My New Favorite Comic Book
Did you purchase the first issue of “The Trials of Shazam!” this week? It’s written by Judd Winick, pencilled by Howard Porter, and probably the coolest thing I’ve seen in months. I hated “Brave New World” and all of the spin-offs from it, but, if all of that nonsense was necessary for me to get my hands on this single issue, I consider it a fair trade-off. If you didn’t buy it, go to the store and do so immediately. After you’ve read it, come back and read this spoilery post. Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you.
Ok, now, wasn’t that awesome? I read an interview the other day with Winick, and it turns out that his explanation for what happened there at the end is that Billy Batson is now the only possessor of the power of Shazam. As we all saw in “Day of Vengeance,” the Wizard is dead, killed at the hands of that jerk-off the Spectre, and, as we saw in “Brave New World,” the rest of the Marvel family is depowered. Unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for the fate of everyone’s favorite resident badass of “52,” Black Adam, but, then again, I haven’t been holding out much hope for any main characters from that series coming out of it alive.
So, Captain Marvel is no longer “Captain” Marvel. He’s simply Marvel, and he’s totally cooler than anything that actual company has done in a long time. One point to take note of is how, at the beginning of this issue, he calls down the power of Shazam, and the result is a single lightning bolt, which he comments is, “brought down hard.” At the end, when he tries to switch back by calling on the power again, the result is a lightning bolt the size of a house. Marvel’s powers are going to be through the roof. He could very well wind up being the most powerful being in all of the DCU.
I’m glad they’re making this miniseries only twelve issues long. Think about how cool it’s going to be five years from now, when a big crossover mega-event is going down, and we haven’t seen from Marvel in a long, long time, and he shows up on the final page of a big issue, with warnings of imminent doom.
Isn’t that gonna be sweet?
You should have backdated this post so that Fin Fang’s proud ID badges would remain on top forever.
I agree.
Trials of Shazam was cool, but not nearly as cool as Avengers and JLA membership cards.
Dude! Now I MUST check this book out. I LOVE Captain Marvel, but, can’t stand Winnick… However, I have grown to trust your reviews, so I will check this book out. Keep up the GREAT site!