Shazam #12 review

Posted on by martingray1

Last issue ended with the Shazam kids’ adoption assessment being rudely interrupted by Billy’s birth mother. Despite giving him a chaotic early upbringing, she objected to the adoption.

Shazam #12 opens with a confused Billy, hours later, thrust into the Rock of Eternity where he finally figures out who he’s found himself talking to lately.

The Captain insists he’s trying to protect Billy by giving him memory lapses but the teenager isn’t convinced and uses his own connection to the Rock of Eternity’s magic to escape.

Finding himself back in his room at the Vasquez home, he holds in his hands a bunch of letters sent by his mother, letters the Captain’s hoodoo had been making him forget. Now he has her address and he sets off with foster siblings Mary and Freddy in the ‘Shazamvan’ to find her.

Back at the house, their other brothers and sister, Eugene, Pedro and Darla, are transported to the Rock with the aid of magic bunny Hoppy. There, the Captain makes his case.

He says the leak is connected to Billy’s emotions – when big feelings arrive, big danger follows. And right now, Billy is having very big feelings as he sees the new life his birth Mom has made for herself… literally.

Billy cracks. And so does the world.

OK, I’m glad to see there’s apparently a master manipulator behind the scenes. I wasn’t enjoying the idea of a schism between Billy and the Captain, and certainly not the idea they’re separate people, with a fragile Billy a threat to the world and beyond. Hopefully the hidden villain is causing the problems and the separate Captain is a temporary blip. Crocodile men are a longstanding Marvel Family thing, connected to the Monster Society of Evil, so there could be fun ahead as the story continues… which it does next issue, despite the splash page’s claim this issue concludes the current storyline.

I was disappointed that this issue didn’t take up where last month left off, with Billy’s unnamed birth mother (BM from now on) at the door of the new Vasquez home. Seeing everyone’s reactions would’ve been great, the conversations between the Vasquezes, the social worker and BM; but that’s not the way writer Josie Campbell went.

I was happier with where the story went from there – the support given Billy by his siblings, the gauche sincerity of BM, the reveal of a scraggy-haired oik… it made for a good read.

And the art by Mike Norton and Emanuela Lupacchino is lovely, the clean, nicely composed work of the two illustrators blending beautifully. Both artists are as adept at drawing kids as they are monsters, which is very handy for this book. I would like it, though, if the Captain had more of his Golden Age Squintiness.

Trish Mulvihill’s colours are a little muted, even when magic starts busting out all over, but it’s good looking work as ever. Troy Peteri has fun with display lettering, which is always gladdening.

One thing that’s mildly irked me about DC Comics for quite a while, although it’s for a good cause, is that unless credits are at the end of a book, we’re never going to be surprised by an appearance by Superman or Supergirl. That ‘by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family’ is always there. I did laugh here, though, as the only Super ‘guest shot’ we get is a poster in Billy’s bedroom.

Dan Mora’s cover is decent, but Billy looks a tad too young and skinny, while the Captain looks like a Fifties ‘greaser’.

So, another enjoyable issue, but I was disappointed the story didn’t wrap up. I’m ready for the adoption business to be sorted and an end to Billy’s angst. More whimsy and fun please!

15 thoughts on “Shazam #12 review”

  1. “I’m ready for the adoption business to be sorted and an end to Billy’s angst. More whimsy and fun please!”…

    I was reading this book because of Mark Waid, so it’s difficult to see a reason to continue with it now that he’s gone after too short a period. I don’t mean this as an insult, but Campbell, while a talented writer, just doesn’t have that special something Waid brought to this project (and frankly all of his DC work). Maybe it’s just the fact that I know what a fan of DC and DC history he is. That really comes out in his World’s Finest and came out in the 9 issues he wrote of Shazam. And to be fair to Campbell, there are few writers out there who could have replaced Waid and kept my interest. Grant Morrison definitely.

    I think Waid’s mission statement was basically having Shazam go up against some of the more interesting/absurd/forgotten villains of the DCU, and we got that for a while. Campbell seems more interested in writing about the family/adoption drama, but that’s never what drew me to this title.

    I also just think that while Geoff Johns’ intentions during the New52 of diversifying the Shazam section of the DCU were well-intended, what we’ve wound up with is that subsequent writers now have to work with all of those characters as well, and it is just too darn crowded.

    Billy, Mary, and Freddy were a large enough cast. There’s no reason to have the other kids running around.

    I really wish Geoff Johns’ stories had been re-re-booted with the New52. But since the movies adopted that template and the extended family it seems it is here to stay.

    -Brian

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    1. I’m with you, Brian, the Geoff Johns set-up should’ve been gone with the Rebirth reboot, regardless of the film’s approach. It’s too clunky for the comic, taking away the simplicity of the classic Marvel Family and underserving the new characters. I suppose we should be grateful we had Power of Shazam for a few years, that was a fabulous update on the origins Fawcett characters, situations and vibe.

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  2. Yeah, the fun and whimsy be gone. I’d like this more if Waid’s run hadn’t existed but that’s impossible. I agree too the cast is just too large to give past Freddie and Mary spotlights all the time. Just give us dialog that tells us where the dead weight is (elsewhere!) and move on.

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  3. It’s funny because when Jerry Ordway mingled in the soap opera bits about how Billy and Mary were connected and Freddy’s home life, I was more than happy to read it, but now, maybe it’s because I’m old and can’t connect as easily with it, I just aren’t that interested in how to keep the family relevant. Maybe it’s because those bits tended to be a smaller part of the overall package?

    Did we need to solve the issue of Billy’s parentage? What does it add? I guess it could be that this sudden introduction of the mother is part of the plan to use his power to cause mischief but that just raises questions of how people know his secret.

    I’m not against the Captain being a separate being to Billy as that’s a bit of a golden age touch (I wonder where Waid would have taken that) but it does go against the Johns lore so only ever feels like it’s going to be a subplot to be resolved, and I’d much rather have fun and see the writers develop the powers and their usage. I wonder if this is leading to a status quo change or a rationale for having the siblings share the power again, which like having seven (or is it eight now, not counting Alan) Green Lanterns from Earth waters the idea down a bit.

    Like others, I want to like it but it’s not quite hitting the same notes of whimsy and energy.

    Stuart

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    1. Oh heck, please don’t put the idea of the other kids getting powers again out into the universe. I mean, the actors looked great on screen but I think we all agree this book needs a declutter. Let’s send Pedro and co off to private school, or camp, or an alternate Earth so Billy, Mary and the strange brown-haired kid with the wrong personality we’re meant to believe is Freddy can share the spotlight.

      I really enjoyed Jerry Ordway’s CC Batson business, bring that back. Hopefully this new supposed mother will turn out to be Aunt Minerva or someone.

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  4. I am loving this series. I am glad they seem to be moving away from the Geoff Johns lore as I always found it irritating. Captain Marvel should not act like a child. The idea was that he became this wise adult hero who could do things Billy was powerless to do, and I loved that aspect of the character. That for a brief time Billy became an adult version of himself, showing him what he could grow into.

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      1. I meant to reply to this: SEPTA trains in Philly have a mix of underground and elevated track. So Billy could definitely find the wizard underground. There are also buses in the system, so the Captain can save one like he does in the movie!

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  5. I’m still in favor of the expanded Shazam family — or rather, Billy’s extended adopted family, whether or not they have Shazam powers. (I prefer not, for everyone but Mary.) I like those kids a lot, and I think both Waid and Campbell have done a good job of keeping them present without having them hog the spotlight.

    As for Billy’s birth mom, well… I’m okay with that too. I can hardly fault Campbell for wanting to explore something at the emotional core of her lead character. And there are few things more central to Billy than those feelings of abandonment. The problem is, it’s not a problem that can be resolved by superpowers, and that’s what we’re here for. Hopefully Campbell and Lupacchino find a way to connect the two by the story’s climax.

    As much as I like this book, I can’t say this was my favorite issue. As many of you noted, there wasn’t a lot of room for whimsy in this issue. But I think that’s a symptom of being the middle chapter in a story with some serious underpinnings; I wouldn’t be surprised to have some of that silliness back once this storyline is over. (And it’s still here in some forms, like Hoppy.)

    Plus, I can’t give up on a comic set in Philly! An upcoming solicit mentioned Billy having to save the city’s SEPTA* public-transit system, and I really need to see that.

    *Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

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  6. That’s another thing that’s bugged me. When did “Fawcett City” become a neighborhood in Philly? This is DC where fictional cities are the norm. Why set it in Philly? That was something I noticed Waid snuck in. Is that a holdover from the Johns’ era too?

    I don’t think it’s a matter of having the kids “hog the spotlight” as much as they’re just awkward either way. If they’re NOT central to the stories it kinda feels like, “Why are they even here, then?” and the writers are forced to find “business” for them to do in the background/on the side. And if they ARE central to the stories it takes away from the traditional Marvel Family kid trio that was so much fun for decades.

    I also think that DC just kinda overcomplicated the Marvel family, not just with the changes Geoff Johns made, but also the changes to Mary Marvel that occurred just ahead of when Waid launched this new series. I think most comicbook fans know who Billy Batson/Shazam are and how their powers work. But I used to also have a pretty clear understanding that Mary and Freddy were kinda of his partners with the same powers/similar origins. Now I really have no clue how they fit in. And Waid, to my surprise, didn’t really from what I recall make an effort to explain it. Also I thought all the kids were ALREADY adopted and then Waid in his final issues had the swerve of they weren’t. So are they all foster kids? It’s just the whole setup is just so complicated and clunky in comparison to how it had been for so many decades, including when Jerry Ordway wrote the series.

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  7. Yep, they’re all foster kids, and have been since Johns took the reigns in 2011. (He’s the one who set the series in Philly; I think the idea that Fawcett City is a Philly neighborhood is a more recent invention.)

    Respectfully, I don’t think foster brothers & sisters is too complicated a notion to understand. It’s just that there are a lot of kids to keep track of, and a few of them — Eugene and Pedro, usually — get lost in the shuffle. (Darla is the new character who gets most of the spotlight.) That said, Campbell & Lupacchino aren’t doing themselves any favors here by exploring the difference between foster kids and adoptive kids, and the adoption process, etc. It’s a story that probably has to be told sometime (in that making them all an adopted family is also a simple concept, and a good outcome for them), but it makes the situation seem more complicated than it is.

    DC has been screwing around with the Shazam family ever since Crisis, with various amounts of success. But we’ve had pretty much the same status quo for almost 15 years now, so at this point, I think it’s pretty much set in stone (as much as any setting in comics is), and boiled down, it’s really not too hard to understand. They’re a family. Some of them have superpowers when they say a magic word. Who has powers and who doesn’t may change at any given time, but that core concept has stayed the same.

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Published by martingray1

Journalist, comic reviewer, theatre critic, film lover, biscuit fan, cat indulger