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The Power of Shazam! (Collected Editions) #1
Power of Shazam #1
A word is spoken, lightning strikes and out emerges young Billy Batson with the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury with the sound of one word, SHAZAM!After a series of terrible events with no guidance left behind, Billy Batson was headed down a dark path until a new path magically appeared... a path that would change his life forever.
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First published August 18, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 5, 2022
The Power of Shazam! - In the Beginning collects the Power of Shazam graphic novel, a story from Superman & Batman magazine #4, and issues #1-12 of the Power of Shazam monthly series.
I read the painted Power of Shazam graphic novel sometime in the past but never read any of the regular series. I found this on InstockTrades for 19.99, marked down from 49.99, so it seemed like a good time.
The Power of Shazam graphic novel is written, drawn, and painted by Jerry Ordway and is a retelling of Captain Marvel's origin. The regular series is written by Ordway with art by Peter Krause and Mike Manley, and features a menace lurking in the background of Fawcett City while Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel deal with Captain Nazi and other baddies.
Ordway repurposes a lot of Captain Marvel lore for this and reinvents Billy Batson's parents as archaeologists. CC Batson is much cooler than the never seen deceased Batson parents of the original run. The dad's name started with M but I can't remember at the moment.
Anyway, Ordway brings Black Adam, Captain Nazi, Doctor Sivana, IBAC, and other Marvel baddies into the 1990s. He captures a lot of the spirit of earlier tales while putting his own spin on things. I like the new origins for some of the characters, like Tawky Tawny. The Marvel Family having to share a finite power between whomever is active was kind of a drag. Still, it's the best modern Captain Marvel run that I've read.
The Power of Shazam! - In the Beginning is an easy four star read for fans of the Big Red Cheese. Everyone should buy it so we get a subsequent volume.
I read the painted Power of Shazam graphic novel sometime in the past but never read any of the regular series. I found this on InstockTrades for 19.99, marked down from 49.99, so it seemed like a good time.
The Power of Shazam graphic novel is written, drawn, and painted by Jerry Ordway and is a retelling of Captain Marvel's origin. The regular series is written by Ordway with art by Peter Krause and Mike Manley, and features a menace lurking in the background of Fawcett City while Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel deal with Captain Nazi and other baddies.
Ordway repurposes a lot of Captain Marvel lore for this and reinvents Billy Batson's parents as archaeologists. CC Batson is much cooler than the never seen deceased Batson parents of the original run. The dad's name started with M but I can't remember at the moment.
Anyway, Ordway brings Black Adam, Captain Nazi, Doctor Sivana, IBAC, and other Marvel baddies into the 1990s. He captures a lot of the spirit of earlier tales while putting his own spin on things. I like the new origins for some of the characters, like Tawky Tawny. The Marvel Family having to share a finite power between whomever is active was kind of a drag. Still, it's the best modern Captain Marvel run that I've read.
The Power of Shazam! - In the Beginning is an easy four star read for fans of the Big Red Cheese. Everyone should buy it so we get a subsequent volume.
October 18, 2023
Power of Shazam - In the Beginning is a retelling of the origin story of many of the Shazam's from the various Captain Marvels like Billy Batson his sister Mary Batson, Freddy Freeman and Dudley and also features Black Adam.
With Billy trying to find his sister Mary, the stage is set for Captain Nazi and then the introduction of Black Adam as well as the hellish children of the original Shazam, as everything comes together with travel to the underworld and invoking ancient powers.
The origin story of Billy's parents is changed to make them archaeologists and therein the Egyptian connection for Black Adam and Shazam.
This is a 90's story and the history of the Shazam/Captain Marvel is realigned in these adventures.
The adventures present an even picture of Captain Marvel aka Shazam and is a modern version of the venerated series.
Enjoyed the lot.
With Billy trying to find his sister Mary, the stage is set for Captain Nazi and then the introduction of Black Adam as well as the hellish children of the original Shazam, as everything comes together with travel to the underworld and invoking ancient powers.
The origin story of Billy's parents is changed to make them archaeologists and therein the Egyptian connection for Black Adam and Shazam.
This is a 90's story and the history of the Shazam/Captain Marvel is realigned in these adventures.
The adventures present an even picture of Captain Marvel aka Shazam and is a modern version of the venerated series.
Enjoyed the lot.
Read
June 7, 2022I was surprised how much I liked this! I was originally going to only read the opening graphic novel, but ended up having so much fun and being grabbed by the story that I read through this whole first volume. Jerry Ordway updates classic golden age storytelling with modern elements of pacing and characterization, deepening and elaborating on what made the original Fawcett comics special without replacing them with needlessly “gritty” new stories like so many DC Comics (and later Shazam reboots) are known to do. The maturity here comes through in the ways in which the villains enact violence and the heroes react to it. Its simultaneously cartoonish and human, honest with the darker repercussions of violence, nostalgia, vengeance, and power, but always hopeful through the struggles of Billy and the Marvel family. The art is really wonderful too. Jerry Ordways painted images give the origin tale a magical adventure book feel, Mike Parobeck’s single issue pulls through the classic Fawcett Comics cartoon vibe, and Peter Krause and Mike Manley bring a real kinetic, realist, and emotive touch to the ongoing series. All three styles manage to maintain that CC Beck clean cut and expressive style without losing the humanity. I was most impressed when Ordway seamlessly blended recreations of Beck’s panels from Whiz Comics into his more shadowy and murky world in the PoS graphic novel.
December 8, 2024
How much should a classic 1940s superhero like Captain Marvel and his accompanying Marvel Family really change or be updated?
This collection dares to tackle this with adding some more nuance and darkness, while maintaining the cute and silly charm of the classic comics!
Some of the earlier decisions ranged from masterful to worrying at the start, but I feel as the collection continued every decision ended up being really interesting and new while still respecting the original concepts immensely!
If you love any of the Marvel Family or even Black Adam, I'd highly recommend checking out this now-classic run. Another stand out in it' is its magnificent painted art for the first chunk of issues in here!
This collection dares to tackle this with adding some more nuance and darkness, while maintaining the cute and silly charm of the classic comics!
Some of the earlier decisions ranged from masterful to worrying at the start, but I feel as the collection continued every decision ended up being really interesting and new while still respecting the original concepts immensely!
If you love any of the Marvel Family or even Black Adam, I'd highly recommend checking out this now-classic run. Another stand out in it' is its magnificent painted art for the first chunk of issues in here!
August 25, 2020
Nice collection of the Captain Marvel series by Jerry Ordway, Peter Krause, Mike Manley and more! It was great to read the Marvel Family treated with respect. This series reintroduced the Shazam! mythos in an exciting, enjoyable fashion. Solid superhero work by creators at the top of their game. Fun stuff!
August 21, 2020
This is a great series and long overdue for collections. Probably the definitive modern Shazam book (after the golden age stuff). The only thing holding it back is DC’s constant event tie-ins from the 90s. There were two different events during this series’ first 12 issues that pulled Captain Marvel out of his own series, forcing the reader to play catch up and fill in gaps in the story. Otherwise, the art is consistent, the writing is solid, and best of all, it maintains the spirit of Captain Marvel even in a decade where grim and dark was popular for superhero books.
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December 14, 2022There's an argument that the original Captain Marvel is the only superhero even better than Superman. After all, he was the one who, in their first heyday, outsold Superman, sparking the lawsuit which saw the Big Red Cheese pulled from shelves*. In terms of the classic 'who'd win in a fight', well, they're pretty much evenly matched in powers, but Superman has picked up all those silly weaknesses – to magic, red suns, Kryptonite – which don't remotely bother Captain Marvel. More than that, though, Captain Marvel is better wish fulfillment. To be Superman, you have to be born different – but getting the magic word and becoming Captain Marvel could happen to anyone, as indeed it did with the various brand extension characters who got to share his powers, inspire Elvis &c. Which makes it all the more annoying that, while yes, there have been an awful lot of terrible, point-missing Superman stories over the years, we do have the two ideal incarnations in Christopher Reeve and Morrison & Quitely – but there is no equivalent perfect Captain Marvel story. Granted, the film was one of modern DC's least bad, but they still got all sorts of stuff wrong, from the character's name to the treatment of Sivana. Which, interestingly, is also a little wobbly here – much like post-Crisis Superman, the series retools Sivana as more tycoon than mad scientist, and makes Theo Adam his henchman**. Granted, this sets up a delightful running gag where, whenever Captain Marvel misjudges his powers or otherwise ends up causing collateral damage, the destruction always affects something of Sivana's – but it still feels a little too much like realism, which is never the direction anyone sane would want a Captain Marvel project to take. There's also an effort to fill out the origin story, some of which makes sense (one presumes that, even in the eighties, they'd spotted certain issues with having a homeless kid follow a strange man into a tunnel where he learns a special word), but other bits of which create a raft of unnecessary problems – most obviously, having Billy Batson's dad look exactly like Captain Marvel, and be known to various other characters, thus mucking with his secret identity from the off. Something which, interestingly, seems to fade out over the year plus of comics here, as if they'd noticed the issue – see also, the amusing but queasy running gag with adult women hitting on Captain Marvel, because why wouldn't they, given they don't know he's inwardly a child.
The opening graphic novel, with Ordway painting as well as writing, gives Fawcett City a gorgeous Art Deco look – not quite up there with Starman's wonderful Opal City, but not far off. However, in the gap*** between GN and series, with Peter Krause and Mike Manley now contributing more traditional comics art, the place has come to look like a generic American city centre. This is all the more glaring given the series launches with a plot about new developments intended to change the look of the place, and certain people's objections to that, which lose much of their force if the visuals suggest it's already happened. The pace at which the supporting cast (Mary, Tawky Tawny, Dudley, Freddy Freeman) are introduced is sound, and broadly speaking so are the angles, but there's still that sense of a few too many concessions to modernism and realism; fight scenes often seem to involve a blow to the 'nads, and Mary's barely been introduced before she's being mind-controlled into murderous rage. For her even more than Billy, though definitely with him too, I was left with the sense that maybe you just can't make a main character out of her anymore, and that the treatment by Giffen and deMatteis in JLI and its successor titles was the best approach – the uncomplicated, innocent member of an ensemble cast. And yet for all that, I still find myself hoping against hope that maybe the forthcoming Mark Waid/Dan Mora run will be the one to finally get it right; certainly they seem like a promising creative team. But set against that the mess of modern DC, the fact the character can't have his right name anymore, and that it's coming out in a world where even Captain Marvel's line to fabulously unsubtle antagonist Captain Nazi here somehow no longer holds true: "Y'know – I hate to be the one to break it to you, but nobody, and I mean nobody, likes Nazis, fella! Except maybe other Nazis, and even then I'm not so sure!" Ah well. In the meantime, if this isn't quite the perfect Captain Marvel comic I have in my head, it comes a lot closer than most.
*A lawsuit, of course, which hinged on his supposedly infringing similarities to the last son of Krypton – always a ludicrous argument to have proved victorious, and so much more so when you look at the modern superhero industry, with its countless direct Superman analogues, from Hyperion through Supreme to the Samaritan, Homelander and beyond.
**It also gives Adam a look startlingly similar to Mark Strong, who of course wouldn't even have looked like that at the time, and who would go on to play Sivana in the films.
***A gap, unusually, specified in the story as four years, which feels like a mistake, not least because Billy doesn't seem to have aged in the interim. I mean, nor does anyone else, except his git of an uncle, Eben – but it's more obvious on a kid. There are various mutterings about time running oddly in Fawcett City for mystical reasons, but I suspect that's the sort of thing best not thought about too hard, especially since, if I have my 'real' world timeline right here, it was all shortly to be undone by Zero Hour anyway.
The opening graphic novel, with Ordway painting as well as writing, gives Fawcett City a gorgeous Art Deco look – not quite up there with Starman's wonderful Opal City, but not far off. However, in the gap*** between GN and series, with Peter Krause and Mike Manley now contributing more traditional comics art, the place has come to look like a generic American city centre. This is all the more glaring given the series launches with a plot about new developments intended to change the look of the place, and certain people's objections to that, which lose much of their force if the visuals suggest it's already happened. The pace at which the supporting cast (Mary, Tawky Tawny, Dudley, Freddy Freeman) are introduced is sound, and broadly speaking so are the angles, but there's still that sense of a few too many concessions to modernism and realism; fight scenes often seem to involve a blow to the 'nads, and Mary's barely been introduced before she's being mind-controlled into murderous rage. For her even more than Billy, though definitely with him too, I was left with the sense that maybe you just can't make a main character out of her anymore, and that the treatment by Giffen and deMatteis in JLI and its successor titles was the best approach – the uncomplicated, innocent member of an ensemble cast. And yet for all that, I still find myself hoping against hope that maybe the forthcoming Mark Waid/Dan Mora run will be the one to finally get it right; certainly they seem like a promising creative team. But set against that the mess of modern DC, the fact the character can't have his right name anymore, and that it's coming out in a world where even Captain Marvel's line to fabulously unsubtle antagonist Captain Nazi here somehow no longer holds true: "Y'know – I hate to be the one to break it to you, but nobody, and I mean nobody, likes Nazis, fella! Except maybe other Nazis, and even then I'm not so sure!" Ah well. In the meantime, if this isn't quite the perfect Captain Marvel comic I have in my head, it comes a lot closer than most.
*A lawsuit, of course, which hinged on his supposedly infringing similarities to the last son of Krypton – always a ludicrous argument to have proved victorious, and so much more so when you look at the modern superhero industry, with its countless direct Superman analogues, from Hyperion through Supreme to the Samaritan, Homelander and beyond.
**It also gives Adam a look startlingly similar to Mark Strong, who of course wouldn't even have looked like that at the time, and who would go on to play Sivana in the films.
***A gap, unusually, specified in the story as four years, which feels like a mistake, not least because Billy doesn't seem to have aged in the interim. I mean, nor does anyone else, except his git of an uncle, Eben – but it's more obvious on a kid. There are various mutterings about time running oddly in Fawcett City for mystical reasons, but I suspect that's the sort of thing best not thought about too hard, especially since, if I have my 'real' world timeline right here, it was all shortly to be undone by Zero Hour anyway.
June 13, 2023
Wow. WOOOW.
Yeah, this sucks.
Turns out that Jerry Ordway, while an incredibly talented artist, is a shockingly mediocre writer. His take on Captain Marvel is less a reinvention and more like a work of shameless fan fiction, cramming all of Ordway's favorite characters and concepts ("hey, look! It's... BULLETMAN!") onto the page as quickly as he possibly can while utterly failing to give the reader a reason to care about ANY of it. As a result, the plot is a winding tangle of nonsense in which none of the characters have a clear motivation, so new exposition has to keep getting dumped on the reader (even up to the big finale of his first storyline) just so you understand why any of it is even HAPPENING.
Show, don't tell, Jerry!!!
Worse, there's a lot of creepy, Freudian sh*t seeping out from every issue. Billy (as Captain Marvel) is CONSTANTLY being hit on by attractive women, and men are regularly salivating over Mary Marvel (who is still VERY MUCH a minor in this comic, though she looks like an adult in Marvel form). Then we find out that both the wizard Shazam and Black Adam were both undone by sleeping with beautiful women who turned out to be literal demons from Hell. The evil seductress is a mythological trope, yes, but it's nevertheless intensely misogynistic and patriarchal. The constant sexual innuendo, coupled with the reinforment of notions of sexuality as being "sinful", really suggest some deep, repressive hang-ups about sex that make the book's leering horniness... incredibly uncomfortable.
But probably the book's greatest sin is that it's boring. Ordway's Captain Marvel takes no joy in being a superhero-- in fact, NONE of the Marvels seem to think it's any fun! They regard it as some crushing, unwanted responsibility-- which feels like an ill-advised attempt to turn the Marvels into a team of angsty Peter Parkers, rather than leaning into the obvious wish-fulfillment appeal of the character. As a result, the book is full of tedious whining and arbitrary melodrama as our "heroes" throw multiple temper-tantrums about having superpowers. It's not just dull; it's frustrating.
The fact that this has been one of DC's most successful takes on the character really tells you a lot about how the company has botched the execution of what should be a slam-dunk premise. Thank God for Geoff Johns...
Yeah, this sucks.
Turns out that Jerry Ordway, while an incredibly talented artist, is a shockingly mediocre writer. His take on Captain Marvel is less a reinvention and more like a work of shameless fan fiction, cramming all of Ordway's favorite characters and concepts ("hey, look! It's... BULLETMAN!") onto the page as quickly as he possibly can while utterly failing to give the reader a reason to care about ANY of it. As a result, the plot is a winding tangle of nonsense in which none of the characters have a clear motivation, so new exposition has to keep getting dumped on the reader (even up to the big finale of his first storyline) just so you understand why any of it is even HAPPENING.
Show, don't tell, Jerry!!!
Worse, there's a lot of creepy, Freudian sh*t seeping out from every issue. Billy (as Captain Marvel) is CONSTANTLY being hit on by attractive women, and men are regularly salivating over Mary Marvel (who is still VERY MUCH a minor in this comic, though she looks like an adult in Marvel form). Then we find out that both the wizard Shazam and Black Adam were both undone by sleeping with beautiful women who turned out to be literal demons from Hell. The evil seductress is a mythological trope, yes, but it's nevertheless intensely misogynistic and patriarchal. The constant sexual innuendo, coupled with the reinforment of notions of sexuality as being "sinful", really suggest some deep, repressive hang-ups about sex that make the book's leering horniness... incredibly uncomfortable.
But probably the book's greatest sin is that it's boring. Ordway's Captain Marvel takes no joy in being a superhero-- in fact, NONE of the Marvels seem to think it's any fun! They regard it as some crushing, unwanted responsibility-- which feels like an ill-advised attempt to turn the Marvels into a team of angsty Peter Parkers, rather than leaning into the obvious wish-fulfillment appeal of the character. As a result, the book is full of tedious whining and arbitrary melodrama as our "heroes" throw multiple temper-tantrums about having superpowers. It's not just dull; it's frustrating.
The fact that this has been one of DC's most successful takes on the character really tells you a lot about how the company has botched the execution of what should be a slam-dunk premise. Thank God for Geoff Johns...
March 7, 2024
It includes the origin story of Captain Marvel, the wizard Shazam and Black Adam and introduces the first 2 members of the Marvel Family. For that, it is quite a good introduction even though after the first origin story we jump to Billy being Captain Marvel for 4 years, set against villains from, I guess, older series.
The main plot has Blaze as villain and is interesting. A few other vilains are silly, like Madame Libertine and Captain Nazi.
However, overall the style of narration feels dated, even more than I would have imagined for a series from around 1995. Maybe it was already a litle dated when it came out?
At some point Undeworld: Unleashed happens in parallel (and thus Captain Marvel is absent of his own series for one issue), but that is not really important.
I will continue with volume 2, which for whatever strange editorial reason is a paperback and not a hard cover as volume 1 (my shelves do not thank you DC).
The main plot has Blaze as villain and is interesting. A few other vilains are silly, like Madame Libertine and Captain Nazi.
However, overall the style of narration feels dated, even more than I would have imagined for a series from around 1995. Maybe it was already a litle dated when it came out?
At some point Undeworld: Unleashed happens in parallel (and thus Captain Marvel is absent of his own series for one issue), but that is not really important.
I will continue with volume 2, which for whatever strange editorial reason is a paperback and not a hard cover as volume 1 (my shelves do not thank you DC).
August 28, 2020
Oh, how good it is to revisit these stories by Jerry Ordway, Peter Krause, Mike Manley, and the rest! This is my second favorite Shazam! era, after the late '70s/early '80s run that started in SHAZAM! #34-35, continued in WORLD'S FINEST COMICS, and concluded in ADVENTURE COMICS (digest) #492. So happy to see DC finally collecting the wonderful POWER OF SHAZAM! series.
May 13, 2023
Solid read of a neglected DC property
Enjoyed rereading this collection of the graphic novel and first 12 issues from the 1990s along with a bonus story. U had read the original comics back when published. Ordway, Krause, and Manley do a terrific job modernizing some concepts. Of course the modernization is now 25+ years old!
Enjoyed rereading this collection of the graphic novel and first 12 issues from the 1990s along with a bonus story. U had read the original comics back when published. Ordway, Krause, and Manley do a terrific job modernizing some concepts. Of course the modernization is now 25+ years old!
February 26, 2023
Epic retelling.
Good color artwork. All the Marvel family comes back to life, one at a time. The story of Shazam is revealed in a gigabit long graphic novel. All gaps and mistakes were corrected?
Good color artwork. All the Marvel family comes back to life, one at a time. The story of Shazam is revealed in a gigabit long graphic novel. All gaps and mistakes were corrected?
May 18, 2025
Strong opening with the origin story, gets weaker both in art and storytelling from there.
Really loved Ordway's art and Batson and Adam opening, but it just didn't last.
Would recommend only as a library read not a purchase.
Really loved Ordway's art and Batson and Adam opening, but it just didn't last.
Would recommend only as a library read not a purchase.
June 27, 2023
Solidly plotted and very well drawn if not terribly memorable.
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