Chapter Summaries

Yang Ming watched Billy Batson receive Shazam’s powers and descend into reckless celebrity, choosing to observe rather than intervene. As Billy reveled in his fame and declared himself capable of anything, Yang Ming prepared to make his move.

• Yang Ming confirmed Billy was still an ordinary boy, then told him he would return when Billy was struck by lightning.
• Yang Ming watched Billy board a subway train that diverted onto a closed track, and waited outside rather than interrupt the wizard’s selection process.
• Three days later, Yang Ming saw Billy and Freddy test Billy’s new powers, damage an ATM, and gather the cash it dispensed.
• Yang Ming tracked Billy’s online stunts and noticed he had stopped searching police records for his missing mother, then put on a suit and left his apartment.
• At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Billy posed for fans while Freddy sold merchandise, and Billy said he could do anything because he was a god.

Yang Ming confronted Billy about the damage he had caused and exposed the abandonment fears behind his need for attention. Billy kept Yang Ming’s invitation to meet that night, while a man watching a Dark Web video identified him as Shazam’s successor.

• Yang Ming showed Billy and Freddy footage of the damage Billy had caused and the ordinary people left to pay for it.
• Yang Ming told Billy that his heroics were driven by fear that his mother had abandoned him, provoking Billy to summon lightning.
• Yang Ming’s pressure extinguished Billy’s lightning and forced him to back down.
• Yang Ming gave Billy an address and invited him to bring his real family for a house inspection at eight that night.
• A bald man watched a video of Billy on the Dark Web and recognized him as Shazam’s successor.

Billy faced the damage caused by his uncontrolled powers, repaired what he could, and learned that his birth mother had chosen not to reclaim him. Yang Ming reassured him that her failure was not his fault, and Billy returned to the Vasquez family, who welcomed him without questions.

• Yang Ming showed Billy the damage bills and arranged for him to compensate the affected businesses anonymously, while Freddy accompanied him.
• Billy helped repair the convenience store ATM and apologized to Martha, the injured bus passenger, who encouraged him to learn from his mistake.
• Billy restored the broken Anna Flower Shop sign with careful use of his power, then received the address of Marilyn Batson from Yang Ming.
• Billy confronted Marilyn and learned that she had known he was in the welfare system but had chosen not to return for him.
• Yang Ming told Billy that his parents' abandonment was not his fault, and Billy returned home to the Vasquez family, where Darla comforted him.

Billy grew closer to his foster family while Thaddeus Sivana tracked down Freddy to learn where Billy Batson was. Freddy refused to betray Billy and faced Sivana’s deadly attack.

• Billy repaired Darla’s stuffed giraffe and gently accepted her hug, then shared half his fried egg with Freddy.
• Thaddeus Sivana identified Freddy from a video and student records, then used magic to enter Fawcett High School unnoticed.
• Sivana confronted Freddy in a dark hallway and summoned the demons Wrath and Pride to restrain him.
• Sivana demanded to know where Billy Batson was, but Freddy mocked him and refused to reveal Billy’s identity or location.
• Sivana ordered Freddy to die and sent a demon’s claws plunging toward his heart.

Billy Batson transformed into Shazam to save Freddy and fought Sivana’s demons, but his inexperience left him badly wounded while protecting students from a collapsing ceiling. Yang Ming arrived and effortlessly defeated Wrath, then turned his attention to Sivana’s magic eye.

• Shazam crashed through the school ceiling, rescued Freddy from Sivana’s choking spell, and sent him toward the stairwell.
• Billy fought Wrath and Pride, but the demons and Sivana overwhelmed him with their attacks.
• Sivana collapsed a load-bearing column, and Billy held up the falling slab so students could escape, even as Wrath stabbed him in the back.
• Yang Ming appeared through a pink door, criticized Billy’s fighting, and struck Wrath so hard that the demon was hurled through the school and left incapacitated.
• Yang Ming faced Sivana and said he would remove the magic eye.

Yang Ming and Billy defeated Sivana by destroying his connection to the Eye of Sin, which Billy reclaimed. After leaving Sivana for the police, Yang Ming praised Billy as a real Superhero and headed back toward Gotham.

• Yang Ming opened the first five Eight Gates and battered the six demons Sivana had summoned.
• Billy realized Sivana grew weaker as demons left his body, then lured him high above Philadelphia and provoked him into releasing [Envy].
• Sivana lost his powers and began falling, but Billy caught him and pulled the Eye of Sin from his socket, drawing all seven demons back into the crystal.
• Yang Ming stored the Eye of Sin and left Sivana for the arriving police while Freddy praised the heroes.
• Billy thanked Yang Ming for his guidance, and Yang Ming called him a real Superhero before heading back to Gotham.

Yang Ming returned to Gotham and saw the school Bruce Wayne had built in the East End, along with its new students and facilities. With the Court of Owls still mysteriously quiet, Yang prepared for the school’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, expecting an attack.

• Yang Ming returned to his office and learned that Bruce Wayne had built a vast school campus during his absence.
• Bruce told Yang that the Court of Owls had been inactive for eleven months and revealed that Wayne Enterprises had begun producing the new element.
• Yang visited the training field and reunited with Jason Todd, who was leading the students through their exercises.
• Yang toured the cafeteria and dormitory, where he encountered Loki and learned that Maggie’s sister was gathering information at the docks.
• Bruce told Yang that the ribbon-cutting ceremony would take place the next morning, with the mayor and media attending, and warned that the Court of Owls might strike.
• Yang declared he was ready to defend the school if anyone tried to wreck it.

Headmaster Yang Ming discovered that Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake—the future first three Robins—were all enrolled at his East End school. As the opening ceremony approached, he looked forward to putting the three boys through an unusual first lesson.

• Yang Ming reviewed the students’ files and realized the school had gathered Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake.
• A month earlier, Bruce Wayne announced that Wayne Enterprises had funded a tuition-free boarding school in Gotham’s East End.
• Tim Drake identified Bruce Wayne as Batman and forced his parents to sign a transfer form so he could attend the school.
• John and Mary Grayson persuaded Dick to leave the circus and attend school after recalling how dangerous their performances had become.
• Yang Ming closed the students’ files and awaited the opening ceremony, expecting the three boys to meet the next morning.

Gotham Hope Academy opened with Bruce Wayne and Yang Ming welcoming students from across Gotham, while Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, and Tim Drake encountered one another for the first time. After Yang Ming laid down his rules, he and Bruce confirmed the Court of Owls had stayed away, but Yang Ming warned that keeping the students in line would be his next challenge.

• Dick Grayson arrived at Gotham Hope Academy with his parents, while Tim Drake arrived with his parents and Jason Todd gathered with the Kids' Gang orphans.
• Retsu Unohana comforted Jason, and Loki gave pastries to the orphans before Yang Ming told them the school was their home and promised to defend them.
• Bruce Wayne announced the school's name at the opening ceremony, and the mayor delivered a nervous speech while watching Yang Ming.
• Yang Ming warned students against gangs, protection rackets, knives, and drugs, then declared that his rules governed the school.
• Jason, Dick, and Tim noticed one another across the crowd and exchanged hostile, curious, and defiant looks.
• Bruce and Yang Ming discussed the Court of Owls staying away, and Yang Ming cautioned that managing the students would take more than a threatening speech.

On the first day at Gotham Hope Academy, Tim, Dick, and Jason each established influence among their roommates and classmates in different ways. As the students enjoyed their first evening, Yang Ming prepared a brutal military-training program led by Retsu Unohana, promising that their comfort would end the next day.

• Yang Ming announced there would be no classes on the first day, and students celebrated before checking their class assignments: Jason was in Class 021, Dick in Class 022, and Tim in Class 023.
• Tim won over seven East End punks in Dormitory Room 404 by sharing Belgian chocolates and telling them about Superman and places he had visited.
• Dick settled a fight over a bunk in Dormitory Room 201 with a backflip and card trick, quickly earning his roommates' admiration.
• Jason defeated a former Red Hood Gang errand boy in Dormitory Room 302, then claimed authority over the room by offering the others a dessert from the Wayne Hotel.
• At dinner, Jason, Dick, and Tim each drew a separate group of students around them, while Tim discreetly observed the emerging balance between their circles.
• Jessica Jones warned Yang Ming that the students were too energetic for regular classes, and Yang Ming revealed an inaugural hell-level military-training outline with Retsu Unohana in charge.

At Wayne Enterprises' school, Retsu Unohana and Yang Ming began the students' brutal physical and discipline training by demonstrating the consequences of defiance. The students started a fifty-lap run, with Jason, Dick, and Tim each relying on different strengths to keep going.

• A military-grade alarm woke Jason, Dick, and Tim at five in the morning, and they hurried to the sports field with the other students.
• Retsu Unohana dislocated and reset a student's shoulder after he harassed her, then warned the assembled students that she would punish misbehavior.
• Yang Ming called in Jessica Jones, who lifted and hurled a two-ton pickup near the front row to frighten the students.
• Yang Ming announced a month of hell-level conditioning and ordered everyone to run fifty laps, with no breakfast for anyone who failed to finish and toilet duty for the last hundred.
• Jason charged ahead, Dick ran close behind with an easy pace, and Tim managed his stamina from the middle of the pack.

Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, and Tim Drake endured a punishing twenty-thousand-meter run and worked together to help each other finish. Afterward, Yang Ming introduced Marine instructors who began imposing strict military discipline on the students.

• Retsu Unohana forced exhausted runners to continue the fifty-lap test by threatening painful injuries.
• Jason caught Tim when he collapsed, and Dick joined them in helping him finish the run.
• Twelve military trucks arrived, and Yang Ming announced that Marine instructors would train the students for the next month.
• Jason, Tim, and Dick each organized their classes into orderly lines as the instructors demanded.
• The instructors gave the students forty minutes to wash, eat, and clean their dormitories before dismissing them.

On the fifteenth day of military training, students found that even injury could not get them out of training, and Tim, Dick, and Jason led a planned escape in the rain. Yang Ming caught them at the rear wall just as Tim was about to cut the electrified fence.

• A student faked a serious leg injury to avoid training, but Retsu Unohana reset his broken bones and ordered him back to the field.
• Older troublemakers enlisted Tim, Dick, and Jason to plan an escape, and the three agreed to test the school's security.
• Tim mapped the patrols and surveillance blind spots, then disabled the dormitory cameras during a downpour.
• Dick drew the guards away while Jason led the troublemakers across the grounds and Tim covered their tracks.
• At the rear wall, Tim prepared to cut the fence's power wire, but Yang Ming appeared and revealed that he knew their names and had anticipated their plan.

Yang Ming caught Jason, Tim, Dick, and the other students attempting to escape, revealing that he had deliberately left them a false security weakness as a practical lesson. After a day in solitary confinement, the three emerged shaken, and Yang Ming explained that he had let them try so they would understand the limits of their plans.

• Yang Ming stopped Tim from cutting the electric fence wire and revealed that the apparent security loophole had been planted to test the students.
• Retsu Unohana arrived, and Jason, Tim, and Dick each blamed the others for the escape attempt before she ordered them sent to the Underground Silence Room.
• Yang Ming explained that Jason had relied on vigilance and violence, Tim had missed the purpose of the route, and Dick had made noise while climbing the wall.
• Jason, Tim, and Dick spent a day alone in soundproof confinement, struggling with the silence and their own thoughts.
• The students emerged the next morning, and Yang Ming told Jason he had allowed the escape attempt so they would learn how thick the wall was.

After twenty-seven days of training, Jason, Dick, and Tim learned they would face a three-day survival assessment in Blackthorn Forest with seven troublesome students on their team. The chapter ended as Zero Squad entered the forest, where Tim spotted boot prints in the soil.

• Jason, Dick, and Tim completed the obstacle course together and earned an extra steak for dinner.
• After twenty-seven days of training, the students assembled to find military trucks waiting and Yang Ming announce a forest survival assessment.
• Yang Ming assigned Jason, Dick, and Tim to Zero Squad with seven other students and explained they had to cross fifty kilometers of Blackthorn Forest in three days.
• The instructors confiscated the students' hidden supplies and transported them to the forest, where Tim found boot prints in the soil.
• Jason, Dick, and Tim watched the first groups enter the forest before Zero Squad set out in the rain.

Yang Ming’s students encountered armed watchers and evidence of the Court of Owls while navigating Blackthorn Forest. After a student was shot, Yang Ming ordered the medical team into phase two, and the attackers confirmed that their target was him.

• Yang Ming detected thirty-seven trained presences in the forest and told Retsu Unohana to wait before confronting them.
• Tim, Dick, and Jason found signs of armed watchers, and Jason stopped Mohawk from stealing matches from another squad.
• Zero Squad fought off two attackers using tranquilizer weapons, then found the Court of Owls symbol carved into a fallen tree.
• A gunshot and a student’s scream prompted Yang Ming to send the medical team into phase two and tell Retsu Unohana the prey could move.
• A man in black confirmed the target was Yang Ming, while a photograph bore an order to find the principal wearing gold-rimmed glasses.

Yang Ming and the students fought a Court of Owls operation in Blackthorn Forest, where fake instructors abducted students and a hidden facility was sealed behind metal thorns. After Hound detonated explosives beneath the forest, Yang Ming survived the blast while shielding the wounded girl, and the Court mistakenly believed he was dead.

• Yang Ming treated a girl shot with a tracking-wire bullet while Jessica and Retsu Unohana helped him, and he sent Jessica to mislead the people tracking it.
• Jason, Dick, and Tim rescued students from fake instructors and discovered the students' school crest labels were RFID keys that activated a metal thorn barrier.
• Yang Ming confronted Hound, who revealed the Court of Owls was reclaiming an underground facility and then warned that explosives were buried beneath the forest.
• Hound detonated the bombs, and Yang Ming raced to the medical station, kicked Jessica clear, and shielded the wounded girl beneath the stretcher.
• A masked Court of Owls agent in Gotham City declared Yang Ming dead and ordered the students retrieved, but Yang Ming emerged alive from the crater with the girl unharmed.

Yang Ming left Retsu Unohana to protect the students and went after the attackers, while Jason drew the hunters away from the main group to save the East End children. Jason, Dick, Tim, and Annie escaped into an underground tunnel, where they uncovered the Court of Owls’ experiments on Gotham orphans and heard something stir in the darkness.

• Yang Ming sent Retsu Unohana to rescue the students and headed toward the gunfire to confront the hunters.
• Jason recognized that the hunters were targeting him and led the East End Kids’ Gang away from the main group, with Dick and Tim following.
• Jason shielded Annie from a tranquilizer round and fell with her into a fissure, but Dick caught them and swung them into an abandoned tunnel while Tim found a way down.
• Tim discovered Wayne family and Court of Owls markings in the tunnel, and the group entered an underground ward filled with surgical equipment and electrum cylinders.
• Dick found files documenting Talon experiments on Gotham orphans, and Jason realized the hunters had wanted the children as test subjects.
• A metallic sound came from the darkness, so Tim extinguished the lighter and Jason prepared to fight.

Tim, Dick, and Jason defeated three unfinished Talons in the underground slaughterhouse, but Hound unleashed a horde of perfected Talons and nearly killed them. Yang Ming burst through the ceiling to save his students and charged Hound with a haki-coated fist.

• Tim, Dick, and Jason worked together to disable the three unfinished subjects, while Jason recognized one as Little Rock and removed its control chip.
• Hound emerged and activated the chambers, revealing dozens of armed Perfected Talons surrounding the exhausted boys.
• Hound attacked Tim, and Dick and Jason took the blade's strike to shield him.
• Yang Ming smashed through the ceiling, confronted Hound, and rushed forward with a black-coated fist.

Yang Ming uncovered the Court of Owls’ experiments on orphaned children and destroyed the ten Talons guarding the laboratory. He captured Hound, rescued the others, and left with the laboratory’s valuables and records.

• Yang Ming found records showing that the Court had experimented on and disposed of orphaned children, and his killing intent surged.
• Yang Ming killed all ten Talons by precisely destroying their bones and joints while Jason, Tim, and Dick watched.
• Retsu Unohana stopped Hound from attacking Annie, severed his arm, and healed him so he could be interrogated.
• Yang Ming removed and disabled the bomb implanted in Hound’s chest, then gave Jason medicine for his shoulder wound.
• Yang Ming stole the electrum, experimental data, transaction records, and laboratory equipment using his Storage Ring.