'Shazam!' Post-Credits Scene Explained: One of the Weirdest of All Time

Like all superhero movies, Shazam! has a post-credits scene. It’s also one of the weirdest post-credits scene of all time.

To modern moviegoing audiences, the villain revealed after the credits of Shazam! is easily one of the goofiest monster reveals ever in a superhero movie. Heck, it was goofy even in the Golden Age comic books, but here in 2019, it’s as cheesy as Batman is rich. That’s also the magic of Shazam!, a movie that totally embraces the cheese.

The credits scene is faithful to the comics and essentially recreates what happened at the end of Geoff John’s Shazam! reboot comic, which influenced the movie. And yes, it sets up a sequel. Here’s how.

Warning: Spoilers for Shazam! below.

At the end of Shazam!, Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) is in prison when he begins to go mad, trying desperately to summon a doorway to the Rock of Eternity to no avail. That’s when he begins hearing a voice coming from a tiny, gross worm, who promises that they will be the best of friends.

That’s not cabin fever getting to Dr. Sivana. That’s Mister Mind, one of Shazam’s archenemies, and he’s hoping to form his Monster Society of Evil with Sivana.

Mister Who? Monster Society of What?

Originally debuting in Captain Marvel Adventures #26 in 1943, Mister Mind is one of the most frequent enemies of Captain Marvel/Shazam, after Black Adam (set to be portrayed by Dwayne Johnson in a future movie) and Dr. Sivana. Created by Otto Binder and C.C. Beck, Mister Mind is a two-inch intelligent alien worm from Venus who leads the Monster Society of Evil.

He possesses intellect greater than most humans, has limited telepathy, and can create indestructible silk at lightning speed. He also has a “talk box,” a little speaker to amplify his voice that he wears around his neck.

Before you think he’s kind of adorable (sometimes he is), in Shazam #2 from 1973, he is described as having the body of a worm and “the conscience of Adolf Hitler.” But powerful as he may be, Mister Mind is still just a worm. Thus, he is most closely associated with forming the Monster Society of Evil.

As ridiculous as all of that sounds, and it really is, the Monster Society was among the first times established super-villains banded together as one, united in their effort to take down a common enemy. In this case, it’s Shazam (then named Captain Marvel). They are the forerunners to other evil alliances, such as the Legion of Doom and the Sinister Six.

While Axis leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, and Hideko Tojo were members of the earliest version of the Society, it was mostly a super-villain group that included Captain Nazi and the Crocodile-Men.

When the Monster Society returned in World’s Finest Comics in 1980, Mister Mind recruited Shazam villains Black Adam, Ibac, Dr. Sivana, King Kull, Mister Atom, and Oggar to join him. To defeat them all, Shazam needed the help of the Shazam Family (then named the Marvel Family).

At the end of Johns’ Shazam! comic, Dr. Sivana meets Mister Mind for the first time, who proposes a friendship between the two.

While the only real difference between the comic and the film is that they meet inside the Rock of Eternity, it’s still the exact same idea: These two bad guys are going to team up, and it’s going to be bad news for Shazam. Luckily, as the other big reveal of Shazam! shows, Billy Batson isn’t alone.

Shazam! is in theaters on April 5.