shazam is an acronym shazam is an acronym for various historical or mythilogical persons such as solomon and atlas etc and their qualiies ie solomon's wizdom atlas's strength etc hercules i forgot them all billy batson was a crippled newsboy perhaps later on he became a reporter but i only read the original strips in the 's billy used one crutch as he walked with his newspapers under his other hand perhaps shazam the wizard was the old guy who brought or met billy in the cave containing the statues of the aforementioned characters and empowered him with super qualities