Shazam! brought one of DC Comics' strongest heroes to the big screen, yet the DCEU incarnation of the character should be a lot more powerful. While the movie was charming, the title character's inexperience meant that it never really delved into the full potential of Shazam's powers. In fact, his most useful power was totally absent from the first Shazam! movie. With a sequel on the way and another movie around the corner that features the character's biggest rival, Black Adam, the DCEU's Shazam might soon wish he had this particular power back.
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In every iteration of Shazam, the magic word that gives Billy Batson his powers is an acronym. In his case, these powers represent the Wisdom of Solomon, the Strength of Hercules, the Stamina of Atlas, the Power of Zeus, the Courage of Achilles, and the Speed of Mercury. The movie got that much correct when the wizard first gave Billy his powers. However, in practice, one of those abilities was suspiciously absent.
Despite being the most useful of his powers and ensuring that he's actually capable of using the other ones efficiently, Billy never once exhibited the Wisdom of Solomon in Shazam! Even when he gave the powers to his adoptive siblings, none of them exhibited the power either, despite each of them prominently featuring one of the various powers in the Shazam toolkit and wisdom perfectly suiting the movie's interpretation of Mary perfectly. Realistically, there are a number of probable storytelling reasons for this, which might've made it the right call for the film at the time. But it's going to be difficult to ignore as the DCEU continues.
How The Wisdom Of Solomon Can Be Used In Shazam! 2
The Wisdom of Solomon has ranged from a handy ability to being completely over-tuned. It grants Shazam anything from superhuman focus to nigh-omniscience, depending on the writer. More often than not, the power is used to grant awareness and a photographic memory that puts Shazam and Black Adam on par with Superman. Sometimes it comes with limited precognition. However, it also occasionally allows him to just spontaneously know whatever information he needs to know at a particular moment — as if Solomon the Wise were directly feeding him knowledge. This is also attributed to his powers, as he typically instinctively knew how to use them from the very first transformation.
Of course, having such an ability would have meant that much of the learning experience of the first movie would have been entirely avoided. There wouldn't have been a need for Shazam to test his powers, and much of the drama and comedy that came from him learning his abilities would have been absent from the movie. More importantly, Freddy’s role in Shazam! would have likely been stripped down. Without the superhero's reliance on Freddy for help, Shazam! would have trimmed down their bonding time and undercut the relationship they built throughout the movie. On top of that, it likely would have made defeating Doctor Sivana too easy to be satisfying as Shazam would have inherently known how to beat the villain.
As Billy encounters new enemies capable of competing with the unmastered power of Shazam, the absence of this power is going to become felt. He can't be a novice forever and, eventually, people are going to question what the Wisdom of Solomon even does, when all the other powers are so obvious. If Shazam has to fight Black Adam, for example, then the latter should possess his own variation of the power in the Wisdom of Zehuti. The ability suits Mary Marvel's DCEU character already, so it's entirely possible that she'll be his gateway to learning about this power and how to get the best use out of his abilities by applying it to the other, flashier ones. Whatever the case, Shazam! might have been right to cut this Wisdom of Solomon power initially, but Billy is going to be in for some unwanted trouble if it doesn't make an appearance soon.