WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Shazam #12 by Jeff Loveness, Brandon Peterson, Mike Atiyeh and Rob Leigh, on sale now.

As Earth's Mightiest Mortal, Billy Batson has the power of six different gods and mythological heroes to grant him the incredible abilities of Shazam. Among these is the courage of the Ancient Greek hero Achilles, which comes in useful as he battles threats across the DC Universe despite secretly being a young teenager. However even the courage of Achilles hides a deeper fear within the impressionable superhero, as he finds himself on an impromptu team-up in Gotham City alongside the Dark Knight himself.

After his adopted brother Freddie Freeman points out Billy lacks the same extensive, memorable rogues gallery as many of his more prominent superhero counterparts in the DCU, Shazam grows frustrated. Determined to prove himself capable in comparison to the more established heroes, Shazam travels from his native Philadelphia to Gotham to take on some of Batman's villains. The first antagonist he encounters is Scarecrow, who is in the midst of tormenting a new group of hostages with his signature fear toxin.

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Shazam fear

Believing himself more than able to bring Scarecrow to justice and rescue his hostages, Shazam bursts into the villain's warehouse hideout to confront him head-on. As Shazam overpowers Scarecrow physically, the devious scientist reveals the warehouse has had the fear toxin invisibly wafting through it since Shazam entered, with Billy having inadvertently ingested enough of it to trigger his own toxin-fueled delusion of his greatest fears brought to life: That he will one day be responsible for the gruesome deaths of the rest of the Shazam Family.

In his first major adventure as a superhero, Billy shared his magical powers with the rest of his adopted siblings to join him as superheroes themselves. While the young family of superheroes had handily defeated threats like Doctor Sivana and Black Adam in the past, Scarecrow's fear toxin reveals that Billy has a deep fear that his decision to share his powers with his siblings will ultimately make him responsible when the family finds themselves in over their heads. This unleashed fear leaves Billy completely incapacitated, with Scarecrow prepared to finish him off until the timely arrival of Batman.

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Batman Shazam

Despite ingesting the fear toxin himself, Batman continues to confront Scarecrow. The fear toxin reveals that Bruce Wayne's greatest fear remains the traumatic memory of witnessing his parents' brutal murders in Crime Alley when he was just a boy. Of course, Bruce has long since made that memory and fear his primary motivation in becoming a superhero in the first place and is able to channel these resurfaced fears to defeat Scarecrow once again and rescue Billy while providing him the wisdom to similarly not be cowed by his fears but instead push through them.

Possessing power levels on par with Superman and the nickname of the Earth's Mightiest Mortal, sometimes it's easy to forget Shazam is really just a teenager himself. With that comes all the overwhelming fears and anxieties that one faces as they find themselves and the added sense that Billy Batson may have endangered his newfound family by making them superheroes. Fortunately, Batman has similarly invited more and more young characters to help him in his crime-fighting crusade and knows the fear and responsibility that Billy experiences. And when it comes to superhero mentors in the DCU, there is perhaps no better example than the Dark Knight himself, who was given the chance to offer his own brand of guidance to Shazam during a crisis of conscience.

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