Welcome back, fans of WHIZ Radio, to the Chronicles of Shazam, Year 2! In case you’re new to the series, ‘The Chronicles of Shazam’ does its best to cover just about every Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr., the Wizard Shazam, Uncle Dudley, and Black Adam appearance from “Crisis on Infinite Earths” to the present day. We are going to be moving from 2001 into the present in our second summer covering the Big Red Cheese, and we’re about to hit some really fallow time for the character. Aside from appearances with the Justice Society of America, it would be a few years before we got major Captain Marvel business in the DCU. 2001, especially, was somewhat of a lost year for the Marvel family, but we’ll do our best to recap the year that was.
Category 1: The Justice Society of America
Since January, I’ve been doing a series called ‘The Society Pages,’ where I do a big, post-“Crisis on Infinite Earths” deep dive into the Justice Society of America – a familiar premise, no? Anyway, we’ve covered most of the Captain Marvel/Black Adam appearances over there, so feel free to read this installment for the 2001 “JSA” action. This is also notable, because Geoff Johns, who was writing Black Adam and Captain Marvel in “JSA” would go on to bring them back into the DCU post-“Flashpoint” as well as write the story that the Shazam film was based on.
But, since the demise of my beloved Comic Book DB, I missed one “JSA” related issue, which was “JSA: Our Worlds at War,” part of the massive 2001 crossover called, you guessed it, ‘Our Worlds at War.’ This issue happens right when Black Adam is becoming a mainstay of the Justice Society. The issue, though light on Black Adam stuff, is a really fantastic one, and features an extended cast including JSA reserves like Black Condor, Air Wave, and Shining Knight. We see some of the other JSAers, including Atom Smasher, resenting Black Adam’s membership in this issue, which was a staple of the early Black Adam in the JSA stories. It’s interesting to revisit their early relationship, having just witnessed the events of ‘Black Reign.’
Category 2: Our Worlds at War
This overlaps with the JSA category, but Cap makes a few appearances in ‘Our Worlds at War’ tie-ins, from a single panel in “Wonder Woman: Our Worlds at War” to a few non-speaking appearances in two Superman issues, “Superman: The Man of Steel” #117 and “Action Comics” #782. This continues the trend, which I’ve mentioned a lot in the first year, of Captain Marvel being used as a visual cue for ‘this is a big deal, all the heroes are here!,’ but doing precious little in terms of actual stuff in these events.
Category 3: One-Panel Appearances
The vast majority of Cap appearances come in the form of one-panel appearances. There’s the classic ‘pile of beaten up heroes’ appearance in “JLA” #58, an appearance, from behind, at Impulse’s sick bed in “Impulse” #78, and an appearance at a fantasy Batman/Catwoman wedding in “Nightwing” #52. We also get a flashback to the ‘Lightning and Stars’ arc of “Starman” in issue #75, and a few panels in each of “JLA Incarnations” #4 and #7.
Category 4: JLA: Act of God
The Elseworlds story “JLA: Act of God” is an odd one. It begins with a flash of black light that depowers all of the superheroes and supervillains on Earth. The series then deals with how the unpowered heroes step up, how some formerly powered heroes transition to being unpowered heroes, and how some just freak the fuck out. This sees things like Lois Lane leave Clark because he’s such a sad sack now that he doesn’t have powers, which leads to Superman and Wonder Woman falling into each other’s depowered arms and getting depowered down with each other.
Shit gets crazy when Steel gets literally trampled under the foot of a giant robot, or when Kyle Rayner decides to go fight without his ring, literally being killed by being impaled on a sharp plank in the process. This is a pretty bad story, but it actually features some good Billy Batson stuff. We see Billy, in his job at WHIZ Radio, interview Guy Gardner after he wrote a book about being a ‘former’ superhero. Billy probably has one of the easier transitions back into ‘regular’ life because he’s so young, and the book doesn’t show him doing stupid shit like cutting up his hand on an engagement ring like Clark Kent does.
Continued belowCategory 5: “Orion” #12-13
Walt Simonson’s “Orion” series is a blindspot for me, and these two issues are a bit bonkers. Essentially, Orion somehow gains the ability to ‘order’ Earth, and turn everyone into a do-gooder. This story begins with Billy Batson, on assignment for WHIZ, seeing Orion open a boom tube, and he jumps through, landing on Apokolips. He eventually gets glamoured by Orion, and goes back to Earth with him and spreads the word that there is a ‘special’ message going on television at noon. There, Orion speaks to all of Earth, and gets them all to start doing good. It’s a weird story.
Category 6: Joker’s Last Laugh
Mary Marvel is part of a couple of tie-ins to the ‘Joker’s Last Laugh’ event. One, in the “Joker’s Last Laugh Secret Files and Origins,” ties back to an issue of “The Power of Shazam” (#41, to be exact) with Mr. Mind. She also pops up briefly in the “Birds of Prey” tie-in issue, as well as in “Wonder Woman “#174-175 as part of Wonder Woman’s assembled forces against Circe and the Joker. Mary doesn’t really do too much in these, but it’s nice to see her included, I guess?
Category 7: Titans L.A.
In “Titans: Secret Files and Origins” #2, we see both Mary and Freddie Freeman, aka CM3, aka Captain Marvel Jr, go to a Titans L.A. recruitment party. Mary splits, but Freddie stays and joins Titans L.A. We only see one appearance of him as a Titan, which happens in “Titans’ #25, the third part of a Donna Troy-centric arc. Here, we see CM3 arm wrestle Hippolyta and tease her about having the strength of Hercules on his side.
And, that’s all folks. We’ll be back next week with the next installment where, hopefully, some more stuff happens.
