Good story but I don't WANT Billy Batson or Captain Marvel being grim and gritty. Loads of pointless changes for the sake of change, none of which improve upon the original material now 70 years old. ( )

1554 ( )

Good story but I don't WANT Billy Batson or Captain Marvel being grim and gritty. Loads of pointless changes for the sake of change, none of which improve upon the original material now 70 years old. ( )

Geoff Johns does a great job modernizing a superhero that had definitely dated over the decades. He turns kid-turned-superhero Billy Batson from a goody two shoes into more of a Bart Simpson, and in doing so he's much more interesting of a character. Johns keeps the "Freaky Friday" style humor (no, really) that is so key to the character as well. Also loved the artwork -- the big magic battles between Captain Marv--Shazam (due a copyright issue, Captain Marvel is just called Shazam now)--and Black Adam are glorious. ( )

Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan, or for that matter not a fan, of Billy Batson and the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel (now his magic word is the same as his hero name, I’m not sure I exactly get how that works, but, I’ll go with it). He and his ‘Marvel Family’ were interesting characters, it just seemed as though they always got pushed to the back of most of the stories that they were in. And, on the one hand, this incarnation is sorta in the same boat too. Since these stories were told in the same issues as the bigger Justice League title. But, on the other hand, here’s the TPB just for Shazam!.

This is the origin story for Shazam in this New 52 DCnU and I really liked that it kept quite a bit of the old origin story. But, I also like a lot of the additions to the Shazam universe as well. I liked how they differentiated Shazam vs. Superman by making it quite a bit more about the magic in this version. I also really, really, really liked what they did with the ‘Marvel Family’ (should they now be called the ‘Shazam Family’?) They changed it in a really cool way and I hope that when we see more of Shazam, there’s also more of Freddy, Mary, Pedro, Eugene and Darla as well as Billy.

I went into this TPB wondering how else they had screwed it up beyond changing the name from Captain Marvel to Shazam, and came out of the TPB wanting to read more about another interesting DC character.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment. ( )