Book of Doom: Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #1
As the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase put it so well over the years, “Everybody’s got a price.” Apparently, that price is $5.99.
Jim Doom: “I read the first 10 pages or so in the store, and the rags-to-lightning story wasn’t enough to convince me to drop $5.99 on it.”
Both Jim Doom and Doom DeLuise passed on the Book of Doom this week because of the high cover price. Luckily, we were able to drag long forgotten Doomer Colonel Doom back into things to express his opinion on the book. Heck, you might even see something else from him in the next couple of days.
But let’s move on to Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, this week’s choice for the Book of Doom:
I loved the book. The art was absolutely spectacular. I loved looking at every panel. I’d forgotten how good Jeff Smith was at drawing people, since he spent so long drawing mostly grown-up cartoon characters in the pages of Bone.
The story was a little slow-paced, though. Of course, this is a complete retelling of the origin of Captain Marvel, so you can’t just rush through that sort of thing. In Smith’s story, Shazam is dead, Billy Batson’s a lot younger than he used to be, and Billy and Marvel are two different people. I’m sure that’s not the way things are today (except for Shazam being dead), but I’ve got practically no knowledge of Captain Marvel before modern day. So it’s entirely possible that was the status quo at some point. It was a little off-putting right away, so I’m glad Jeff took enough time to establish what was what before leaping into what looks to be a majorly action-packed story in the next couple of issues.
The brightest spot in the writing was definitely the humor Smith included, something you just don’t see much from a character that used to be so light-hearted (I blame you, Alex Ross!). The scene with the hot dog vendor in the park was my favorite. “And you protect [homeless people]–for hotdogs?” “No, but I like hot dogs.”
Let’s see what the rest of the Legion had to say:
Jean-Claude Van Doom: “Coming into Shazam: Monster Society of Evil from the perspective of one of the few people not rabid for everything Jeff Smith (I haven’t read Bone, though I plan to), I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect. I knew it was all ages, and I worried that would be taken too far and the book might just be a little trifling thing.
It certainly is whimsical (perhaps the ideal word to describe it) as Smith recasts an origin story for Billy Batson (not Captain Marvel. The two are separate entities) and uses lots of “cute little kid” illustrations. But Billy lives in a hard world, which we’re shown again and again. Part of me wanted to say, “I get it. He lives a hard-knock life.” But then this was just the introduction to a larger story, and now we have Billy firmly established as a character and ready to jump into the adventures ahead.
What the book reminded me of most was probably Matt Wagner’s Batman books, in that both are serious and fun concurrently, with golden age-influenced storylines. And they’re both good. My favorite moments from this first issue was the wizard’s skeleton legs sticking out from under the rock and the “foot prints” that seemed a comic echo of the “hands shaping the multiverse” from DC’s Crisis events. Good times!”
Colonel Doom: “Books starring DC’s Big Red Cheese are infrequent and unmemorable at best, but Marvel’s appearances as a supporting character are almost always compelling, whether in Giffen and DeMatties’ JLI and Superbuddies, Day of Vengeance, or Kingdom Come. And Jeff Smith’s managed to make Captain Marvel a supporting character in “Monster Society,” because so far, this is a story about lil’ orphan Billy Batson.
Smith’s clean, cartoony style is both attractive and fitting that’s almost a throwback to Marvel’s 1930’s origins. The Bonesque humor is a perfect match for perhaps the cheesiest character in comics.
Science has lost track of the number of times Supes has been re-conceptualized, but Smith’s creative retcons of Marvel’s stock elements revitalize the character’s decades-old mythology help modernize Marvel without seeming forced. I mean, making the magic emanating from the Rock of Eternity the residual unknowable physics of the Big Bang was just sweet; as was clearly separating Marvel and Batson into two distinct personalities and corporeal forms, with Marvel predating Batson by millennia.
And for naysayers like Jim Doom who get bored with out-of-continuity super star stories, thanks to Superboy-Prime’s wall punching, or Hypertime, or the multiverse, I’m sure that somewhere Smith’s Shazam is in continuity.”
For the record, I got it for free.
Not sure where I ever said I get bored with out-of-continuity superstar stories, Colonel.
You’re right, you didn’t say that. I should have written “And for naysayers like Jim Doom who think out-of-continuity stories are inherently meaningless at the end of the day, thanks to Superboy-Prime’s wall punching, or Hypertime, or the multiverse, I’m sure that somewhere Smith’s Shazam is in continuity.â€
Personally, i don’t think that just because a story is not in a specific moment in continutity that it’s “meaningless at the end of the day.” I think they’re fascinating ways to both explore old characters in new ways and make it easy to attract new readers to our favorite medium. Is something like Batman: Year One now meaningless post-IC, since it’s now not in continuity?
You seem to be taking it awfully personally that not everybody likes Shazam, Colonel. It really says a lot for your love of the book that your commendation has to take the form of a dig on completely different post.
I’m going to assume you’re just playing devil’s advocate, because I’m sure you see the difference between a story that is created to be out of continuity, and a story that was created in-continuity that had its status changed later on by events outside its control.
But you raise a good point, although probably inadvertently, because now is not only Batman: Year One out of continuity, but so is every other DC comic book printed before the spring of 2006. I do think that DC’s repeated reshuffling and redefining of its universe’s continuity does hurt the product overall, because it penalizes the long-time reader for paying attention and getting into the development of a character. Big events don’t have staying power anymore, because they can just get unwritten at the next Crisis or Zero Hour or whatever other terms they decide to use in the future. It does undercut the meaning of stories when continuity can be so easily changed and dismissed.
I think it’s funny how there’s a real double standard with many comics fans when it comes to the artist putting themselves before the characters. In comics, many fans bend over backwards to defend the artists’ right to re-envision classic characters in a new light. But when it happens on the big screen, there’s no shortage of comic fans’ criticism that the director put himself before respect for the character.
Not trying to be an ass, I just haven’t come across any instances of a writer putting him/herself before a character and letting it be known he/she is doing so.
With books like ASSBAR and Identity Crisis and Civil War and plenty of others, the creators have tried to put their stamp on characters and been called out by fans.
JCVD, I don’t get it. You say you haven’t seen any instances of a writer putting themselves before characters, but then you list a few.
I guess there’s a difference to me between putting yourself before a character and trying to take that character in a different direction creatively.
So what I’m saying is, you said creators almost never get called out for messing with characters unless it’s a movie. And I’m saying creators have gotten called out even when they aren’t nominally trying to make it “their” version (rather just changing things a bit).
Ok, gotcha. But I think things like ASSBAR are called out because they suck.
The part that makes it look like the Colonel is taking things a little personally is that I said I enjoy a lot of these stories, but I didn’t like Shazam. But as I said in that completely different post, I would much rather see that creative energy get put into in-continuity work, because there’s more payoff for the emotional investment when it means something. An out of continuity story can be great and enjoyable, but ultimately it means as much to the characters as a movie does.
And so when I write about why I’m feeling a little disconnected with a lot of comics work lately, and I think it has to do with how much out of continuity work exists for superstars to do their own thing, I don’t really see how that makes me a naysayer. I didn’t stop reading Shazam because it’s out of continuity; I stopped and didn’t buy it because it was expensive and if something is expensive and the first 10 pages don’t interest me, I’m not going to buy it. It’s too bad if other people’s feelings are hurt because of that. I don’t think I’m supposed to feel obligated to buy a $5.99 comic book even if I don’t like what I see after 10 pages.
And – to relate it to the continuity aspect of it – I’d probably feel more inclined to give it a chance if it was going to have anything to do with the Marvel family in the regular DCU. But it doesn’t, so I’m not going to spend $24 on four issues of something that’s cute.
Glad we’re all on the same page. I was worried that someone was about to post another awful cover for us to rally around in hatred.
Jim, why do you keep saying i’m taking this so personally? And I sure thought my book of the week post had a lot more praise for Shazam than just a throwaway jab at one of your opinions. I just disagree with you. I don’t care if you don’t like Shazam. But here’s something you wrote i want to talk about:
“An out of continuity story can be great and enjoyable, but ultimately it means as much to the characters as a movie does.”
I disagree with this, if only because simply because of the medium, an “elseworlds” comic story is slighly more canon than a movie*, because often you’ll see elements of those continuity-free stories from comics bleed over into regular-continuity titles. Take, for example, something like Kingdom Come. Now, aside from actual characters popping up in in-continutiy stories (Starman in JSA, Earth-Kingdom Supes in SUperman/Batman, etc) there’s actual character traits that have bleed into their in-contonuity counterparts. KC solidified Wonder Woman as perfectly willing to kill for justifiable reasons (in battle); nearly 10 years later she snaps Maxwell Lord’s neck.
My point is that while the influence of continuity-free stories is subtle and slow to take on, I don’t think many of these stores can honestly be considered to have no impact on the characters they portray.
*Unless it’s a marvel movie, then you have movie elements (organic webshooters???) shoehorning themselves into the in-continuity titles. But this doesn’t seem to happen so much wiht DC movies.
PS-Jim, really that last comment on my Book of the Week post was more a joke about DC’s infamous continuity Catch-all explanations. So yeah. I’m not defensive about Shazam. I’m not. I”M NOT!
Well, considering DC is now introducing a little Superboy for Superman to play with, I wouldn’t say that the problem lies solely with Marvel. And I think DC’s decision to reintroduce the multiverse and to make Elseworlds stories part of that is only part of the problem, not a redeeming quality worth praising. It’s like they’ve forgotten why they had the original Crisis to begin with.
I don’t think it’s a hard point to argue that we have far more continuity-free stories and character re-envisionings than we’ve ever had in comics history. And while they can be good stories – I’ve never doubted or denied that – when you have too much of anything, it dilutes the effect and purpose of any of it.
Point taken.
PS re: “Well, considering DC is now introducing a little Superboy for Superman to play with” WTF??
I haven’t heard of this. elaborate?
Some kid just showed up from Krypton, and Superman has basically adopted him as a son.
That’s why I don’t read Action Comics. and neither should you, Colonel.
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According to the Fortress Keeper, Billy and the Captian as two separate entities was the status quo in the Golden Age. Neat.
Kind of weird that three decades later Marvel would not only take the name “Captain Marvel” but also the concept of the two characters being separate entities but only one of them can be wherever at a time.