Countdown #49: "Who Are The Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man?" BY STEVE CHUNG Last week, in Countdown #50, we saw Mary Bromfield being drawn towards a certain building. Although abandoned, the place seems vaguely familiar ... and it isn't long before the young heroine discovers why.
It all began a long time ago. Billy Batson was a newsboy selling newspapers at a subway entrance on cold nights, when he heard a voice calling out to him. Having no home, the boy slept in the subway station to keep warm.
The mysterious stranger led Billy down an abandoned tunnel, where an odd subway car with gleaming headlights -- like those of a dragon's -- roared into the station, and the newsboy saw that there was no one at the controls.
After traveling to the end of the line, the shadowy figure led Billy into a cavern, where he found himself in ancient underground hallway.
It is here, in the underground hallway, carved out of sheer rock where Billy Batson sees for the first time, The Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man.
Lit by the flaring torches, the stone representations of Pride, Envy, Greed, Hatred, Selfishness, Laziness, and Injustice seem to gaze at Billy Batson, as he heads off for his first meeting with the ancient Egyptian wizard known as "Shazam."
This historic meeting was retold in Shazam! #1 (February, 1973).
A few years later, when King Kull the Beastman gets his hands on the seven stone idols from the Hall of Statues, the World's Mightiest Mortal learns more about their origins. The spirit of Shazam tells Captain Marvel how those were not mere statues, but seven evil gods who were defeated, and turned to stone ages ago. Now freed from bondage by the Beastman, the Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man could bring about mankind's downfall.
It is up to Billy and Captain Marvel to find and foil King Kull's Evil Olympus. After unearthing Kull's underground hideout, Cap turns back to Billy, and the young radio announcer manages to infiltrate the lair. In trying to surprise them, Billy stumbles, and is momentarily captured by one of the Deadly Enemies.
King Kull threatens to use his life-ray gun to turn the youth into a stone statue, but Billy manages to disarm the Beastman, and say his magic word of "SHAZAM!" Kull is defeated and the ray gun is used by the World's Mightiest Mortal to turn the Evil Seven into stone statues once more.
This story appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #137 (October, 1952).
More than two decades later, after the Marvel Family were freed from their prison of Suspendium, Professor Thorne replaces the statue of Justice outside the City Court Building with a statue of the Demon of Injustice. The statue's presence causes Judge Pleasant to lose his sense of justice, and practice bad judgment from the bench.
After learning about the statue of Injustice, the World's Mightiest Mortal is about to remove it, and is warned that any forceful removal will result in an terrible earthquake.
Captain Marvel has his day in court, but instead of the criminals being sent to jail, it is Cap who is sentenced to fifty years at hard labor.
Not wanting to break the law by breaking out of jail, the World's Mightiest Mortal says SHAZAM, and Billy Batson is able to walk out a free man.
Returning to the courthouse, Billy sees the judge on a field trip with some private citizens to the prison. The young announcer recognizes Professor Gilbert Thorne, as the evil scientist who was recently released from prison. When asked why some of the inmates recognize him, Thorne tells Billy that he used to be a librarian at the prison library.
Searching through the prison library, Billy uncovers the plans for the Injustice statue, and can't understand them. SHAZAM! Thanks to the wisdom of Solomon, the World's Mightiest Mortal is able to uncover the statue's flaw, and hurls a hammer at the precise angle necessary to shatter the statue without destroying the city.
This story appeared in Shazam #16 (January - February, 1975).
Twelve years later, the World's Mightiest Mortal had become the stuff of Legends, and the time was right for a New Beginning.
In this Post-Crisis world, it is the nephew of Dudley Batson and Dr. Thaddeus Sivana who finds himself on a street corner where his parents had died, and a shadowy figure is pointing towards him from inside a locked gate of a Muny Subway Station.
The stranger's face cannot be seen, but his eyes are felt by the startled youth. The gate is opened and the shadowy figure is already halfway down the stairs before Billy Batson has taken his first step. Down the subway tracks they go, with the shadowy figure disappearing around a curve, and moving towards a dim glow.
In the stranger's place are statues of the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Ire, Envy, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lechery.
Beyond them, at the other end of the subway platform, sits the wizard Shazam.
Although there is a block of granite hanging above him by a thread, the wizard's attention is upon the approaching boy before him.
He compels the youth to say his name, Solomon for Wisdom, Hercules for Strength, Atlas for Stamina, Zeus for Power, Achilles for Courage, and Mercury for Speed.
The figure of Captain Marvel now stands in the boy's place, but the mind of the boy is in control of his body.
Shazam remembers how there was once a whole Marvel Family, but now it had never happened. It did, but now it did not. Such memories are pushed forever from the Egyptian wizard's mind, for that way lies madness.
This story appeared in Shazam! The New Beginning #1 (April, 1987).
Post-Zero Hour, Billy Batson lives in Fawcett City, not San Francisco. He is no longer the nephew of either Dudley or Thaddeus. His parents are dead, murdered by Theo Adam, and Captain Marvel has his first battle with Black Adam.
After an Infinite Crisis, the World's Mightiest Mortal finds that his Trials are many.
Now, it is Mary Marvel who has been brought before the Seven Deadly Enemies Of Man.
And the Countdown is on.
Special thanks to the staff at Lee's Comics for making this article possible
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It's worth mentioning in passing that the seven deadly sins play a more allegorical role in a Captain Atom story by Greg Weisman wherein Capt. Atom passes through Purgatory during an out of body experience and must be punished for each of the sins he'll guilty of. (Being a volunteer soldier, he gets a pass on gluttony and greed, and he's never envied anyone but the self he lost at the beginning of the series.)
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