In all his various incarnations across alternate timelines, differing realities, parallel universes, and beyond, Batman always seems to have some contingency plan in place for taking down nearly every character in the DC Universe, regardless of them being a friend or foe. And in an older Teen Titans comic, a future Batman reveals his plan to defeat Shazam — at the time going by the name of Captain Marvel — resulting in a moment that’s as humiliating as it is clever!
A character who’s paranoid about far more than is probably necessary, Batman is overly prepared for practically every situation he faces whether real, hypothetical, or incalculably unlikely. Developing any number of contingency plans to combat his fellow superheroes should they break bad, Batman prides himself in being a step ahead of everyone else, with the infamous events of the seminal Tower of Babel story showing what would happen if Batman’s plans to defeat the Justice League ever fell into the wrong hands, making this particular anti-Shazam idea of using Captain Marvel’s magic word against him becoming the perfect addition to Batman’s Justice League contingencies.
Batman Humiliates Captain Marvel With A Recording
A unique strategy seen in 2004’s Teen Titans #19, by Geoff Johns and Mike McKone, this issue acts as the finale to a story called “Titans Tomorrow,” wherein the Teen Titans are stranded ten years into the future and forced to battle their older evil selves. After Tim Drake’s Robin is captured by Tim Drake’s gun-toting future version of Batman, Captain Marvel bursts onto the scene looking to rescue his time-displaced friend. But after revealing to the Captain that he made “A little recording…just for this occasion,” future Batman replays a file taken from a moment when Captain Marvel shares the words that give him his powers. Knowing full well he’s in trouble the second the recording gets around to him saying “Captain Marvel” out loud, the audio immediately triggers the Captain’s transformation back into a weak and depowered human, handily defeating him without breaking a sweat!
Batman's Contingency Plan For Captain Marvel Is Simple and Effective
Using Captain Marvel's own magic word against him with a simple recording is such an easy and effective way to render this Superman-level threat inert that it's a wonder every DC villain with a bone to pick with this character, or the extended members of the Shazam Family, doesn’t use this technique more often. What’s more, it’s revealed that Freddy Freeman, Billy Batson’s fellow foster brother, is Captain Marvel in this timeline, making this an even more humiliating scenario considering the recording itself came from a time when Freddy revealed his identity to the pre-evil Titans team — an act of trust turned into a brutal weapon that Tim's Batman exploits to the fullest.
Hearing A Playback of His Name Can Trigger Captain Marvel's Transformation
The fact that Batman only has to keep handy a recording of Shazam yelling his name to outright defeat him is a hilariously effective way to neutralize this supposedly all-powerful hero and is also foolproof enough that quite literally anyone can find a way to reenact what Tim Drake’s future Batman did here to put any iteration of Shazam down for good in a matter of seconds. Captain Marvel never stood a chance against this timeline’s version of Batman, so Earth’s present-day Shazam should be counting his blessings that The Dark Knight of his time hasn’t figured this trick out… yet.