That Burning Violin In Shazam: Fury Of The Gods Does Have An Explanation

It's been 10 years since "Man of Steel" kicked off the DC Extended Universe, and since it's been a bit of a messy affair, it only stands to reason that there are still some unanswered questions. Which Robin did the Joker kill before the events of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?" Why did Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) make such a big deal out of the government not having their own supervillains in "Suicide Squad" if she'd already been working with the Justice Society for so long that some of the heroes had already hit retirement age and passed their name on to their younger relatives?

And seriously, what is up with that burning violin in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods?"

That last one may not be quite as concerning to DCEU fans, but to the heroes in the new "Shazam" movie, it's apparently been a headscratcher for quite a few years. In David F. Sandberg's sequel, a group of children have acquired the powers of the gods and are using them to fight crime in Philadelphia, but they didn't get an instruction manual. They don't even know how their fancy superhero lair, the Rock of Eternity, really works, or what it's got inside of it. And one piece of magical memorabilia comes up more than any other: a violin that is perpetually on fire but never burns down.

The Shazam family — strike that, from now on let's just call them the Shazamily — may not know the answer, but fortunately, we do, because we know a little bit about Shazamily lore.

"Shazam" may not be the most popular superhero in the world right now, but there was a time when he literally was. Back in the 1940s, the comics featuring Billy Batson's alter ego, who used to call himself "Captain Marvel," outsold Superman and Batman. Heck, he was technically the first comic book superhero to get a big screen adaptation, with the Republic serial "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" beating the Oscar-nominated Max Fleischer "Superman" cartoons to theaters in 1941, by about six months.

But his popularity waned when DC sued Fawcett Comics, claiming the hero in a red suit was overly derivative of Superman. Eventually, Captain Marvel was put out of commission, unable to star in any more comics until 1972. That's when Captain Marvel was licensed by — funny how this all worked out — DC, and they made their return to the comics stands, eventually sharing the same universe with Superman, Batman, and all the other caped crusaders whose popularity had grown in the two decades that the Shazamily, who used to outsell them, had been forced out of business. (They officially changed his name to "Shazam" in 2011, to avoid confusion with Marvel Comics.)

Anyway, the origin of the fiddle goes all the way back to the initial, blockbuster run of the comic book series. Specifically, in "Captain Marvel Adventures," Volume 1, #64, when our hero was fighting his nemesis Oggar and their henchman Nero. If that name sounds familiar, you know a little Roman history. The emperor Nero was said to have fiddled during The Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64, and Nero the henchman had a fiddle that likewise caused buildings to burn around him, all villain-like.

While the "Shazam" movies never explicitly explain this backstory, there's no other reason for a burning fiddle to be in the Rock of Eternity alongside all the other noteworthy Shazamily memorabilia — sorry, "Shazamorabilia" — that we can think of. It's weird that Nero's fiddle gets such a special place of honor, greeting all the visitors to the Rock of Eternity like a piece of gaudy lobby art, but maybe it just gets drafty in that cave and it's a convenient heating mechanism.

The Shazamily get to use the fiddle in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," but since they have no idea what it is or how it works, they don't use it to set anyone on fire. They just use it as a weird distraction, kind of like a piece of gaudy lobby art. Maybe in the future, one of the Shazamily will take up music as a hobby and have an excuse to use it. Maybe Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) or one of the many other Shazamily villains will break into the Rock of Eternity and steal it, along with some of the other dangerous articles of Shazamorabilia.

Come to think of it, the villains in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" already did that, so our heroes had better come up with some new security measures — maybe they don't bring them to the Rock of Eternity in the first place — before it happens all over again.