Dr. Thaddeus Bodog Sivana is the Marvel Family’s ultimate enemy: the quintessential mad scientist, always thinking of ways to conquer the Universe and destroy his archenemies, proving once and for all why he’s the worst of the worst. He was a brilliant scientist driven mad by seeing men of lesser intellect steal his ideas and profit from them, then having his wife leave him and their four children for one of those thieves. Embittered and nearly bankrupt, he took his children and fled to the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula to carve out a life for themselves. Eventually, he turned his back on mankind and swore to do as many harm to humanity as his super-science could cause until he was crowned the Rightful Ruler of the Universe.
Being functionally insane, Sivana has the capacity for wild inventions of nearly magical capabilities which conventional science says are impossible. He has the driving obsession to destroy the three people who will ever and always thwart his ambitions, a total lack of scruples and a towering rage that can put the fear of God into even the most monstrous henchman. He will gleefully sacrifice friend or foe to achieve even the smallest of aims and will kill anyone who gets in his way without feeling the slightest qualm about it.
Sivana has fathered four children in his sixty years: Magnificus, Beautia, Thaddeus, Jr. and Georgia. He tolerates Magnificus and Beautia as long as they help him and don’t get in the way of his schemes of conquest. The two younger Sivanas, Georgia and Thaddeus Junior, have targeted the younger Marvels for their murderous brand of mischief. Although they are brilliant all-around scientists like their father, Georgia’s specialties are chemicals and computer programming, while Tad is more a nuts-and-bolts, all-around tinkerer who leans more towards giant, mangaesque robotics and other fantastic vehicles.
The by-products of their patriarch’s experiments with his late wife’s and his own DNA, Georgia & Junior are blessed with their father’s brilliance, but they are also cursed with their sire’s misanthropic tendencies, anemic gargoyle looks and unique monomania. Georgia and Junior hate Mary and Freddy as much as their father does Billy and will try killing them any chance they get.
All the members of the Sivana Family know the real identities of the Marvel Family, but Sivana Sr., Junior and Georgia have chosen to selfishly cherish the secret in hope of using it to defeat their foes. The self-proclaimed Rightful Rulers of the Universe return to bedevil Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family time and again, but have yet to rid the World of them.
Satan, the lord of the Netherworld, is an ancient foe of Shazam’s from his own days as a hero. As revenge for every defeat he suffered at Shazam’s hands, the Prince of Darkness has targeted the wizard’s “family” for destruction. To achieve that end, he has created three evil champions of his own. They are:
Sabbac, a.k.a. Timothy Karnes, is a young man who sells his soul to Satan for ultimate power, but in return, the Lord of Darkness required the soul of a certain young boy to seal the pact. He slaughters several boys because of a passing resemblance to his target, but makes a serious blunder when he kidnaps Freddy Freeman. Captain Marvel rescued Freddy and defeated Karnes, who was later given a death sentence for his crimes.
Ibac the Cursed, a.k.a. Stanley “Stinky” Printwhistle, was an inoffensive janitor at the Fawcett City Museum until he met Captain Marvel. After losing his job, he returned to a life of petty crime, only to confront the World’s Mightiest Mortal again. Cornered and about to surrender, Stanley slips and falls off the edge of a rooftop, but before he can his the pavement, the Prince of Darkness saves him, whisks him to the Abyssal Plains and makes a deal with him. For the price of his soul, Satan would give Stanley the power to destroy Captain Marvel. If he succeeded, he would become Ibac permanently and rule Hell at Satan’s side, and if he failed, he would keep his soul and return to being Printwhistle.
So far, Ibac hasn’t beaten Captain Marvel yet, but the World’s Mightiest Man has gotten Stanley a job with the city’s Sanitation Department as a street sweeper operator.
To me, Ibac and Stanley represent the ultimate example of the “Dr. Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde” archetype: although Ibac is conscious and contemptuous of Stanley and what he does, Stanley remembers his alter ego’s “antics” as if they were only a bad dream. Ibac knows that Captain Marvel is really Billy Batson, but Stanley doesn’t.
Darkling, formerly teenager Dora Keene, made Mary Batson’s life miserable since the younger girl came to the Rosemont Academy. She makes a deal with Satan for the ultimate power and he gifts her with the Cloak of Darkness, but he needs the blood of an innocent to seal the pact. She mistakenly kills Mary Batson’s dorm mate and unsuccessfully tries to frame the young girl for it.
In reality, Flameshot is George Tweedle, an obese and extremely insecure insurance salesman whose side-lines are creating highly flammable chemical concoctions and starting arson fires for fun and money. While working for an unscrupulous real estate developer named George Crabbetson, Tweedle accidentally doused himself with some of one of his latest creations.
Benjamin Jenkins, also known as the Black Magician, is a sorcerer who comes to the city to “teach” Billy Batson to “respect the Dark Arts.” He and his teenaged son, Nip, have several run-ins with Captain Marvel and the other members of the Marvel Family, only to be defeated repeatedly.
Mr. Mind is a worm-like alien creature from a planetoid called Punkus. Sivana finds a derelict alien space station orbiting Venus, builds a spacecraft and a suit to withstand the murderous heat and toxic atmosphere, then travels to the planet. Once there, he discovers that not only can he understand the language, but he can make this strange mecha work. Exploring further, Sivana finds the crew of the strange craft, several tall, humanoid crocodile creatures, seemingly lying dead on the floor, surrounding a green and black-skinned humanoid.
Out of the mouth of the “biodroid” crawled a two-and-a-half inch long creature that vaguely resembled an Earthly cutworm, but when Sivana picked up the seemingly dead creature, Mind forged a telepathic bond to the mad scientist, thus Mind gained Sivana's rather skewed views on the world and humanity.
Mr. Mind has limited telepathic and empathic abilities an,d thanks to his initial “bond” with Sivana, he’s not only as insane as the World’s Maddest Scientist, but he also has a rather macabre sense of humor, cracking jokes as he’s about to have a hapless victim killed. Mind wears tiny goggles to see and a voice amplifier so people can hear him, made for him by one of his minions.
Khem-Adim, or Black Adam, the World’s Mightiest Villain, was chosen by Shazam to be the champion of Pharaoh Djer over five thousand years ago in Egypt. Soon after receiving his powers, he betrayed the old wizard and slew the Pharaoh he was supposed to protect.
Khem-Adim was banished to the farthest reaches of space by old Shazam’s magic, where he was to wander for all eternity, swearing bloody vengeance on his former patron.
Thousands of years later, the villain returns to the world and confronts the Marvel Family. Black Adam’s powers are similar to the ones the Marvel Family possess, and he is one of the few people who can go toe-to-toe with all three of them at once. He knows the Marvel Family are actually a trio of adolescents, but hasn’t bothered to find out their names.
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