After an unplanned week off last Wednesday, I’m back with the penultimate installment of the Chronicles of Shazam! This brings us to the very end of 2000, aside from “Shazam: The Power of Hope,” which will be covered next week. Let’s dig into all the Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, CM3, Black Adam, and Wizard Shazam appearances through the end of 2000.
Category 1: Stuff I Missed
Through digging around on a forum for comic binding (thanks, Greg!), I found a discussion of how to collect/bind a “Power of Shazam” collection, and a story was mentioned that I had not come across. I consulted my beloved ComicBookDB.com, and discovered that, because it was technically set in the DC Animated Universe, it wasn’t listed under the Post-Crisis Captain Marvel list I had been using from CBDB. So, I started off this batch with two stories from “Adventures in the DC Universe,” the first of which, #7, is a really fun and kid-friendly Marvel Family story. Except, like seemingly everyone else from 1996 to 2010 or so, there is a fascination with doing near-Mary upskirt shots. It’s so gross, and it even happens in all-ages comics apparently.
Category 2: JLA Books
In the earlier batches of these catch-all columns, the most common Captain Marvel guest spots happened to be in issues of the Superman books. While he pops up in a couple of Super books, there is a lot more of Cap as a Justice League guest star during these years. While he never is a full, ranking member, he pops up to help out a bunch of times. There are two stories in particular where Captain Marvel plays an important role.
The first is in the two-issue prestige miniseries “JLA: World Without Grown-Ups” by Todd Dezago, Mike McKone, and Humbero Ramos. This story basically presents us with a child who is granted an ancient power via an artifact his dad found on an archaeological dig. He wishes for a world without adults and, bam, it happens. Captain Marvel has an incredibly important role in the series because, as Billy, he is on the world of just kids, but when he says “Shazam,” he shows up on the world of just adults, but still as Billy.
It is revealed that Captain Marvel is basically in stasis, and that the world of adults is happening in his imagination. The solution to the predicament isn’t all that interesting or clever, but the story itself is lots of fun.
The second story is the “JLA” storyline “Crisis Times 5,” which is a fifth dimension story by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter. In this story, Captain Marvel cold-cocks Superman so that he can take his place in the 5th Dimension (arguing that Superman will be more needed on Earth), and so he and Kyle Rayner have to navigate the world of Mxyzptlk and get out of the jam. There’s not a ton for Cap to actually do here, but Kyle seems annoyed by his childishness, even if Cap never really displays that.
Category 3: Secret Files/Origins
There is nothing that DC in the late 90s loved more than these “Secret Files and/or Origins” one-shots. Half anthology, half faux-“Who’s Who,” the issues are fine, but rarely have much going on for the Marvels, as none of these are focused on them in particular. We get a shot of Cap during ‘War of the Gods’ in the Wonder Woman installment and we see him represent the JLI in “JLA Secret Origins” #3. Aside from some other Justice League team appearances, there are only two of these worth mentioning.
The first is in the “JLA in Crisis” installment, we see just how many of the big DC events over the past 15 years that Cap was a part of, if not a terribly important part of. At this point, only “Crisis on Infinite Earths” ever really used the term ‘crisis,’ though “Zero Hour” had the ‘A Crisis in Time’ modifier. But here, it seems like DC was considering lots of things basically a crisis, as they show pretty much every major crossover, including the Cap-spotlighted ‘Legends,’ ‘War of the Gods,’ ‘Zero Hour’ (for which Cap is always included in art, but did almost nothing in the event), ‘Underworld Unleashed,’ ‘Final Night,’ and ‘Genesis.’
Continued belowThe other issue of interest is “DCU Secret Files,” which features an overarching Cameron Chase story that Cap appears in, as well as in a weird one-page story with Cap and Wildcat, which doesn’t really make a lick of sense, but looks nice.
Category 4: Cameo appearances
There are, as always, a lot of weird little cameos for these characters, including a couple of the Wizard Shazam as part of the “Quintessence,” a sort of illuminati cabal with Ganthet, Highfather, Phantom Stranger, and Zeus. They appear both in the “Gog” special and “Superman: Emperor Joker,” but don’t do too much, sadly.
Cap shows up dead in two issues, “Lobo” #50, the ‘all-murder’ issue, and in “Supermen of America” #5, as part of a massacre imagined.
There are a lot of one or two panel appearances, like in the flashbacks of “Green Lantern” #101 that deal with Zero Hour and Hal Jordan’s funeral, or as a reserve member of the Justice League in a ton of issues, sometimes even as a photograph or image on a screen. In “JLA: Act of God,” Billy gets a whole page showing how he’s now unable to transform into Captain Marvel.
I’m also proud to say that I was able to take a look at one of the hardest to find issues to feature the Marvels. “Legends of the DC Universe 3-D Gallery” is almost impossible to find digital versions of (due to the inability to recreate the 3-D effect on a computer screen), and I scoured the floor of New York Comic Con trying to locate one. BUT! I found a video from this month of all times of someone showing every page, so I was able to see the Marvel family page. Score one for anal retentive internet searching!
Category 5: Teen Titans
The largest batch of actual stories in this time period involve Freddie joining the Teen Titans. He joins the team because he sees an ad on the internet (for real), and gets into lots of adventures, like taking Argent out on a date he can’t afford, or as a part of the Superman-assembled team in the ‘Behold! The Millennium Giants’ crossover event. That event was the end of the insufferable Superman Red and Blue storyline, and featured some truly atrocious dialogue.
This Teen Titans team, as mentioned last time, has such a fucked up history, and Dan Jurgens is atrocious on these issues. He writes these characters as horny middle aged men (what he was when he wrote these), and gives Risk the most obnoxious temperament imaginable while literally having Prism raised in a simulation of the 50s sitcoms he grew up watching. So between Leave it to Beaver references, constant talk about the butts of various team members, and the walking dad-joke machine, it is a slog to get through these issues.
Along with those, we get Freddie taking the spotlight in “Unlimited Access,” part of the second batch of Amalgam Comics. Here, he merges with Captain America to become…wait for it…Captain America Jr. This is actually super fun, as he says “Uncle Sam” to transform, and he calls upon the “Wisdom of Lincoln.” Good job, Karl Kesel.
Freddie is also part of the Titans team in “JLA/Titans,” which is a huge celebration of the history of the Teen Titans, and features just about every Titan you could name, including Damage, Kyle Rayner, and Wildebeest. This miniseries works on many levels, but it is, at its heart, a very emotional story. There are VR pods that the various Titans are trapped in, and Dick Grayson helps get everyone out, reminding them that the simulation isn’t real. For Donna Troy, she’s playing with her dead son (more on him later), and when Dick says “I’m sorry, Donna, this isn’t real. There was a car accident…Bobby didn’t make it,” Donna turns around, tears in her eyes and says “I know.” It just breaks your heart, but was a great Titans book. Not a lot of Freddie, but that’s ok.
Category 6: Actual Stories
This batch has some really good stories . Almost every story that is somewhat focused on a Marvel is really well done, and all very different in tone. Mary gets the spotlight in “Starman: The Mist,” which shows not only her compassion, but also her natural leadership abilities. I really wish we got Mary as a member of a team now and then. I’d love to see her lead the Teen Titans or something similar, but we don’t really know how DC plans on using the various Shazam kids, or even if they’re going to have their own unique names (besides, you know, Mary and Freddie and Darla and whatever). But get on that, DC!
Continued belowBlack Adam takes front and center in “JSA” #6, which is either long term planning for his eventual bigger role on the team, or just an excuse for David Goyer and Geoff Johns to write him. The issue shows him as particularly ruthless due to a brain tumor, which is a weird take, but whatever. Black Adam is one of the more interesting characters in all of DC, and he’s too often left alone.
Billy gets a spotlight with Wonder Woman and Donna Troy in the shockingly titled “Wonder Woman: Donna Troy.” This was written and illustrated by Phil Jimenez, which means it is dope, but it is also very sad. Donna was put through the fucking ringer through editorial, being married, having a kid, getting divorced, and then losing her husband and kid, presumably so she could fuck Kyle Rayner guilt free. This story is very, very sad, but also a really good spotlight for the three characters.
The “Adventure Comics 80 Page Giant” #1 features a Captain Marvel story by Shazam story by Pat McGreal, Craig Rousseau, and Dick Giordano (on inks, like much of “The Power of Shazam.” It’s a weird story about an alien race that seems like any number of characters (Batman or Superman, for instance) that lost parents could have starred in. But hey, I’ll take a decent Cap story, regardless of how generic it may be. There just aren’t enough of them.
“Legion of Super-Heroes” #110 brings Thunder back from the “Power of Shazam” annual #1, and the story really works quite well. She is from an even further point in the future than the Legion, and it is fun to see them as the clueless ones about history for once. Usually, they are presented as the all-knowing future kids, but Thunder gets that role here. Fawcett Island is a really fun place that I’d love to see more stories from, though that remains 100% unlikely. Until DC hires me, that is…
Captain Marvel guest stars in the final issue of Mark Waid’s “Flash” run, when Billy and Linda both go to a newscasters convention. It turns out Felix Faust is trying to turn the world back to the Dark Ages, because of course he is, but we get some nice team up moments, even if the issue feels insignificant for being Waid’s last of his regular run (before returning years later for a few shorter spells).
But the final spotlight of this era is a guest spot in “Action Comics” #768, which is a fuckin’ doozy of an issue. It is by far the weirdest Captain Marvel story of the post-Crisis era, with Mary’s brains scrambled, having her speak hilarious gibberish the whole issue, Freddie’s speed being hypercharged, causing him to talk like a cokehead, and the literal disembodied mouth of Captain Marvel being carried around just saying “Superman.” I don’t want to say much more, because you should all just read this bonkers, wonderful story. I love it so, so much.
Stray observations:
– Just how sad is late 90s Donna Troy? Try “inadvertently predicts 9/11” sad.
– Just how gross is late 90s Dan Jurgens? Try “making teenagers speak like date rapists.”
– Just how uncreative is late 90s Dan Jurgens? Try “I’ll just reverse the names of a popular film character.”
– Just how desperate is Arthur to get Tempest back in his good graces in “JLA/Titans?”
– Just how much does Dave Ross draw Superman as Sylvester Stallone?
– Just how uncreative does every person needing to draw a villain’s fantasy need to be? This is from “Supermen of America,” but it has basically been in 5 books I’ve read this summer.
– And, finally, the best Mary gibberish from “Action” 768:
Next week, the grand finale!
