Shazam! vol. 1: Meet the Captain

It’s good to be Billy Batson.  The World’s Mightiest Mortal gets to spend his days using his superpowers for fun and saving people, with lots of approval from a grateful public.  Sure he still has to attend school as Billy to keep himself humble and informed, but when the trade-off is that he can rescue a flying saucer filled with talking Space T-Rexes it’s all good.  At least, it is until he helps stem the chaos caused by an earthquake in California and then explodes on camera, ranting about how grateful these pitiful humans should be that he’s willing to dirty his hands with them.  Just what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is going on with Billy now?

The answer, coming to us from the “World’s Finest” team of writer Mark Waid and artist Dan Mora, is actually pretty clever and realized quite well over the course of the six issues collected here.  Like that series, “Shazam!” doesn’t do anything radically new with its characters, it just tells a story with energetic writing and art that never stops to catch its breath over the course of the six issues collected here.  The creators also do a good job of constantly throwing new craziness at the reader in each issue as while things may start out in Billy’s hometown, we’re taken to places like Gorilla City and The Moon in short order.

It’s all quite fun and Waid deserves credit for making this an easy volume to get into, continuity-wise.  There’s a nod to the events of “Lazarus Planet” regarding the de-powering of the rest of the Shazam-family (Shazamily), but I’d say that anyone unfamiliar with the character in the comics (or if you just know the character from the movies) won’t have a problem picking this up.  However, those who do have a greater knowledge of the character will likely be thrilled by the volume’s final page which promises an upcoming confrontation that the movies should’ve, but didn’t deliver on.