Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil by Jeff Smith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jeff Smith's take on Captain Marvel in this book manages to do something rare for writers of the Big Red Cheese: Capture the Spirit of one of the Golden Age's best characters.

The art is the best part of the book. I've never seen a better example of art that is so inviting to younger readers to enjoy comics than in this collection. The pictures are so fun and appeal to kids of the twenty-first century the same way the original C.C. Beck art appealed to the kids of the 1940s.

Much of the story is heartfelt and has great ways of showing Billy Batson's kindness. The story is a bit more real about Billy being a homeless waif and his need for family. His love for his sister Mary was very sweet and endearing.

The only downside to the book is even though it's more than 200 pages long, it's a very picture heavy story with a lot of very cool half, full, and two page pieces of art. The problem is that at times, the book seems too small for all that's going. You not only have the titular Monster Society, you have Doctor Sivana, a mystical talking tiger, and Mary Marvel. In that way, the book feels overloaded. In addition, a few of the modern adjustments such as tension over an evil Secretary of Heartland Security (or was he Attorney General, I got confused at the point) seemed to lessen the magic. Thankfully, there was plenty of magic to go around, and this book is still by far, the best representation of Captain Marvel in more than sixty years since the character was cancelled by Fawcett.



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