Doctor Sivana

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Doctor Sivana
Science Squad
PartnershipsMister Mind
Black Adam
Notable aliasesThe World's Wickedest Scientist
Abilities
  • Genius-level intellect
  • Proficient scientist and inventor
  • Skilled manipulator and strategist

Previously:

  • Intangibility

Thaddeus Bodog Sivana is a

fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck, the character is a recurring enemy of the superhero Captain Marvel, who first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (cover-dated February 1940) by Fawcett Comics.[1] A mad scientist and inventor bent on world domination, Sivana was soon established as Captain Marvel's main archenemy during the Golden Age, appearing in over half of the Fawcett Captain Marvel stories published between 1939 and 1953.[2]

Sivana has kept his role as one of the key archenemies of Captain Marvel, now also known as Shazam, through to the character's appearances in DC Comics, which eventually acquired the rights to Fawcett's superhero characters. In 2009, Doctor Sivana was ranked as IGN's 82nd-greatest comic book villain of all time.[3][4]

The character made his cinematic debut in the DC Extended Universe 2019 film Shazam!, portrayed by Mark Strong, who reprised the role in a post-credits scene cameo in the 2023 sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

Publication history

Fawcett Comics and Pre-Crisis DC Comics

C.C. Beck
.

Infamously evil, Doctor Sivana appeared in well over half of all of the Golden Age Captain Marvel comic stories, and in all of the first four stories, after having deduced Captain Marvel's dual identity as boy radio broadcaster Billy Batson early on. Depicted as a brilliant, if evil, scientist, Sivana used all manner of unusual inventions and techniques against the Marvels. He was at first a good man who wanted to help humanity, but big business, bosses, and other concerns blocked and checked him and even called him mad, until, embittered, he turned against humanity and moved to Venus. He somehow held high status among the beings of the planet Venus.

National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications court case finding that Captain Marvel was an illegal infringement of Superman
.

National Comics (today DC Comics) acquired the rights to the Captain Marvel characters in 1972, relaunching them in a new title, Shazam! the following February. The characters' 20-year absence from publication was explained as the result of Doctor Sivana and the Sivana Family having trapped the Marvels, their friends, other superheroes, and, by accident, themselves in a sphere of Suspendium, due to Sivana Jr. distracting Doctor Sivana by slapping him on the back in congratulation and making him crash the spaceship into the Suspendium sphere, a compound that kept them in suspended animation from 1953 until 1973. They were released when the Suspendium sphere neared the sun, melting it enough that Captain Marvel was revived. He and the other Marvels then pushed it back to Earth. The Sivanas escaped in their spaceship but were captured by Captain Marvel in the same issue despite another attempt at world domination. He still makes many attempts at world domination, including a multi-issue storyline where he traveled across America, threatening to destroy entire cities unless he was acknowledged as Rightful Ruler of the Universe.[6] In Shazam! #28 (1977) he was responsible for bringing Black Adam back using his reincarnation machine.

Shazam! The New Beginning and The Power of Shazam!

Sivana continued to appear in Shazam!-related stories through the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series in 1985. He was reintroduced by Roy Thomas and Tom Mandrake in the miniseries Shazam!: The New Beginning in 1987. This Sivana was the same mad scientist that the previous one had been, except that he only had two children (Beautia and Magnificus), and was Billy Batson's step-uncle.

CEO
of his own Sivana Industries, Sivana's corrupted dealings and crossing of Captain Marvel led to his own destruction and his intense hatred of the Marvel Family. Beautia and Magnificus Sivana are reintroduced again in this series; their mother, Sivana's ex-wife Venus, is briefly seen in The Power of Shazam! #27.

Later appearances

After The Power of Shazam! series ended in 1999, Sivana was rarely seen until Outsiders vol. 3 #13–15 (August–October 2004), in which he reorganizes the supervillain group the Fearsome Five, appointing himself leader. Sivana and his four associates Mammoth, Psimon, Jinx, and Shimmer (a fifth, Gizmo, is killed by Sivana for challenging the scientist's position as resident genius) continued to appear at irregular intervals in the pages of Outsiders.[7]

Fictional character biography

Pre-Crisis

Sivana is a short, bald, self-described mad scientist with a penchant for developing unusual technologies. He often plots to do away with Captain Marvel and his Marvel Family, but is usually thwarted in his plans. His trademark phrases are "Curses! Foiled again!" and his mocking laughter "Heh! Heh! Heh!" He also coined the insulting name Big Red Cheese to refer to Captain Marvel, a name that the Captain's friends have adopted with which to light-heartedly tease him.

Sivana, with his children Sivana, Jr and Georgia. Interior art from The Marvel Family #10 (1947), by C. C. Beck and Pete Costanza

Thaddeus Bodog Sivana,

Nobel Prize for Physics. Far from being pleased, Sivana was insulted by the prize and stated that only when he was crowned Ruler of the Universe would he consider himself properly honored.[16]

The Golden Age Sivana was a twice-widowed father with four children/ Sivana Family: good-natured adult daughter Beautia[14] who, when first seen, was Empress of Venus. Beautia has bewitching beauty which affects men like a drug, which Sivana once used to try to make her win an election. Beautia's remaining siblings include the super-strong Magnificus,[17] and evil teenagers Georgia[18] and Thaddeus Sivana, Jr.[19] As the Sivana Family,[20] Sivana, Georgia, and Sivana Jr. attempted to destroy Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, and Captain Marvel Jr., respectively. They traveled through time via the Rock of Eternity to various points in the history of Atlantis (ancient, modern, and future). There they attempted to steal technology to build a machine that would create a barrier around the Earth, thereby preventing the Marvels from calling down lightning. Georgia and Jr. possess brilliant minds like their father and share his enmity with the Marvel Family, but Magnificus and Beautia rarely fight the Marvels. In fact, Beautia has an unrequited crush on Captain Marvel, not realizing that he is really an adolescent boy.

Post-Crisis

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, Sivana was first reintroduced as Billy Batson's step-uncle in a 1987 miniseries, Shazam! The New Beginning. Magnificus and Beautia were depicted as his only children.

A second retcon in 1994 established Sivana as a wealthy tycoon with political influence, similar to Lex Luthor, only to have the events surrounding an archaeological expedition to Egypt he sponsored lead to both the creation of Captain Marvel and the fall of Sivana's fortunes. Blaming Captain Marvel for his fall from grace, Sivana dedicated himself wholeheartedly to using his inventions and intellect against the Marvel Family. In current continuity, Sivana's ex-wife Venus is still alive, as are all four Sivana children. They resemble their Pre-Crisis counterparts.

The evil scientist appears briefly in the "Infinite Crisis" storyline. Sivana also appeared along with Lex Luthor in the four-issue 2005 limited series Superman/Shazam: First Thunder by Judd Winick and Joshua Middleton, which depicts the first meeting between Superman and Captain Marvel.

In the 2006–2007 limited series

Science Squad and pitting them against one another. They create the Four Horsemen of the Apokolips and succeed in capturing Black Adam, whom Sivana then tortures for weeks, until Adam is freed by heroes storming the island.[4]
Georgia and Thaddeus Jr. were reintroduced in 52 Week Twenty-Six (November 1, 2006), in which they appear alongside Beautia, Magnificus, and their mother Venus, who wants Sivana found and has a charity dinner with the Black Marvel family.

Dr. Sivana turned out to be indirectly responsible for the main conflict of 52: disruptions in the fictional time stream caused by a mutated Mister Mind. Sivana had captured Mind, a worm who happened to be another of Captain Marvel's villains, and the scientist had bombarded it with treatments of Sivana's own "Suspendium" time-travel compound. As a result, Mr. Mind mutated (or, according to himself, matured—as he had apparently been in larval form all this time) into a "hyperfly", a (sometimes) planet-sized moth-like figure with the ability to travel in time and across realities, posing a serious threat to the Multiverse. He is finally thrown back in time to the day where Dr. Sivana found him.[4]

On the cover of

Injustice League. Doctor Sivana is one of the villains featured in Salvation Run
.

Final Crisis

In the 2008 miniseries

Calculator was accused of sending computer codes that would help the resistance.[22] Sivana joins with Lex Luthor in betraying Libra, after being made to watch one of his own daughters succumb to the Anti-Life Equation. Sivana creates a device to shut down the Justifiers' helmets, allowing Luthor to attack Libra.[23]

Doctor Sivana later shows up as a member of

Cheetah's Secret Society of Super Villains.[24]

The New 52

In September 2011, The New 52 rebooted DC's continuity. In this new timeline, Doctor Sivana first appears in Justice League vol. 2 #7, depicted as a respected scientist desperate to save his family from an unknown plight. With science having failed him, he turns to magic (specifically the legend of Black Adam).[25] Dr. Sivana's team finds what he believes to be the tomb of Black Adam; while attempting to open it, the scientist is half-blinded by magical lightning to the face (which has the side-effect of letting him see magic).[26]

After Doctor Sivana's alliance with Black Adam fails, he heads to the Rock of Eternity where he can't get in because of a magical shield. He cries out for someone to help him save his family saying that while science has failed them, magic could save them. A voice is then heard saying it is indeed possible. The voice also says it has been watching him with the magic eating away his body but not his mind. Doctor Sivana asks for the voice's name and discovers a caterpillar-like creature trapped in a bottle. The creature claims that people call him Mister Mind and makes note that he and Doctor Sivana shall be the "best of friends."[27] Introduced as a well-built man of average height, using his magic-seeing eye causes Doctor Sivana to slowly wither to a form resembling his stooped, traditional Fawcett appearance.[27]

In the fifth installment of the

Rock of Eternity and seize control of it, pitting themselves against their opponents, but soon finds he has been betrayed by the Legion of Sivanas and is defeated.[28] The Legion continues to feature heavily in later chapters of The Multiversity. They invade Earth-42 and cull many of its heroes in Guidebook, and sell weapons sourced from alternate worlds to the Freedom Fighters of Earth-10 in Mastermen.[29]

DC Rebirth

In the

Kahndaq.[30]

Sivana, now in an alliance with Mister Mind, is seen attending an appointment at a doctor's clinic. With Mister Mind inside his ear, Sivana, in possession of an encyclopedia of magical monsters, asks Mind about some of the various magical monsters named in the book. When he goes to see the doctor, Sivana attacks him and is ordered to cut out his tongue by Mister Mind, as it is vital for a spell.[31]

In order for Black Adam to distract the Shazam Family while he and Doctor Sivana went to the Monsterlands to free the Monster Society of Evil, Mister Mind summoned the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man who assist him.[32] Mister Mind and Doctor Sivana head to the Monsterlands to build the Monster Society of Evil from its inhabitants. As King Kid fights the Shazam Family in Philadelphia, Doctor Sivana and Mister Mind are directed to a boat by Dummy who cannot accompany them since he cannot deal with water. When they arrive at the Dungeon of Eternity, Mister Mind states to Doctor Sivana that the inmates of the Dungeon of Eternity were gathered from all over the Magiclands and imprisoned for challenging the Council of Wizards. In addition, Mister Mind stated that the Monsterlands used to be called the Gods' Realm until the day of Black Adam's betrayal which led them to strip the gods of their powers and close the doors to the Magiclands. They find a small prison containing Superboy-Prime in the Monsterlands as Superboy-Prime states that he can hear what Mister Mind is saying. Mister Mind and Doctor Sivana begin their plans to free the Monster Society of Evil from the Dungeon of Eternity.[33] Mister Mind senses the fight between the Shazam Family and Mamaragan as he instructs Doctor Sivana to stab his magical eye with a dagger that starts to melt the doors to the cells holding the Monster Society of Evil. Then Mister Mind started to control C.C., revealing to Billy that he is using him as a host and not Doctor Sivana. Mister Mind states to the Shazam Family that he plans to use C.C. to unite the Magiclands under his rule. He then proceeds to summon the Monster Society of Evil and Doctor Sivana to his side.[34] A flashback revealed that it took Mister Mind and Doctor Sivana a while to find C.C. Batson. In the present, Doctor Sivana uses his magical eye on Victor and Maria Vasquez to make sure that Mister Mind gets what he wants. When Tawky Tawny tries to help Shazam by attacking Doctor Sivana, Mister Mind in C.C. Batson's body turns him into a cub. Doctor Sivana is then instructed by Mister Mind to summon the Book of Champions from the Rock of Eternity. After Shazam casts the spell to unite the Seven Magiclands, Doctor Sivana sees that Shazam disappeared using a subtraxerim spell, unaware that it made him shrink to enter C.C.'s head and confront Mister Mind.[35] During the fight with the Shazam Family, Doctor Sivana and the Monster Society of Evil are knocked out when Shazam punches Mister Mind's talkbox. Doctor Sivana and the Monster Society of Evil were mentioned to have been remanded to Rock Falls Penitentiary where the Shazam Family built a special section to contain magical threats.[36]

Powers and abilities

Doctor Sivana's intelligence is so great that it borders on a superhuman level. He has mastered all scientific and technological disciplines, as well as knowledge of various ancient myths, legends, and cultures.[37] Sivana once discovered a mathematical formula which, when recited, allows him to walk through solid objects, thus making himself almost untouchable. Until, Captain Marvel supplies a new metallic element known as Marvelium to design an inescapable prison cell for Doctor Sivana (in his non-corporeal form) and contain him.[38]

Other versions

In other media

Television

Film

  • An alternate universe incarnation of Doctor Sivana appears in
    Karen Beecher's house to regroup, but are all slaughtered by the Metal Men
    .
  • Doctor Sivana appears in Lego DC: Shazam!: Magic and Monsters, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. This version is an unwilling brainwashed slave of Mister Mind.
  • Doctor Thaddeus Sivana appears in the
    Billy Batson
    in an attempt to take his powers for himself. However, Batson shares Shazam's power with his foster siblings, who help him defeat Sivana and re-imprison the Sins. In a mid-credits scene, having been incarcerated at Rock Falls Penitentiary, Thaddeus tries in vain to return to the Rock of Eternity before he is visited by Mister Mind, who strikes an allegiance with him.
  • Doctor Thaddeus Sivana appears in the post-credits scene of the DCEU film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, portrayed again by Mark Strong.[41]

Video games

Miscellaneous

The Gods and Monsters incarnation of Doctor Sivana appears in the Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles episode "Bomb", voiced again by Daniel Hagen.

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-4654-5357-0
    .
  2. ^ "Shazam!: Who is Doctor Sivana?". DC. 2019-04-03. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  3. ^ Doctor Sivana is number 82 Archived May 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine IGN. Retrieved 10-05-09.
  4. ^
    OCLC 213309017
  5. ^ Whiz Comics #15, (March 21, 1941)
  6. ^ Shazam! #25–29
  7. OCLC 213309017
  8. ^ Whiz Comics #14 (March 1941). DC Comics.
  9. ^ Captain Marvel Adventures #138 (November 1952). DC Comics.
  10. ISBN 0-8160-1356-X
    .
  11. ^ Whiz Comics #15, (March 21, 1941). DC Comics.
  12. ^ Whiz Comics #2 (February 1940). DC Comics.
  13. ^ Whiz Comics #3A (March 1940). DC Comics.
  14. ^ a b Whiz Comics #3B (April 1940). DC Comics.
  15. ^ Whiz Comics #4 (May 1940). DC Comics.
  16. ^ Bridwell, E. Nelson; Newton, Don (November 1981). "Sivana's Nobel!". World's Finest Comics (#273).
  17. ^ Whiz Comics #15 (March 1941). DC Comics.
  18. ^ Mary Marvel Comics #1 (January 1946). DC Comics
  19. ^ Captain Marvel Adventures #52 (December 1945). DC Comics.
  20. ^ The Marvel Family #10 (April 1947). DC Comics.
  21. ^ Final Crisis #1. DC Comics
  22. Morrison, Grant
    (w), Various (a). Final Crisis #5 (2008). DC Comics.
  23. ^ Morrison, Grant (2), Various (a). Final Crisis #6 (2008). DC Comics.
  24. ^ Wonder Woman vol. 3 #30. DC Comics.
  25. ^ Justice League vol. 2 #7. DC Comics.
  26. ^ Justice League vol. 2 #9. DC Comics.
  27. ^ a b Justice League vol. 2 #21. DC Comics
  28. ^ The Multiversity 5: Thunderworld (December 2014). DC Comics.
  29. ^ The Guide to the Multiversity; The Multiversity - Mastermen. DC Comics.
  30. ^ Doomsday Clock #6 (July 2018). DC Comics.
  31. ^ Shazam! vol. 3 #2 (January 2019). DC Comics.
  32. ^ Shazam! vol. 3 #8 (January 2020). DC Comics.
  33. ^ Shazam! vol. 3 #10 (January 2020). DC Comics.
  34. ^ Shazam! vol. 3 #11 (February 2020). DC Comics.
  35. ^ Shazam! vol. 3 #13 (July 2020). DC Comics.
  36. ^ Shazam! vol. 3 #14. DC Comics.
  37. ^ Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol 1 #21 (November 1986)
  38. ^ Captain Marvel Adventures Vol 1 #100 (September 1949)
  39. ^ Nobleman, Marc Tyler (29 July 2011). "Super '70s and '80s: "Super Friends" – Darrell McNeil, animator". Noblemania. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  40. ^ Ehrlich, David (March 23, 2019). "'Shazam!' Review: DC Surprises with One of the Most Fun Superhero Movies Ever Made". IndieWire. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  41. ^ Abad-Santos, Alex (March 16, 2023). "Shazam! Fury of the Gods' credits scene teases a future that might never come". Vox. Retrieved March 18, 2023.

External links

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