Shazam

What if Disney owned DC and made Shazam (2019)

In the early 2000s, teenage runaway Billy Batson is chosen by the ancient wizard Shazam to wield the power of living lightning. But almost immediately after receiving his powers, Billy is caught in a larger cosmic conflict between two advanced factions. One side is a militant cosmic order known as the Controllers, cold, authoritarian beings who believe emotion breeds chaos. Their elite warrior and Billy’s mentor figure is Karshon and convinces that Billy must suppress his humanity to become the perfect soldier. Opposing the Controllers are the long-hunted Manhunters, ancient synthetic beings scattered and nearly extinct. Publicly branded as galactic terrorists, they are blamed for atrocities across sectors of space. Billy, operating under Karshon’s guidance, believes he is helping the Controllers eliminate dangerous Manhunter infiltrators on Earth. During a confrontation, he crashes into Philadelphia, drawing the attention of Amanda Waller and A.R.G.U.S., who begin investigating this superpowered anomaly. As Billy struggles with fractured memories, flashes of his real life return, his adoptive mother’s kindness and his bond with Mary Bromfield, who always believed he was destined for something greater. These emotional ties begin weakening the mental conditioning imposed by the Controllers. Everything changes when Billy encounters Martian Manhunter, who reveals the truth: the Manhunters are not conquerors in this era, they are refugees. The Controllers reactivated them centuries ago as enforcers, then cast them aside when they developed independent thought. Now the Controllers seek a new power source, the magic of Shazam, to create a perfected enforcement army stripped entirely of free will. Karshon confronts Billy, insisting that emotion makes him weak and that only absolute order can save the universe. He pushes Billy to unlock greater power, not for Billy’s sake, but to weaponize the Lightning of Shazam as a cosmic battery for the Controllers’ expansion. Billy rejects Karshon’s ideology. Embracing his humanity, his love for his family, his fear, his hope, he turns his full magical power against the Controllers’ war fleet. The Manhunters, freed from suppression protocols, aid him in shutting down the Controllers’ command nexus. But the Controllers have anchored their control network outside linear time. To fully sever it, Billy channels the wizard’s lightning into the temporal core of their system. The explosion destroys the Controllers’ immediate invasion force and hurls Billy forward through time. In the post-credits scene, Billy crashes down into the year 2019, landing on an Earth that appears nearly apocalyptic, only to be discovered by the remaining members of the Justice League.

Story added by dippy2 on November 25, 2022