What You Need to Know About That Evil Worm

Until not too long ago, motion pictures primarily based on DC Comics didn’t do the usual Marvel trick of including on further scenes throughout or on the finish of the credit to tease future movies or simply to throw in some new jokes. Nobody actually knew for certain why that was — possibly it was only a DC vs. Marvel factor. But regardless of the cause, “Justice League” broke the mould with its mid-credits tease of a Lex Luthor-led supervillain team-up. And then “Aquaman” teased the subsequent movie in that collection, as does “Shazam” now. DC Comics, it appears, has given in to that pattern.

The mid-credits teaser on “Shazam,” although, may be fairly a head-scratcher should you don’t know what’s occurring. So let’s check out what precisely that bonus scene means.

(This is the place the spoilers begin for the mid-credits tease on the finish of “Shazam.”)

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The mid-credits scene catches us up with Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong), now in jail after being defeated by Shazam-powered Billy Batson and his foster siblings. He’s gone a little bit crazy, protecting the partitions of his cell with the symbols that performed such a distinguished position within the film, and completely freaking out when his writing utensil breaks.

But we then hear a wierd robotic voice wafting into the scene providing Sivana some reassurance that he nonetheless has an element to play. “The seven realms are about to be ours,” the voice says because the digital camera pans over to a bizarre trying little worm or caterpillar man sitting on the window of his cell. The finish.

That speaking caterpillar was certainly one of Shazam’s oldest archenemies — Mister Mind.

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Created by Otto Binder and C. C. Beck, Mister Mind was launched in 1943 in difficulty #26 of Fawcett Comics’ “Captain Marvel Adventures.” (Back then Shazam was known as Captain Marvel, completely no relation to the Captain Marvel of Marvel Comics. Read extra about that right here.) And similar to within the film, he’s a superintelligent, evil-to-the-core, speaking caterpillar.

In his unique Fawcett Comics appearances, Mister Mind was a mutant worm from one other planet whose powers embrace telepathy and the power to spin nearly-indestructible silk cocoons at unimaginable speeds — which he makes use of to encase his enemies. Because he’s so tiny, he makes use of a machine known as a “talk box” to speak with bigger beings — that was the factor hanging round his neck within the “Shazam” mid-credits scene — and he wears glasses as a result of he’s nearsighted.

His foremost superpower is his unimaginable intelligence, which provides him superior strategic and organizing talents and makes him a pure chief. Those talents had been entrance and middle in his unique appearances throughout a two-year storyline in “Captain Marvel Adventures” revolving round a bunch known as The Monster Society of Evil.

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See, being extraordinarily evil, Mister Mind first got here to earth mainly to fire up hassle throughout World War II — actually, he’s mainly a Nazi from outer house — and to take action he assembled a workforce — the Monster Society — made up of Captain Marvel’s (AKA Shazam’s) wartime villains.

The Monster Society of Evil is notable as one of many earliest supervillain team-ups within the historical past of comics — and presumably the very first one made up of villains who had been beforehand defeated by a comic book e-book hero. It has had dozens of lineup modifications through the years — extra on that beneath — however the unique membership included Captain Marvel enemies like Captain Nazi (a Nazi warrior created by Hitler), and sure, Dr. Sivana.

The society battled Captain Marvel over the subsequent few years till they had been lastly defeated in 1945’s “Captain Marvel Adventures” #46. Mister Mind was arrested and placed on trial, Captain Marvel/Shazam served because the prosecutor, and after it…