The Magic is back! Art, Franco, and Byron Vaughns bring in a slew of Cap’s adversaries in this four issue arc of “Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam.” Let’s say the magic word and enter the fray!
Written by Art Baltazar and FrancoCover by Byron Vaughns
Illustrated by Byron Vaughns
Colored by David Tanguay
Lettered by Travis LanhamCaptain Marvel’s newest enemy, the Arson Fiend, is about to set Billy Batson’s world on fire! Can the Super Hero stand the heat?
One of the pleasant surprises of this series thus far has been the sheer number of villains introduced. In these four issues alone, we get Arson Fiend, Mister Banjo and his Son, and Mr. Mind. While only Mr. Mind really gets “A” list Marvel villain status, this is a nice approach at populating the world of this book. In contrast, the current “Shazam” ongoing has featured far fewer villains, and handled them worse than Art and Franco do so here. Each villain’s motivations are laid out and each is put in a fun situation for the Marvels to play off of them.
Arson Fiend draws the short straw here, as most of his encounter with Billy and Mary is more about the corruption happening within Billy. He’s a low-level thug who gets hired to burn down abandoned buildings, which makes him not exactly the most fascinating of characters, but it does build in some sympathy for him. Vaughns doesn’t give us a great look at him initially, letting him lurk in the shadows and be obscured by his surroundings. This makes his scorched face’s reveal after dealing with possessed Billy even more jarring.
We don’t get to spend any time with Mr. Banjo, sadly, but we do meet his son, who brandishes a hypnotizing guitar called Sweet Matilda. In issue #9, we see Mary have to save folks when Billy is under the spell of Mr. Mind, and in issue #10, we see an unpowered Billy have to stop Sweet Matilda without Mary’s help, as she’s mesmerized by its tones. One of the flaws of Shazam comics, often, is not letting Billy and Mary have enough to do, because their heroic counterparts can solve every problem for them. So, this was a nice example of Billy using his, not the Wizard’s, strengths to solve a problem.
Mr. Mind is one of the top 3 or 4 Shazam villains, and while this arc doesn’t do too much with him, it did three really important things: it established the Monster Society of Evil in a clear way, it wasn’t an origin story, and it gave the reader a chance to get to know the character gradually, somewhat dulling the ‘he’s a worm?!’ knee jerk reaction that may occur.
Vaughns adds a little grit to the pages in this arc, which is noticeable in any page where Billy is struggling with his feelings, or when Mr. Mind is controlling either Billy or his doppleganger. Unlike one of the covers, Billy’s evil twin is not wearing a reverse colored uniform, which would’ve been a nice nod to the Reverse Flash and a way to identify the ‘real’ Captain without having to look at the lightning bolt on his chest. But Vaughns does a fine job in his second arc, really doing a good job of giving Mary separate looks/tones when in or our of costume, which is hard as her transformation is less noticeable than Billy’s.
Overall, this creative team has found a way to keep the book squarely in the all-ages bracket without dumbing down the characters too much. The changes to characters like Tawky Tawny make sense in this world, and don’t feel like they were done for any reason other than to tell better stories. Next week brings the great Mike Norton onto the book, so we’ll see you back here in 7!
