quality:corruption, quality:correction, information:extraction
Post-Crisis origin and early history

Many centuries later, the Champion, now going by the name of "Shazam", feels the need to pass along his powers to a successor. He selects the pharaoh 's son Teth-Adam to receive the power to become the superpowered Mighty Adam by speaking the word "SHAZAM!" However, Blaze interferes with this succession and Adam is given powers from the Egyptian deities instead. As her mother did, Shazam's daughter Blaze takes on the form of a beautiful woman and seduces Adam, convincing him to kill the pharaoh and take over the kingdom. An angry Shazam draws Mighty-Adam's powers out of him and into a large jeweled scarab, thereby killing Adam as he ages to death. Shazam then seals his remains and the amulet in a tomb. A wicked reincarnation of Teth-Adam named Theo Adam would steal the scarab many centuries later and use the power of Shazam to become Black Adam. Shazam was upset by this and did not consider passing on his powers for millennia.The wizard resurfaces as an aide on the 1940 Malcolm Expedition, one of many archaeological expeditions into the tombs and pyramids of ancient Egypt. The sarcophagi of Ibis the Invincible and his mate Princess Taia are uncovered and brought to the United States. Shazam follows the sarcophagi. Once they are on display at the Fawcett City Museum, Shazam uses ancient spells to resurrect Ibis. Ibis then joins Bulletman, Spy Smasher, Minute-Man, and others to fight evil during the World War II era. In 1955, a thug knocks a weakened Shazam across the head with a crowbar and causes him to lose his memory. A clueless Shazam wanders around Fawcett for the next forty years until C.C. Batson, a young man Shazam had met on the Malcolm Expedition, recognizes the old man and brings him to the museum to restore his memory. Shazam feels that he has truly found his successor in the upstanding Batson, but before he can act on this, a possessed Theo Adam murders Batson and his wife Marilyn for the magic amulet. He therefore decides to enlist C.C. Batson's young son, Billy, as the successor to his power.