Imagine a powerless Clark Kent hearing about a new hero with a look and powers similar to his own operating in Fawcett City (a hero who also shares many disturbing similarities to a new super-human dictator who is rising to power at the same time in the nation of Kahndaq). When the enterprising journalist goes to investigate, Clark discovers that the inexperienced hero, Captain Marvel, is actually just an orphaned kid in his secret identity (shades of the Winick miniseries). So, during that year, Clark and Lois take in Billy Batson as a foster child, and Clark trains him with the help of another orphan (Batman) and another hero steeped in mythology (Wonder Woman).

At the end of the year, Captain Marvel could have distinguished himself as a powerful force in the DC Universe with an affinity toward the more mystical and fantastic elements within it. The series could have built to the innocent, moral, and idealistic Capt. Marvel's inevitable confrontation with the dark, brutal Black Adam. Finally, by the close of 52, Billy would have discovered his sister, Mary, and her adopted family living in Fawcett City and move in with them to begin a series of new adventures. I think giving Billy Batson a stable family is key to maintaining a light tone to the book, because it removes the depressing cloud of Billy being a homeless orphan living on the street.

oh man, THAT would make for a funny funybook.

bagge and kolchaka's shazam!

As Billy, he's the same age as his female teammate, Stargirl, and there is a definite interest between the two.

HOWEVER, as the Big Red Cheese, everyone sees him as an adult, and nearly all of the team is unaware Billy is Marvel, so one can imagine the problems that would arise if people thought the two (in their heroic identities) were involved...

It's something that, for the most part, the '70s stories in Shazam! completely ignored. They tried to amalgamate 70s comics with the visuals from the original series. And it never worked. They didn't get the formulaic parts or the strange and fascinating stuff surrounding it. Denny O'Neil and Elliot Maggin were brilliant writers, just not for this. (Nelson Bridwell was decent, but this was something that needed Otto Binder to be brought out of retirement to write.) They and Julie Schwartz just didn't get it.

I would know: I was a kid when the revival hit; one of my first comics I ever read (at 6 years old) was the 100 page spectacular issue of Shazam!. The reprints had me at hello: I comprehended them immediately and kept re-reading them. The newer stories were not nearly as interesting or exciting.