out by rescuing a basket of adorable kittens during the collapse of the bridge before coming back for their owners, but she's also able to befriend the unicorns, despite the Wizard's warning that they hate humans, by feeding them Skittles.
• Fun with Acronyms: In-universe. The audience knew that SHAZAM is an acronym for the six sources of the titular hero's powers thanks to the Wizard reciting it in the previous movie, but since Billy was in the process of being transformed for the first time, he probably didn't hear any of it; as such, he finds out here what SHAZAM stands for along with the rest of his siblings when Steve makes it explicit, and lampshades that it makes the name cooler than when it was seemingly just something randomly made up.
• Gilligan Cut: Once the Shazamily has rescued all the civilians from the crumbling bridge, Shazam tells the others that the last thing they need to do is save the bridge from failing completely. Cut to a TV news report showing and stating that it has fully collapsed.
• The Glomp: Shazam's entire family, starting with Freddy, gives him this in delight after he's brought Back from the Dead, becoming a Group Hug.
• Gold-Colored Superiority: The Shazamily have gold decorations on their suits, and the Daughters of Atlas are all dressed in gold (especially Anthea, who's the nicest of them). Plus, the MacGuffin of the movie is a golden apple, the seed of the Tree of Life.
• Gonna Need More X: Once Darla has befriended one of the unicorns by feeding it Skittles and it summons the rest of its herd, Mary notes "We're gonna need more Skittles".
• Group Hug: The heartwarming Vasquez family hug seen in the trailers, with Shazam at the center, becomes all the more heartwarming in context, where Billy—who died in a Heroic Sacrifice while his entire family was left to mourn him—is restored to life, and they all delightedly pile on.
• Happy Ending Override: A minor version. The lunchroom scene at the end of the first movie—wherein Shazam showed up to personally have lunch with Freddy, vouched for being his friend, and also brought Superman along—seemed to imply that Freddy would go from being an unpopular kid to, if not the Big Man on Campus, as least far more respected among his peers. Come the sequel, and he's being bullied as much as ever by Brett and Burke Breyer and isn't shown to have any other friends outside his siblings until meeting Anne; the most improvement he's gotten is now having a teacher, Mr. Greckle, who steps in to stop the Breyers from picking on him. Anne lamphades how strange this seems, and Freddy just responds that apparently, knowing and hanging out with really cool people still isn't enough to make him cool with these kids.
• Heel–Face Turn: Both Anthea and Hespera eventually turn on Kalypso when it becomes evident that she'd rather take revenge on humanity than restore the gods realm.
• The Hero Dies: It's not a Disney Death, as Billy genuinely does die in his Heroic Sacrifice to defeat Kalypso and Ladon, and his heartbroken family even buries him in the gods' realm. But then Diana arrives after receiving Billy-Shazam's message and reignites the staff, which causes life to be reborn in the realm, including reviving Billy.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Shazam does this in order to defeat Kalypso and Ladon, shouting "Shazam!" to utilize his transformation lightning bolt right as he flies at them to deal a final blow powerful enough to kill them. However, this also, of course, turns him back into Billy, and he doesn't survive his own attack, either. He knew this would be the case and was willing to die to save his family and city, and all of the Vasquezes deeply mourn his death, especially Freddy and Rosa. Luckily, he gets better thanks to Diana.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Billy has grown to feel increasingly unworthy of his powers over time, to the point that, after venting about this to his pediatrician, the latter outright tells him that he has imposter syndrome. It doesn't help that his banter with his siblings, who are clearly exasperated by his overbearing leadership, sometimes hits a little close to home (particularly in outright lampshading how he lacks the "Wisdom of Solomon" part of the Shazam powers) and the Wizard himself also telepathically tells him that he made a mistake in choosing him as his champion. He even offers to give his powers back to the Wizard before the climax, and only regains his confidence when the latter backtracks on his earlier words and admits that he chose correctly when he selected Billy, and then Rosa gives him a pep talk as well.
• Heroic Willpower: Freddy further emphasizes that his "SHAZAM" specialty is the Courage of Achilles through this.
  • Kalypso, whose Power of Chaos abilities give her a Compelling Voice that induces Mind Control, uses this on Freddy to command him to reveal his family's identities. Despite it clearly being horribly painful, he's able to resist it for a very long time (even blurting out fakes like "Destiny's Child") before finally barely stammering out just Billy's name before the note from his siblings arrives and Hespera stops the interrogation, meaning he never names the other kids at all.
  • Ladon's breath is explicitly stated to cause an aura of paralytic fear to its prey, as Freddy and the Wizard both experience. But once he and Anthea have both been de-powered and Kalypso and Ladon have cornered Anne and are about to kill her, Freddy fights through the effects of the dragon's breath to reach Anne's side and attempt to defend her.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: The Shazamily members have apparently become this thanks to their Destructive Savior tendencies, as they're collectively known as the "Philadelphia Fiascos", to their dismay. A random civilian also asks Shazam when he's planning to fix the bubble the Daughters put around the city and seems unimpressed when he says he's "working on it". Seems the good will they built up in the first movie has evaporated by now.
  • That being said, at least some of the criticism is shown to be unfair. The Shazamily has nothing to do with the bridge failing (which is caused by a semi crashing and damaging the structure) and while they're unable to stop it from collapsing because they simply don't have the powerset for that, they still save all the civilians caught up in it and prevent any casualties, yet they still get criticized on the news for not being able to save the bridge itself.
  • There's also a scene where several citizens offer Shazam encouragement as he fights Kalypso and Ladon, giving him assurance that he still has the overall admiration and support of the general population.
• Hourglass Plot: Billy spent most of the previous movie keeping his foster family at arm's length out of a desire to be reunited with his bio mom, only embracing them as his true family near the end once he'd gotten closure with her. Here, we see that, in the 3-year Time Skip, he's taken this to the other extreme of being too clingy with his foster siblings, to the point of making it hard for them to do their own things or have their own lives outside of superheroing together, to the irritation of Freddy and Mary in particular. He himself even admits to Freddy in the climax that, after being abandoned by both bio parents and growing to cherish the Vasquez family, he's "been hanging on too tight" to them, and finally acknowledges that he needs to give his siblings space to be their own people.
• How Dare You Die on Me!: A quite tragic example. Freddy finds Billy's body among the ashes remaining after the latter won the battle. When he realizes it's not a Disney Death and his best friend/brother really is dead, he tearfully shouts "You asshole!" and starts sobbing into Victor's chest.

Tropes I to M

• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: The doctor whose help Shazam seeks at the beginning of the movie points out he's a pediatrician, not a psychiatrist.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Downplayed with Mary. She's perfectly happy to be involved in the superheroics of the family and enjoys having powers as much as the rest of them, but she's also officially an adult now and can't help but sometimes feel trapped by sticking with a bunch of younger kids. This especially isn't helped by the reveal that she didn't end up going to college despite being accepted into Caltech in the previous movie—presumably deciding to pass on the opportunity in order to stay with her family—with the implication that she somewhat regrets/resents this. During one of the family meetings, Mary all but confirms that she was out drinking with some friends her own age the previous night. At the end, she's shown wearing an Oxford sweatshirt at dinner, indicating that she may finally be moving past this and reaching a happy medium by going to college while still seeing her family often.
• I Read It for the Articles: Pedro is shown reading sports magazines throughout the movie. The very first time we see him doing this, he's ogling a shirtless baseball player, which naturally sets up his coming out to his family right before the third act.
• Irony: Mary tells Billy that nothing can last forever... while standing in the Rock Of Eternity.
• Informed Flaw: Ironically a reverse from the first movie, where the Wisdom of Solomon trait of Shazam was present but heavily downplayed to the point of being an Informed Attribute. Billy's siblings are not shy in stating that he's clearly lacking in this area compared to many of them, and compared to his other abilities. While it's certainly not his strongest "SHAZAM" ability and he can't even pronounce "Solomon" correctly, Billy nonetheless shows several instances of being quick on the uptake and coming up with good plans: he instantly realizes that he accidentally set the Daughters of Atlas free by breaking the staff in the previous movie, immediately figures out upon seeing her name in the book that Anthea, the third Daughter, is the "Anne" that Freddy is smitten with, smartly utilizes his Super-Speed while fighting Hespera to make her get hit with her own attack, and comes up with a plan to defeat Kalypso and Ladon very quickly just after observing how his lightning powers interact with the dome and the staff, once again managing to win by using his head (even if he has to sacrifice his life to do so this time). The Wizard claims that his brain may not have wisdom, but his heart does, which maybe implies that he can access the Wisdom of Solomon best when he's not overthinking things and getting in his own way.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Shazam once again is known and referred to by numerous different nicknames, some having apparently stuck from the first movie (like "Thundercrack") and getting a few additional ones like "Low/High Voltage" (which Billy corrects is supposed to be "Maximum Voltage") and even Captain Marvel at one point. It doesn't help that, as he lampshades, he himself doesn't even know what his superhero name is supposed to be, only learning at the very end that it actually is intended to be "Shazam".
  • Freddy's Giver of Lame Names tendency is apparently going strong, as he's chosen "Captain Everypower" as the name for his own Shazam form.
  • The Shazamily as a whole becomes known as the "Philadelphia Fiascos" after the bridge incident^*(which is actually rather unfair considering they had absolutely nothing to do with the bridge damage itself and manage to save every last person there, ensuring there are no casualties), to their irritation.
  • This is averted with the other four siblings, though, who don't seem to have their own individual superhero names like Billy and Freddy do. It's likely partially because they don't really engage in their own solo heroics (unlike Freddy), and considering their personalities—having much smaller egos than Freddy in particular, and being far less interested in showboating than he is—they probably just don't care anyway.
• Internal Reveal:
  • The audience learned what "SHAZAM" stands for in the first movie when the Wizard recited it while first passing on his powers to Billy; the latter was technically present at the time, but didn't seem to have heard it (and if he did, probably had a few other things on his mind). All of the Shazamily, sans the kidnapped Freddy, learn it from Steve when it's explaining the history of the Daughters of Atlas and Council of Wizards.
  • Victor and Rosa have apparently spent the last three years in the dark that their kids all have superpowers and are actually the group of heroes recently nicknamed the "Philadelphia Fiascos", and finally find out the truth once the siblings themselves reveal it to them right before the third act.
    Victor: Wait, is that why the house keeps getting struck by lightning?
• Interquel: The Shazamily Matters comic, published a few weeks before the movie hit theaters, acts as a bridge between the two films, establishing some character traits that are shown here like Pedro's love of baseball and Eugene dedicating a lot of time to exploring the many doors in the Hall of Doors. It also displays some of Billy's over-attachment issues and Mary recommending that he might need therapy for them, and the issue ends with Billy-as-Shazam arriving at the pediatrician's office for his appointment, which is where we first see him in the movie, treating it like it's a therapy appointment.
• It's Personal: The Daughters of Atlas state that they consider our heroes’ “theft” of the gods’ powers to be an affront, with Hespera downright saying to Billy she's taking it personal when he tries to tell her to think otherwise.
• Kick the Dog: Kalypso ultimately proves that she's the most evil of the Daughters of Atlas through this:
  • Right at the beginning during their attack at the museum, the tour guide who was telling a group about the staff pleads with Hespera and Kalypso to let him go. Once they've turned everyone there to stone, Kalypso pushes him over and shatters him, ensuring that he's dead for good even if the other visitors are revived somehow.
  • There's one teacher at the kids' school, Mr. Greckle (played by Diedrich Bader), who is consistently nice to Freddy and sticks up for him. Mr. G happens to find Freddy on the roof after the Daughters of Atlas have taken away his powers, and for no reason other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Kalypso Mind Controls him to walk off the roof and fall to his death, to Freddy's absolute horror. Just to rub it in for him even more, she comments with cold indifference on the gross "splatting" sounds that human bodies make when dying in such a way.
  • Unlike Hespera and Anthea, who just want to revive the realm of the gods as their father would have wanted, Kalypso is so twisted with hate that she suggests planting the golden apple on Earth instead to punish humanity and make them suffer, even though the humans she would be killing had nothing to do with stealing their father's powers or sealing them away. When her sisters protest this, Kalypso deems them both traitors, has Ladon kill Hespera, and de-powers Anne just for the crime of sympathizing with humans, later attempting to outright murder her too.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: That Billy's adoptive siblings also have the powers of Shazam was a third-act twist of the first film. The trailers make this no secret, complete with a Team Shot of all six letting out a simultaneous "SHAZAM!" and transforming into their superhero forms.
• Likes Older Women: At the end of the movie, Billy's foster parents ask "What's with our kids and older women?" regarding Billy's crush on Wonder Woman, who very much looks like an adult (and is quite a lot older than she looks), and also Freddy falling for Anne, who looks his age but is also thousands of years old.^note If one does the math, it turns out that she's a full millennium older than Diana. The former is Played for Laughs—probably because Billy fully knows Wonder Woman is millenia older than him and so it's fully treated like the Precocious Crush it is—while the latter is played seriously, with Freddy and Anne even apparently being in a relationship together by the ending, largely since this was inadvertent on Freddy's part, as he genuinely thought Anne was his age until she tells him otherwise.
• Look Behind You: Shazam exploits this twice to take the staff of Shazam away from the Daughters of Atlas, and lampshades it both times with "Made you look!"
  • The first time, he causes the infinitely burning violin to appear in the God Realm and draws the Daughters' attention to it for long enough to snatch the staff from them.
  • The second time, after saving Freddy and Anne from Kalypso and Ladon, Shazam pretends they just did something clever, and when Kalypso turns to look at them, he flies past to grab the staff.
• Love Redeems: Downplayed. Anthea, or "Anne", was already the Token Good Teammate of the Daughters of Atlas, but Freddy's kindness to her and her genuinely falling for him is the impetus for her to help him and the Wizard escape captivity and then try to save humanity from Kalypso. Once he comes to protect her after her De-power, she sticks with him for the rest of the film, is the only one of the Daughters of Atlas to survive, and seems to be living with the Vasquez family at the end.
• Magic A Is Magic A: The origins of the Wizard and the powers of the Champion are explained more in depth. Gods of the ancient world viewed humans as beneath them, only useful as slaves and worshippers. A group of wizards manage to capture the magical essence of various deities and contain it within the staff, upon which they were able to seal away the godly realm. Billy breaking the staff in the first film removed the barrier, and once the Daughters of Atlas find the broken pieces of it, they're able to restore their own powers and force the Wizard to rebuild it. Billy overcharges it for his final battle to defeat Kalypso and the dragon, killing them and himself through using the "Shazam!" transformation lightning for one last burst of power, but the staff is drained afterwards. The Wizard explains that with all the gods dead now (and Anthea turned human), the staff is useless without a spark of power from a god to reignite it. Cue Wonder Woman's entrance, being the daughter of Zeus.
• Magical Defibrillator: Billy uses his lightning powers as a literally magical defibrillator to revive Hespera from a spear wound in the chest, complete with shouting "Clear!" before shocking her even though nobody is around. Downplayed in that Hespera still dies eventually from her wounds.
• Magic Pants: As with the first movie, all of the Shazamily has this—their clothes disappear when they transform to Shazam-form, and then when they turn back to normal, they're wearing the same clothes they were in before—but this is especially true for Freddy. Unlike the original film where his no-longer-needed crutch fell to the ground when he got his powers, by this one (possibly after practicing with it for the past few years), his cane transforms with him when he turns into Captain Everypower, and just like with the rest of his clothes, he has it back once he turns into a teen again, which also means he doesn't have to worry about carrying it around with him in superpowered mode.
• Mayfly–December Romance: The 17-year-old Freddy quickly develops mutual feelings for Anne, who, despite looking like she's around his age, is actually six thousand years old, although she has spent most of this time sealed in the God Realm with her sisters. At the end, Anne has decided to stay on Earth and has apparently entered a relationship with Freddy, but it's unknown if this will cause her to age differently than she did in her native land.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • Two between Freddy and Anne:
    • When she praises him for sticking up for her against bullies on her first day of school, she lightly pokes his chest right over the heart with one finger and calls him a hero. He does the same for her once she saves him and the Wizard from Ladon and tells them how to escape.
    • And after Freddy and the Wizard have been freed, he sheepishly admits to her that he was only able to be courageous in standing up to the Breyers because he knew he had superpowers to fall back on if needed, but she assures him, "the most powerful thing about you is you". Freddy shows up to try to save Anne from Kalypso and Ladon after they've de-powered her, and she laments to him, "What is a goddess without her powers?" He repeats her earlier words back to her, even adding, "You taught me that!"
  • Billy, as an attempt to keep the family together, has adopted the phrase "All or none" as an insistence that, whenever the kids go Shazam to save the day, either they all have to go together as a team or none of them go. He says this a few times, and Freddy expresses exasperation with it, even sneaking out regularly to go solo. Later, as Freddy is being kidnapped by the Daughters of Atlas, with Shazam trying to reach him but unable to because of the dome, he urges his siblings to flee and save themselves, but Shazam refuses and once again cites "all or none!" And in Shazam's last conversation with Freddy, his parents, and Anne, the former realizes that he's planning to commit a Heroic Sacrifice and attempts to invoke "all or none" to plead with him not to go through with it.
  • At Hespera's meeting with Shazam, she mocks him for being a kid who does a poor job at trying to act like an adult, and tells him that he should give up his powers, stating, "You'll never be a real god." After she's been mortally wounded by Kalypso, Hespera helps Shazam defeat her and witnesses his Heroic Sacrifice to do so, and her final words before succumbing to her death are "A true god, after all", at last acknowledging his worthiness of the abilities he was given.
• Meta Guy: Billy has a few moments in the film where he leans hard on the 4th wall. This includes:
  • Lampshading what an unlikely coincidence it is that a woman would be listening to "Holding Out for a Hero" in her car right as Shazam arrives to save her from falling to her death.
  • Trying to get the members of the family to come out on a signal, only for them to miss their cue.
  • He makes the most pop culture references out of everyone, such as to Fast and Furious and Game of Thrones and wearing a Goonies T-shirt; lampshades how confusing it is that there's both a Justice League and a Justice Society in their world; and suggests some alternate names for the latter, including "The Avengers Society".
• Mind Control: Kalypso's special ability with her Powers of Chaos. It's what ultimately cements her as the most evil of the Daughters of Atlas and the true Big Bad of the film.
  • She uses a brainwashing version at the museum in the beginning to cause numerous visitors to start attacking each other, before Hespera eventually turns all of them to stone.
  • She also uses her Compelling Voice to force the Wizard to re-forge his staff so they can use it to attack and De-power the Champions of the human realm.
  • When she and Hespera confront Anne and Freddy on the roof, the latter's favorite teacher, Mr. G, happens to show up at the worst possible time. Freddy pleads with him to leave and for the Daughters not to hurt him, and Kalypso agrees...only to mind-control him into jumping off the building, killing him.
  • She also uses this to interrogate Freddy and find out the names of his siblings and fellow Champions. Despite the pain, Freddy's Heroic Willpower is strong enough that he's able to resist for quite a while before she eventually chokes Billy's name out of him.
• Misplaced Retribution: The citizens of present-day Earth have absolutely nothing to do with the imprisonment of the Daughters of Atlas or the Council of Wizards' rebellion against the gods. That doesn't stop Kalypso from deciding to plant the Seed of Life on Earth to grow monsters to kill them all in retaliation, even at the cost of not being able to save her own realm by doing this.
• Monumental Damage: While there's an insane amount of damage to Philadelphia in this movie, including the collapse of Ben Franklin Bridge pretty early on after a truck accident, no place gets it worse than Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies, where the Tree of Life is planted.
• My God, What Have I Done?: A couple:
  • After she finds out that Freddy is one of the champions, Anthea reacts this way, and it prompts her to make a Heel–Face Turn soon after to save him from her sisters.
  • Billy gets one when he finds out that breaking the staff is what allowed the Daughters of Atlas to return to the mortal plane.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Shazam-Freddy, who's apparently taken the superhero name of "Captain Everypower", falsely claims Shazam-Billy is his sidekick, "Captain Everypower Jr.", a reference and reversal of how, when Billy's superhero form was originally known as Captain Marvel, Freddy's was Captain Marvel, Jr.
  • Michael Gray, who played live-action Billy Batson in the 70s Shazam show, appears as a bystander in the final battle. As an added bonus, he addresses Shazam by his original title of Captain Marvel and wears an outfit that matches that of Billy's from the original comics (and the show) when he's in his normal form.
  • The burning violin in the comics was wielded by Nero, minion of the Wizard's fallen pupil Oggar.
  • Darla briefly adopts a pet kitten before returning it to its owners, which she calls Tawny. This refers to Tawky Tawny, Captain Marvel's tiger sidekick from the comics.
  • The public school in Philadelphia that the Vasquez kids attend is called Fawcett Central; in the comics, until Flashpoint, Shazam's hometown (rather than being a real place like Philly) is Fawcett City, a fictional Midwest town.
  • Ladon's fire is able to burn Shazam's suit and chars it almost entirely black, making it look a lot like Black Adam's suit.
  • One disgruntled civilian calls Shazam "Colonel Cheesesteak". One of Shazam's comic nicknames is "The Big Red Cheese".
  • During his vist to the pediatrics, Shazam compares himself to the Flash and how's there is already a superhero in a red suit with a lightning bolt chest insignia. In Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Sonya Blade mistakens Captain Marvel for the Flash, after she was informed about the latter by Liu Kang who identifies the Flash as a "red warrior with a lightning bolt on his chest".
  • The end credits are scored with "A Little Less Conversation", given Elvis Presley was a fan of the comics.
  • Billy's dream about dating Wonder Woman has precedent in The Power of Shazam, although in that case it came much closer to being a sex dream before it was, as in the film, interrupted by the Wizard.
  • Billy laments several times throughout the film that he doesn't know what his superhero name is supposed to be; Freddy named himself Captain Everypower and says Billy is Captain Everypower Jr., while a civilian in the climax calls him Captain Marvel that passes by quickly. In the end Billy asks the Wizard directly what his superhero name is supposed to be and he almost does an Aside Glance while affirming that his name is Shazam. This reflects the complicated rights issues where Marvel had the rights to the comics name, resulting in the comic being titled Shazam!, and the fact that this meant many casual readers assumed his name was Shazam before DC decided Sure, Let's Go with That.

Tropes N to R

• Never My Fault: The Wizard blames Billy for the Daughters' rampage and outright tells him he made a mistake choosing him as Champion, without acknowledging that he provided Billy almost no instruction before giving him powers (as the latter lampshades), not telling him any of his abilities or even his superhero name, or that nothing must ever happen to his magic staff or it would lead to bad things. Shazam breaking the staff made sense to prevent Sivana from trying to steal his powers, but he certainly wouldn't have done it if the Wizard had given him any clue about the consequences. To his credit, by the time the Final Battle rolls around, the Wizard walks back his previous words and acknowledges that he did indeed make the right decision in naming Billy as Champion.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Turns out breaking the Wizard's staff, which Billy did after giving his siblings powers in the previous film to ensure that Sivana couldn't try to steal them, also ended the seal that prevented the gods from entering the mortal realm, allowing the Daughters of Atlas to arrive seeking revenge.
  • The above can also be attributed to the Wizard himself, as he failed to provide Billy with adequate warning about certain things not to do (or, indeed, much of any instructions at all about his superpowered form).
  • Billy's constant insistence that the family do everything together drives Freddy nuts, causing him to blow off Billy's meeting about the Wizard's warning in favor of hanging out with Anne, which in turn gives her sisters the opportunity to ambush and De-power Freddy while he's alone. Billy also neglects to mention the part about humanity being directly targeted and suffering for eternity; Freddy might've shown up if he had known the stakes were that high.
  • Shazam placing the apple unguarded in the library makes it quite easy for Hespera to recover it once she breaks out of her cell. On that note, the Shazamily bringing her back to the Rock of Eternity to imprison her (with the intention of exchanging Hespera for Freddy) is what gives her the chance to steal it in the first place.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: On the other hand, Hespera's above breakout and subsequent returning to the gods' realm through one of the doors allows the Shazamily to follow her and get Freddy back from where the Daughters are holding him hostage and have him cornered.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Anthea is genuinely sweet and doesn't want to hurt anyone. Hespera hates humanity and doesn't mind hurting them, but her top priority is restoring the God realm. Kalypso would rather make humanity suffer than repair the God realm.
• No Body Left Behind: Hespera, Kalypso, and Ladon, whose bodies dissolve into dust after the former succumbs to her wounds and Billy defeats the latter two.
• No One Gets Left Behind:
  • Billy, having become too clingy in an effort to keep his family together, has adopted a motto of "All or none" for superheroing, meaning that either all the siblings go Shazam mode together on a mission or none of them go at all. Freddy is particularly annoyed by this, initially only wanting to do the bridge rescue with himself and Billy until the latter insists on bringing everyone, and frequently sneaks out at night to get some time to himself for solo heroics.
  • Gets a couple of Meaningful Echoes later on. As the Daughters of Atlas put the dome up around Philadelphia while kidnapping Freddy and holding him hostage, the latter urges his siblings to save themselves rather than risking getting hurt trying to rescue him, but Shazam refuses and insists, "all or none!", though unfortunately there's not much he can do since he gets trapped inside the dome. Shazam then leaves everybody behind outside the dome so he can defeat Kalypso in what will almost certainly be a Heroic Sacrifice, and a terrified Freddy desperately begs him not to by invoking "all or none." Shazam just responds with "This way all of my family is safe, and none of them has to die."
• No Ontological Inertia: When Billy destroys the Tree of Life, all the monsters that were birthed by it dissolve into piles of leaves.
• Not Hyperbole: The pediatrician asks Shazam how well he remembers his childhood, and he responds, "Like it was today."
• Not Quite Dead: Hespera is seemingly killed after being impaled by Ladon, but Shazam improvises a defibrillator with his lightning and revives her (even making her complain, "Let me go to the underworld in peace!") long enough for her to help him defeat Kalypso before she dies for real.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Shazam visits a doctor and confesses his troubles as if the doctor were a therapist. Except said doctor is a pediatrician. To be fair, it's made clear that he is teenage-Billy's pediatrician, likely explaining why he trusts him enough to vent to him in Shazam form, and the doctor does try his best to help even if he gives the disclaimer that he's not a psychologist.
• Odd Friendship: Freddy and the Wizard form one when they're in captivity together in the God Realm. The latter at first finds the former very annoying, but gradually softens towards and becomes protective of him, especially after seeing how well he withstands Kalypso's Powers of Chaos. Freddy is thrilled when the Wizard finally proves that yes, he does remember his name. At the end, the Wizard (who is now living on Earth and has totally changed his appearance) visits the family, Freddy is particularly happy to see him and greets him with a hug, and the Wizard playfully calls him "Jeff" again.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Freddy's reaction after he's turned back into his teenage self via Hespera zapping him with the staff and quickly discovers that saying "Shazam!" to try to transform no longer works, as he realizes he's truly been Brought Down to Normal.
  • The entire rest of the family, including Victor and Rosa, after witnessing Mary get hit and de-powered in midair and falling from the sky. Shazam promptly zooms off to rescue her.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Wizard introduced himself as Shazam in the previous movie, but this name is never used for him here, as he's always called "the Wizard". It may be that "Shazam" is an Artifact Title for whoever holds the titular powers, as he himself no longer has them (Billy does), and the Wizard explicitly tells Billy here that his superhero name is, in fact, Shazam.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Billy even notes how Ladon being made of wood is weird and possibly hazardous given it breathes fire.
• Overly Literal Transcription: The magical quill "Steve" does this when transcribing the Shazamily's letters, as made clear by the one they send to the Daughters of Atlas, which includes all the ensuing back-and-forth discussion and concludes with a confident declaration that it doesn't need to be proofread before being sent, followed by them deciding to have some Gatorade.
• Parental Favoritism: Or rather, sibling favoritism. A line from Kalypso ("You favor her, Hespera, and still she betrays us!") indicates that Hespera shows this to Anthea over her; considering that Anthea is the Nice Girl and Kalypso is the Jerkass in the sisters' Nice Mean And In Between dynamic, with the former mostly showing kindness to her sisters (the worst being that she feels they're too controlling sometimes) until they treat her poorly while the latter is constantly clashing with Hespera, it's pretty understandable.
• The Peter Principle: Billy was chosen to be the Champion, but not the leader of his family of superheroes. He feels obligated to be the one who steps up to take charge and coordinate superheroics and other bookkeeping issues with everyone, but it's pointed out how he just makes things up as he goes (which Shazam himself admits at one point) and seems to defer to Mary for advice since she is older and smarter.
• Phlebotinum Overload: In the final battle, Billy/Shazam uses a lot of electricity around the dome after Hespera helps shrink it down to the baseball stadium where the Tree that Kalypso planted, and once he uses the staff and shouts “Shazam!”, the transformation lightning and the unstable amount of electricity in the dome shoots down, killing Kalypso, Ladon and Billy as well as destroying the Tree altogether, as the latter makes the ultimate sacrifice before the inside of the dome explodes with a giant bright light of electricity, causing the whole city to black out.
• Please Wake Up: Done by Freddy once he finds Billy's inert body after the climactic battle, becoming increasingly shaken and desperate until he realizes his brother really is dead, at which point he breaks down in sobs.
• Power Parasite: The rebuilt staff can remove powers from magical beings just by blasting them with a bolt of its Anti-Magic.
• Precious Photo: After Billy dies and the family has buried him in the God Realm, Freddy puts a picture of the two of them together, taken around the time of the first movie, on his grave as a memento. Presumably, though, he takes it back once Billy comes back to life soon after.
• Prisoner Exchange: The Shazamily manages to capture and imprison Hespera at the Rock of Eternity, and plan to trade her to her sisters in exchange for Freddy. This almost immediately falls apart because Hespera quickly escapes and returns to the God Realm through one of the doors in the cave, and they're able to follow her there and save Freddy (and the Wizard).
• Product Placement: Skittles are prominently used throughout the film, most notably when Darla is able to use them to befriend the unicorns unleashed from the tree Kalypso planted. She even says the slogan ("Taste the rainbow") twice within the span of a minute, with the second utterance being followed with a "motherfu-"*(horse winny)*.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Kalypso does this to Freddy's teacher who has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mind Controlling him into walking right off the roof, largely just For the Evulz.
• Really 700 Years Old: The Daughters of Atlas in general, but played especially straight by Anne, who looks like a teenager and indeed is put in the same grade as Freddy and Billy at school. She's actually 6000 years old, making the rest of the family wonder if there's a problem regarding the massive age difference between her and Freddy.
• Redemption Equals Death: Hespera is alienated by Kalypso's needless cruelty and turns on her, and once the latter nearly kills her and Shazam revives her (temporarily), she helps him defeat her sister. After Shazam has beaten them in his Heroic Sacrifice, Hespera's final words are an impressed "A true god after all", showing that she considers him a worthy inheritor of her father's powers, before finally succumbing to her wounds.
• Remake Cameo: When Shazam encounters some civilians who encourage him after being set on fire by Ladon, one of them's an aged Michael Gray, star of Shazam! (1974), wearing the same shirt he did in every episode of the show.
• Repeated Cue, Tardy Response: Shazam attempts to summon his family while speaking to Hespera. They arrive about 10 seconds late.
  Shazam: I've seen all of the Fast and Furious movies, lady. It's all about family! [slams fist on table; nothing happens] Family?! Guys, that was the signal!
• Retcon: For the flashback to the first movie, the scene was recreated with this movie's updated costumes and without a different actress for Mary. The director said this was to keep things smoother for continuity reasons, and that the movie was originally supposed to come out after The Flash (2023), which was in effect a Soft Reboot for the DCEU so this kind of thing could be handwaved away as a consequence of it. But for various reasons, The Flash came out after this one instead.
• Revenge Before Reason: Kalypso gradually descends into this before the movie's third act. Hespera and Anthea want to retrieve the golden apple, the seed of life, so they can plant it in the gods' dead realm and restore it to life, as they're certain their father would have wanted. Kalypso, Straw Nihilist that she is, instead insists on planting the apple on Earth, where it won't grow properly and will mutate and form monsters, just to punish humanity for its few members long ago who killed the Gods' Realm in the first place and imprisoned them there, her justification pretty much just amounting to "Humans Are Bastards". Not only is this Misplaced Retribution at its finest since the present-day citizens of Philadelphia and the world in general are completely innocent of the wrongs committed against the Daughters, but this will also prevent them from being able to save the realm of the gods like they were trying to do in the first place.
• Riddle for the Ages: One of the artifacts in the Rock of Eternity is a perpetually blazing violin. The Shazamily use it as a means of keeping the Rock warm, and Billy uses it as a distraction when confronting the Daughters of Atlas to rescue Freddy, but he admits that he doesn't really know what its actual purpose is supposed to be.
• Rise from Your Grave: After Wonder Woman restores the staff's powers, a revived Billy (now in his Shazam form once again) breaks out of his own grave, hand first. His family is naturally freaked out by this at first, with Eugene shouting, "Zombie!"

Tropes S to W

• Sadly Mythtaken:
  • The film goes into more detail about the origins of the Wizard and the Shazam powers, which were taken from gods such as Atlas by human mystics, who then sealed the gods away into their own realm. This information is found inside the Rock of Eternity library, which is implied to be the correct source; naturally, it doesn't line up much at all with real-life Greco-Roman mythology.
  • In-universe: when dealing with an invasion of mythological monsters, the group asks Steve how they can subdue these creatures and are told they need to tame the Unicorns, the King of Beasts. The Wizard warns them that unicorns are not the pretty ponies commonly depicted in fiction, and instead are terrifying stallions with obsidian black hair and a horn.
• Samus Is a Girl: An in-universe one at the very beginning, when two people dressed as gladiators with helmets that cover their faces storm into the museum to steal the staff. The tour guide makes the general assumption that they're men and even addresses one of them as "sir", but after they break the glass case around the staff, they take off the helmets and are shown to be Hespera and Kalypso, which audiences probably would have guessed.
• Sarcastic Confession: As all the kids leave the house to head out to the bridge rescue, their parents (who, at this point, still don't know they're superheroes) ask where they're going. They struggle to come up with an excuse before Darla replies "To fight crime"^*(which, in fact, isn't accurate in this case, since the crisis is caused by an accident rather than a crime); her siblings give her a slight look, but Victor and Rosa clearly assume she's kidding and bid them goodbye.
• Shout-Out:
  • The man in the crowd who says "You're the best, Captain Marvel!" played Billy Batson in the 1970's Shazam! TV series.
  • An Annabelle doll (Sandberg directed Annabelle: Creation) can be seen in the pediatrician's office.
  • The cyclops' design (with fur on the legs and a unicorn horn on its head) is a homage to Ray Harryhausen, who designed a similar cyclops for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
  • Shazam-Billy references the The Fast and the Furious films and their themes of family during his "meeting" with Hespera.
  • One scene has Billy wearing a shirt with The Goonies on it, while Freddy wears a shirt featuring the White Tree of Gondor.
  • After taming the unicorns with Skittles, as they ride into battle, Darla shouts "Taste the rainbow motherfu--"
  • The mid-credit scene has Shazam baffled at the fact there is both a Justice League and a Justice Society, leading him to suggest a variety of different names for the latter before finally landing on Avengers Society.
  • There are several Game of Thrones references in the movie. Billy calls the dragon-riding Kalypso "Khaleesi", and several shots of her riding the dragon are reminiscent of Daenerys riding Drogon. Ladon's spikes, breathing blue fire, and overall Dracolich aspect also bring to mind Viserion as a Wight being ridden by the Night King.
• Sibling Murder: Once Kalypso deems both of her sisters "traitors" for refusing to go along with her revenge against humanity, she has Ladon mortally wound Hespera, and then tries to kill Anthea as well until she (and Freddy) are saved by Shazam.
• Sixth Ranger: The Wizard becomes this to the Vasquez family once Billy rescues him and Freddy from the God Realm and brings him back to Earth. In the climax, he joins Darla, Mary, Eugene, and Pedro in riding the unicorns into battle against the monsters.
• Small Role, Big Impact: After Billy sacrifices himself and the Wizard's staff to defeat Kalypso and destroy the Tree, the Wizard states that they can't revive the God Realm because the staff is drained of its power and needs "the spark of a god" to revive it. Cue Wonder Woman—the daughter of Zeus—arriving; she's able to provide this "spark" and reignite it, which restores life to the realm, returns Anthea's powers, and brings Billy back to life, all in a literal Deus ex Machina, before bidding them farewell.
• Spy Speak: In this case, Superhero Speak. Since Victor and Rosa still don't know yet at the beginning of the movie about their kids being superheroes, the siblings have come up with a code phrase that they use to signal each other when it's time to go on a mission together: "It sure is a beautiful day in Philadelphia!"
• Stealth Hi/Bye: As Billy waits for the Daughters to arrive to their meeting at an outdoor cheesesteak restaurant, he turns around to talk to a citizen for a moment, only to turn back and find Hespera sitting across from him. He immediately lampshades how completely silent she was.
• The Stinger: Naturally.
  • John Economos and Emilia Harcourt meet with Shazam and invite him to join the Justice Society. Shazam, assuming he was being invited to the Justice League, becomes confused at there being both a Justice League and a Justice Society and suggests a series of names for the latter before settling on Avengers Society.
  • The second stinger sees a now wild and bearded Doctor Sivana being met once again by Mister Mind. When the former furiously demands to know where the latter has been the last two years, the visitor responds that it takes him a while to get anywhere on account of being a worm but reassures him that their plan will be complete...soon. The visitor leaves, much to Sivana's dismay.
• Stock Footage: For the part of the trailer where Billy (as Shazam) talks about other superheroes and his own inferiority complex compared to them, there's footage of them from Zack Snyder's Justice League and Aquaman. There's also stock footage of Sivana from the previous movie when Billy remembers how he broke the staff (although edited to include Mary's new form).
• Superhero Movie Villains Die: Kalypso and Ladon both are killed and disintegrate into ash during Shazam's Heroic Sacrifice. Hespera subverts this, as she's seemingly killed by Kalypso just when she's made a Heel–Face Turn, is revived by Shazam long enough to help him by shrinking the barrier, and then dies for real after the battle is won, once she's no longer a villain.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: The main villains of the movie are three Greek goddesses, but Wonder Woman doesn't show up until after the primary conflict is resolved, just in time to bring Billy back to life.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: Ladon's breath has the ability to strike such fear into the hearts of mortals that they're paralyzed and unable to move, as Freddy and the Wizard discover before Anne saves them. Later, when Kalypso and Ladon have the Brought Down to Normal Anne cornered and are going to kill her, Freddy withstands and pushes through these effects with The Power of Love to protect her.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Mary is very clearly hungover in one of the family meetings, wearing sunglasses and scolding Billy for "talking so loud." She initially claims to her younger siblings that this is because she had an "eye doctor appointment" to keep it appropriate for them, but then she and Billy talk about how she had a fun time and did, in fact, get to meet other young people her own age, thank you very much. A confused Darla asks "Wait, you made new friends at the eye doctor?" and Billy starts to correct her before doing a Verbal Backspace and agreeing. It then gets a Brick Joke later when Darla tells Hespera after they think they've defeated her that she should have gone to the eye doctor.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: Shazam notes how improbable it was that the car he rescues from the bridge collapse was playing "Holding Out For a Hero".
• Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain: Atlas' three daughters all start the film with similar goals, but their underlying principles are wildly different. Though Anthea becomes sympathetic to the heroes early enough where she barely counts as a hero, her sisters aren't swayed so easily. However, of the two, Hespera is a pragmatist who wanted to revive Atlas with little trouble, while Kalypso is driven by Revenge Before Reason. The end result is Kalypso killing her sister over a perceived betrayal, with Hespera, in turn, saving countless lives endangered by Kalypso.
• Taken for Granite: Hespera and Kalypso to all of the museum visitors when they steal the staff at the beginning. Kalypso even pushes over the tour guide and shatters him to make sure he's extra-dead.
• Tastes Like Friendship: Darla is able to tame the human-hating unicorns and enlist their help to defeat the rest of the monsters by feeding them her Skittles, after learning from Steve that unicorns love sweet things like ambrosia and reasoning that this is the closest thing they've got. (Luckily, it works).
• The Team: The Shazamily have become a pretty solid one in their three years of superheroing together. It's played with in terms of the roles.
• Team Shot: The Vasquez kids, doing a Team Power Walk as they prepare to go save the day near the beginning, get one in both their teenage forms—with Billy in the lead and the other five in a row behind him—and as the Shazamily after they transform. Unsurprisingly, it was also used in both trailers.
• Team Power Walk: The Vasquez siblings, preparing to head out to save the day at the collapsing bridge, walk down the street together in a row before shouting "Shazam!" in unison to transform.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Shazam orders a big lunch (leading a bystander to mockingly call him "Colonel Cheesesteak") to wait for Hespera in their negotiation, only to never eat it and the place to also be trashed.
• This Cannot Be!: Kalypso's reactions to both instances of Freddy resisting Ladon's and her own magic with his Heroic Willpower.
• Time Skip: This sequel takes place a little under three years after the first movie; Billy was 14 going on 15 there, and it's stated that he's going to be 18 in five months in this one.
• Token Good Teammate: Anthea is by far the least cruel of the Daughters of Atlas from the start, only wanting to revive the gods' realm with as little violence as possible, and goes behind her sisters' backs fairly early on to help Freddy and the Wizard escape. She then completely turns Face once she discovers that Kalypso plans to eradicate humanity in misplaced revenge and then witnesses her (apparently) kill Hespera.
• Toilet Humor: At one point, the Portal Door to the Rock of Eternity is connected to the door of a porta-potty, in which the smell lingers into the lair. It does end up having plot relevance, because the smell is how they figure out which door Hespera went through after escaping her cell.
• Trailers Always Spoil: One of the TV spots reveals Gal Gadot's cameo as Wonder Woman, even though it's meant to be a big surprise at the end of the film.
• Trauma Conga Line: Largely Played for Laughs when the pediatrician, trying his hand at being a therapist for Shazam, asks him if he had any trauma in his childhood that may have led to his present-day imposter syndrome. Shazam/Billy then casually relates his backstory and events of the first movie: he never knew his dad; his mom abandoned him at a carnival; he was put in the foster system, ran away from 11 different foster homes, and frequently got into fights; he ended up in the Vasquez home, and then a wizard abducted him and gave him superpowers; a supervillain tried to kill him and used a bunch of evil demons to hold his family hostage, and he eventually had to rip the man's eyeball out to get rid of the demons; all of his siblings got superpowers; and now he worries that everyone is drifting apart and he's the only one trying to hold everything together. The doctor just comments that that's a lot to work with.
• Unexplained Recovery: A variation; it's made clear that Billy is brought Back from the Dead thanks to Diana re-powering the staff of Shazam, which also rebirths the God Realm and brings Anthea's powers back, and he bursts from the ground where his family buried his body. What's "unexplained" is that he's in Shazam form when he comes back, even though he died as teenage Billy (and, in fact, died because he changed back to normal while using his transformation lightning to win).^note It's likely the writers felt that it would have been significantly darker if he was revived that way since he would have been Buried Alive, and probably would have had a much harder time breaking through the dirt in his normal human form and risked suffocating, while it's easy for Shazam to do.
• Unicorn: Darla, being so young, naturally loves them, though Eugene doesn't think they exist until Steve confirms it. And the Wizard notes they're "not the ponies registered in culture", but actually vicious creatures feared by other monsters. Still, Darla is able to befriend them with Skittles, and they allow the siblings (sans Billy and Freddy) and the Wizard to ride them into battle.
• Vague Age: After it was downplayed with Freddy in the previous movie (we knew he was 14 like Billy, and in the same grade, but not who was older or by how much), it's averted here with the reveal that Billy is 5 months away from turning 18, and Freddy is a month younger than him. Still played straight with Eugene and Pedro, though, as it hasn't been established in either film exactly how old they are. Pedro seemed older than Billy and Freddy in the first movie, but this one implies that he's younger than them, since Mary talks about no longer being considered part of the foster system once she turned 18 and mentions that'll be happening to Billy too, with the implication that he'll be the second of the kids to experience this.
• Villain Ball: Hespera refuses to negotiate with Shazam, and antagonizes the Champions to begin with by taking their powers. If she had just told him she wanted the Golden Apple to restore the dying realm of the gods and otherwise left them alone, most of the plot could have been resolved a lot faster, and with less death and destruction.^note To be fair, Shazam wasn't really planning to peacefully negotiate, either. And she wouldn't start her Heel–Face Turn until seeing how far off the deep end Kalypso was.
• Villain Decay: Dr. Sivana and Mr. Mind. Shazam just had a fight to the death with gods and monsters. Why would anyone want to see him fight an unpowered older guy and a worm?
  • Not to mention, how bad is Sivana's magic addiction to accept a worm as his leader? Especially when the "genius" worm needs two years to deliver a simple standby message in person.
• Waking Up at the Morgue: Billy wakes up in the ground of the Gods' Realm after his family buried him when he was dead. Luckily, because he's in Shazam-form (somehow, despite being in his normal form when he was dead), he easily bursts out from the dirt and is just slightly perturbed by it more than anything.
• Walking the Earth: The ending has the Wizard tell the Shazamily that, after having lived in isolation in the Rock of Eternity for so long, he's going to tour the world to learn and experience it. Though in contrast to the trope's usual image, he'll be doing it in comfort (as he's using Uber and switched to snappy clothes).

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"Billy, everyone can be worthy if given a chance. Now go fight for your family. Go fight for the world."