By: Geoff Johns (story), Gary Frank (art), Brad Anderson (colors)
The Story: This is what happens when someone forgets the “With great power…” speech.
The Review: It’s cliché to even say this, but we live in cynical times. In an earlier, more innocent age, maybe it was possible to believe in pure virtue, if only in a hypothetical, imagined sort of way, but even that seems beyond us now. And I’m about to get philosophical, but I think the less we believe in it, the more we compound the problem. I notice that the bar for human righteousness has gotten so low that common acts of civility are considered novel nowadays.
Fiction serves as our mirror, so it’s of little surprise that our stories have grown similarly grayer. The antihero, rather than the hero, prevails. With Billy Batson, Johns has given us a character who well reflects the ordinary person: mostly unlikable, completely fixated on his own problems, but capable of extraordinary moments of redemption. Sure, he’s not exactly the ideal champion; then again, we can’t all be Superman. As in real life, we must set aside good for good enough.
That pretty much sums up the sentiment of the last wizard on the Rock of Eternity before he bestows his remaining power to our “hero.” Driven to desperation, he settles for “good intentions” in lieu of the real thing. It’s an auspicious beginning to Billy Batson’s legend, and I feel a bit mixed on this particular change from his traditional origin story. Then I remember how much I hated the smug little do-gooder back in the day, and realize maybe a little less purity won’t hurt his character much.
The climax of the issue, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, is his transformation, and Johns sells the heck out of it. The nice little spin he gives to this classic moment is he emphasizes that merely saying the word is not enough. The word itself doesn’t possess the power, or at least all the power. The wizard tells his successor, “You must say it with purpose. With belief… With thoughts of your parents and your family.” So when Billy finally does say it, it takes on a whole new punch; he has to embrace it—to own it, more accurately speaking.
And once the wizard declares the transformation as Billy at his “full potential,” you get to see the newly caped strongman abuse his powers in the most juvenile way possible. Thankfully, he doesn’t do anything too crazy, and there’s something inherently hilarious about all that power being used to commit some hefty pranks and get rich, twenty bucks at a time. It’s not quite the Irredeemable Ant-Man using his shrinking power to leer at women in the shower, but hey—the guy’s still pre-pubescent under all that full-grown masculinity.
I’ve said this about Rags Morales, but Frank is also truly one of the most human of artists. Although he hardly shirks on details and designs, and his sense of action and drama is nothing short of high-caliber, the first thing you always notice right off from his work is the characters. Their faces aren’t just realistic, but familiar. When they smile, frown, gape, or guffaw, you almost feel like you’ve seen them before, from your friends and family. What makes all the scenes of Captain Marvel—Shazam(!), I should say—work is seeing Billy’s childish expressions come through loud and clear on his burly, square-jawed face.
Something should be said about the brief back-up, I suppose. Although Ethan Van Sciver draws it very well (how could he not?) with intense colors from Hi-Fi, it doesn’t really succeed in making Pandora any more interesting than before. She gets closure on one end of her story, only for it to open yet another loose thread. As for the appearance of a certain man with questions at the end, it’s hard to drum up for yet another supernatural entity in a trenchcoat, thanks to Johns’ revisionism in DC’s Free Comic Book Day entry.
Conclusion: The enthusiasm emanating from this title is palpable and infectious, but ends on a rather dull note with an underwhelming back-up.
Grade: B+
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: – I’m sure everyone and his mother has thought of this before, but now that his name’s also Shazam, what will he do to avoid that awkward moment when he introduces himself and turns back into a middle-school brat?