Doctor Sivana
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| Doctor Sivana | |
 Doctor Sivana, from Outsiders #14 (September 2004). Art by Tom Raney. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Fawcett Comics (1940 - 1953) DC Comics (1972 - present) |
| First appearance | Whiz Comics #2 (1940, historical) The Power of Shazam! graphic novel (1994, canon) |
| Created by | Bill Parker C. C. Beck |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, Ph. D |
| Team affiliations | Injustice League Fearsome Five The Society Monster Society of Evil Sivana Family Science Squad |
| Notable aliases | The World's Wickedest Scientist |
| Abilities | Genius-level intellect, brilliant inventor, skilled manipulator and strategist |
Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana is a fictional comic book supervillain. Created by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck, he first appeared opposite superhero Captain Marvel in Whiz Comics #2 (February 1940) by Fawcett Comics. Sivana was soon established as Captain Marvel's archenemy and most frequent foe, a role that he continues to hold to this day in his appearances in DC Comics, who eventually acquired the rights to those characters from Fawcett.
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[edit] Overview
[edit] Fictional character biography
Sivana is a short, bald, self-described mad scientist with a penchant for developing unusual technologies, and who often plots to do away with Captain Marvel and his Marvel Family, but is often thwarted in his plans. His trademark phrases are "Curses! Foiled again!" and his mocking laughter "Heh! Heh! Heh!" He also coined the insulting name Big Red Cheese to refer to Captain Marvel, a name that the Captain's friends have adopted with which to light-heartedly tease him.
According to The Origin of Dr. Sivana (Whiz Comics #15, March 1941), he began with the best intentions, with progressive scientific ideas that could revolutionize industry but was rejected by everyone he approached. Laughed out of society, Sivana took his family to the planet Venus, where he stayed until his children were grown, and Earth not as backward as when he left it. During his years away, struggling to tame the Venusian jungle, Sivana turned bitter.
The Golden Age Sivana was a single father with four children: good-natured adult offspring Beautia and Magnificus, and evil teenagers Georgia and Thaddeus Jr. (aka Sivana Jr.) Sivana. Sivana Jr., and Georgia constituted the supervillain group Sivana Family, the evil counterpart to the Marvel Family. Magnificus and Beautia, however, were not enemies to the Marvels; in fact, Beautia has an unrequited crush on Captain Marvel (whom she does not realize is really an adolescent boy, Billy Batson).
Sivana's family were erased from existence due to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, but due to Zero Hour, both Beautia and Magnificus (along with their mother Venus Sivana) were restored to life. As a result of Infinite Crisis, Georgia and Thaddeus Jr. were also restored to existence as well, with Beautia and Magnificus becoming evil just like their father as well.
[edit] Publication history
[edit] Fawcett Comics and pre-Crisis DC Comics
Doctor Sivana appeared in well over half of all of the Golden Age Captain Marvel comic stories, after having deduced Captain Marvel's dual identity as boy radio broadcaster Billy Batson early on. Depicted as a brilliant, if evil, scientist, Sivana used all manner of unusual inventions and techniques against the Marvels. Along with the Marvel Family, Sivana entered publishing limbo in 1953, following a ruling in the National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications court case finding that Captain Marvel was an illegal infringement of Superman.
In 1972, National Comics (today DC Comics) acquired the rights to the Captain Marvel characters, relaunching them in a new title, Shazam! the following February. The characters' twenty-year absence from publication was explained as the result of Doctor Sivana and the Sivana Family having trapped the Marvels, their friends, and, by accident, themselves in a sphere of Suspendium, a compound that kept them in suspended animation from 1953 until 1973.
[edit] Shazam! The New Beginning and The Power of Shazam!
Sivana continued to appear in Shazam!-related stories through the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series in 1985. He was reintroduced by Roy Thomas and Tom Mandrake in the miniseries Shazam! The New Beginning in 1987. This Sivana was the same mad scientist that the previous one had been, except that he only had two children (Beautia and Magnificus), and was Billy Batson's step-uncle.
Jerry Ordway revised the character of Sivana for his 1994 graphic novel The Power of Shazam! and the resulting ongoing series, and this revision has been retained in all following DC publications. The modern Sivana, in addition to being a mad scientist, was also a powerful and influential tycoon (a la Lex Luthor of the Superman comics). The former CEO of his own Sivana Industries, Sivana's corrupted dealings and crossing of Captain Marvel led to his own destruction and his intense hatred of the Marvel Family. Beautia and Magnificus Sivana are reintroduced again in this series; their mother, Sivana's ex-wife Venus, is briefly seen in Power of Shazam! #27.
[edit] Later appearances
After The Power of Shazam! series ended in 1999, Sivana was rarely seen until Outsiders #13 -15 (August-October 2004), in which he reorganizes the supervillain group the Fearsome Five, appointing himself leader. Sivana and his four associates Mammoth, Psimon, Jinx, and Shimmer (a fifth, Gizmo, is killed by Sivana for challenging the scientist's position as resident genius) continued to appear at irregular intervals in the pages of Outsiders.
The evil scientist appears briefly in DC's Infinite Crisis. Sivana also recently appeared along with Lex Luthor in the four-issue 2005 limited series Superman/Shazam: First Thunder by Judd Winick and Joshua Middleton, which depicts the first meeting between Superman and Captain Marvel.
In the 2006-2007 limited series 52, Sivana was abducted to Oolong Island, a tropical paradise run by Intergang, where he and many other DC Universe "mad scientists" are allowed to live a hedonistic lifestyle while creating the inventions of their wildest dreams and pitting them against one another. Georgia, and Thaddeus Jr. were reintroduced in 52 Week Twenty-Six (November 1, 2006), in which they appear alongside Beautia, Magnificus, and their mother Venus.
Dr. Sivana turned out to be indirectly responsible for the main conflict of 52: disruptions in the fictional time stream caused by a mutated Mr. Mind. Sivana had captured Mind, a worm who happened to be another of Captain Marvel's villains, and the scientist had bombarded it with treatments of Sivana's own "Suspendium" time-travel compound. As a result, Mr. Mind mutated into a giant moth-like figure with the ability to time-travel, posing a serious threat to the Multiverse.
In Jeff Smith's 2007 limited series Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, Sivana is introduced in issue #2, as the new Attorney General of the United States. While ostensibly dedicated to stomping out terrorist threats, Sivana is more interested however in gaining technology from the invading alien Mr. Mind to develop into weapons, and to use the fear caused by the Mind's Monster Society to start a new war he can profit from. He is eventually caught on live TV throwing Mary Marvel from the top of one of Mr Mind's war machines, and is arrested.
On the cover of Justice League of America #13 (Vol.2), it shows Doctor Sivana as a member of the new Injustice League and is one of the villains featured in Salvation Run.
[edit] Other versions
In Superman: Red Son, Dr. Sivana briefly appears as a United States defector to Superman's Russia.
Dr. Sivana made a cross-company cameo in Marvel Comics' Amazing Spider-Man #335, in which he fights Captain America at a staged charity battle.
[edit] Other media
Doctor Sivana first appeared outside of comics in live-action, as a villain in Legends of the Superheroes (1979), played by Howard Morris. He later appeared as a regular villain, occasionally with Sivana Jr. and Georgia, in the 1981 Shazam! Saturday morning cartoon, aired as one-half of The Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam! Although Sivana never appeared in Justice League Unlimited, he does appears as a villain in issue 15 of the Justice League Unlimited comic book, when he tried to rebuild Mister Atom.
Doctor Sivana has a cameo appearance in the animated film Justice League: The New Frontier. He is seen during the famous speech by John F. Kennedy.
[edit] External links
- Doctor Sivana's "Who's Who" file at The Marvel Family Web
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