Review: Shazam #6

This issue picks up with Freddy seemingly ready to betray Billy to get the powers for himself.  Only it turns out to be a scam until the Flashpoint kids arrive to save the day.  Yeach.  Just what I predicted, and just what the Captain Marvel character does not need.

Then Billy notices Solomon has stepped away from all this, and he confronts him.  He asks Solomon to make the Captain wiser to be able to resist the other Elders' influences.  Solomon agrees but warns Billy it will make The Captain more separate from Billy.

Meanwhile the alien dinosaurs land in Kahndaq, and face Black Adam.  This issue at least shows that by getting more wisdom of Solomon, the Captain may not act like a goofy kid anymore.  That shows promise, but so did issue #1, and look where we are at now.  This issue earns a C.

Review: Batman '89: Echoes #1

As bad as the first Batman '89 miniseries was, I have to say the first issue of the sequel is so much better. Sam Hamm is starting the down the road to redeem himself.  Let's see if he can stay on it.  Joe Quinones' art is also improved from the first miniseries, where at times it seemed rushed, and the actors' likenesses were made more vague and generic.

The story picks up 2 years after the first miniseries.  Batman has been out of action for 2 years, but a new group of wannabe vigilantes dressed in homemade Batman costumes start start showing up murdered in failed attempts to fight crime.  Barbara Gordon, who is now a captain (remember, Hamm killed off Jim Gordon in the first miniseries), goes to Wayne Manor to see if Bruce knows anything about these fake Batmen.  Bruce isn't home, and Alfred confides in Barbara that he went missing a month earlier.  

Then we cut to TV psychologist Arleen Quinzel, aka "Dr. Q" who unveils The Joker's moll Alicia's surgically restructured face.  Quinones' art for Dr. Q is great, but I can't quite place who he is basing her on.  We get a glimpse of Dr. Q's obsession with the dead Joker.

Then the police go to capture the Firefly, whose alias is apparently Robert Lowery.  Hmmm.  After a well constructed action scene, they capture him.  At the hospital, Lowery asks to see Dr Hugo Strange, but he gets Dr Jonathan Crane instead.  Then we get our first view of Lowery's face.  

It's...

SPOILER ALERT




...Bruce... or a dead ringer for him.

This issue earns a B+.

Review: Shazam #5

Issue number 5 is a slight improvement over issue 4. Dan Mora turns in some really good artwork.  There is more advancement to the plot concerning both the Gorillas and the Elders, and it is Mary Marvel who saves The Captain.  There is a twist at the end where, now that Billy is aware the Elders are manipulating him (although we still don't know why the Elders are acting like bad guys), Billy threatens to give up his powers, only to have Freddy pop up saying he'll take the powers.

What I don't understand is how Mark Waid can be turning in such amazing scripts for Batman/Superman: World's Finest, and World's Finest: Teen Titans, but for this series, after an excellent first issue, the subsequent scripts are so weak.  This issue earns a C.

Review: Shazam #4

It is issue number 4 and things really seem to be going off the rails.  Issue 1 had such promise, such hope this would be a true relaunching of Captain Marvel. But with each passing issue, Mark Waid's writing starts to read more and more like Stanley Ralph Ross. This issue is like a parody of the old Planet of the Apes movies.  Then, it seems like, as the Elders, who for a yet unrevealed reason are acting like villains, take control of the Captain, the irritating Flashpoint kids are positioning to be the ones who save the Captain.  This is not what we need.  The Captain to be the damsel in distress only for the Flashpoint kids to rescue him. This series is really getting bad and this issue earns a D.

Review: Shazam #3

Issue number 3 follows in the steps of issue 2. Once again, many of the positive changes to the new52 Shazam, now known as "The Captain", from issue 1 are missing and the series heads more into the new52 direction.  The plot has Freddy becoming the unwilling spy for the six Elders whom The Captain derives his powers from.  The Elders want to control Billy like a puppet. Billy, concerned about his erratic behavior as the Captain, unaware of the Elders interference, stops saying the magic word. New 52 Mary Shazam, now officially named Mary Marvel, has her own set of Elders, and continues to fight crime.  Billy's Elders manipulate a situation forcing Billy to become the Captain.  He saves a bus load of Gorillas from Gorilla City (yeah, you read that right), and under the Elders' manipulation, they convince the Captain that a race of Moon people are about to attack Earth.  The Captain flies off to the moon to prevent the invasion.

The plot is getting kind of weird, and I just don't get putting the Captain in such sci-fi based scenarios. This seems like a rejected Silver Age Superman story line, and I didn't even mention the scene with the alien dinosaur.  Captain Marvel's adventures, for the most part, were always more Earth bound, with some slight touches of magic.  Not sure where this series is headed. This issue earns another C.

movie review: THE FLASH

After hearing that The Flash is on track to be another DCEU dud, I thought I'd skip doing a proper review and just jump right into some thoughts and comments. Incoming DC Movies head James Gunn hyped this as the greatest superhero movie ever made. Well, the box office certainly disagrees, and Gunn may be tarnished because of it. SPOILERS BELOW.

So did I think this was the greatest superhero movie ever made?  Nope, not even close.  But I will say it may be the greatest movie under the DCEU banner that began with Man of Steel, which arguably is a low threshold to cross.  

 

It was great to see Michael Keaton back as The Batman, but I don't think this was the same character he played in the 1989 original and Batman Returns.  To me, he played it quite differently.  Of course he's older, maybe wiser, but it just seemed different.  Maybe because so much of Batman (both Ben Affleck and Keaton) were daytime scenes, or that Keaton seemed so much more talkative than in the original movies. Or that his cape does not have the bat-points along the bottom. Why do the recent movies keep giving Batman a standard cape?  I say he played a nearly identical alternate multiverse take on the original character.  A lot of the hype building up to this movie implies this a de facto Batman III for Keaton.  If you go into the movie expecting that, you will be disappointed. Keaton is a supporting character.

 

I also have to say I really liked Sasha Calle, who played Supergirl. She did a lot better than I thought she would, and it helps that she wasn't over used in the movie.  She had just the right amount of screen time.  Her and Keaton were the highlights of the movie.

 

Most of the action scenes were amazing. What I thought was weak were some of the special effects. The Flash in particular, most of the time looked like Ezra Miller's face photoshopped onto a CGI figure.  And the way the speedzone was portrayed--what can only be described as a giant Sgt. Pepper album cover.  Cheesy and kind of lame.

 

All the cameos, from Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman thru Nicholas Cage's Superman, and CGI recreations of Christopher Reeve, George Reeves and Adam West, were cool, and George Clooney is now the official DCEU Batman going forward.  Maybe.

 

The Flash was definitely done in the MCU style, far more so than the Joss Whedon version of Justice League, which got slammed for it.

 

So, this was a enjoyable film.  Why did it tank at the box office? Most likely a combination of three things: the fact that the DCEU banner has a bad track record and is tainted, that a nine year Flash TV series just ended causing over-saturation of the character, and most prominently, a boycott of Ezra Miller due to his troubling and dangerous behavior.  Perhaps WB should have re-shot all his scenes with a new actor when they had the chance. 

Review: Shazam #2

Issue number 2 take a step back from all the positive changes made in issue 1. It's not just the reversal of Freddy's hair color change.  It's almost like writer Mark Waid put the extra effort of "Fawcettizing" the first issue to hook us in, only to do a bait and switch and go back to the New52 for the 2nd issue. We get the Flashpoint kids and more of the alien dinosaurs at the beginning of the book, but once we get past that, the story gets slightly better. Instead of using one of Captain Marvel's rogues gallery, he uses the generic DC villain Psycho Pirate as the villain, but it serves a purpose to the story he is telling of the Captain becoming increasingly hostile.  Overall, the issue is not bad, but it's also not as good as the first issue. This issue earns a C. Perhaps corporate DC forced Waid to go more new52 with the 2nd issue. Let's give it a few more issues to see if things get better or worse.

 

PS- So, I watched Shazam Fury of the Gods on HBO.  Wow.  If you always wondered what a superhero movie that is worse than Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, worse than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, worse than Wonder Woman 1984, worse than Thor Love & Thunder would be like, wonder no more, because this movie is it. Director David Sandberg would be very lucky if this movie doesn't Trank up the rest of his career. Maybe he should have just made it a musical. Asher Angel, who plays Billy Batson, and I thought was one of the few good things about the first movie, has little more than a glorified cameo in this one. With so little Asher, that means there is way too much Zachary Levi.  I thought he was horribly miscast as Captain Marvel in the first movie, and he does nothing to change my mind in the sequel. Perhaps the only bright spot in this movie is Jack Dylan Grazer, who plays Freddy Freeman (who I thought was one of the other only good things about the first flick).  In many ways this is really Freddy's movie, and Grazer, along with Rachel Zegler, the only other good thing in the sequel, steal the show, what little there is to steal in this stinker.  Hopefully we can get a real and proper Captain Marvel film reboot, but this movie is so bad, and did so poorly at the box office, it may be decades before the World's Mightiest Mortal gets another shot at cinematic stardom, if ever.

Review: Shazam #1

After a little hiatus I am back to review Shazam #1 written by Mark Waid with art by Dan Mora. This is, what, like the 5th or 6th attempt post-New52 to give the World's Mightiest Mortal an on-going book.  All the previous attempts have been failures.  But the first issue of this latest series kind of delivers. In a perfect world, we would just get a complete reboot reverting back to the original Fawcett continuity.  But Mark Waid gets as close as he can while still sticking with the New52 timeline.  In this premiere issue, Captain Marvel gets his traditional costume back and kind of, sort of, gets half his name back. Fawcett City officially returns being a suburb of Philadelphia.  Billy reveals his side hustle of hosting a podcast that details the exploits of Captain Marvel (a modern day twist on his gig as a WHIZ radio personality) with hints of classic supporting characters like Whitey Murphy, Cissie Sommerly, and Sunny Sparkle waiting in the wings to appear in this series. Freddy Freeman once again has black hair, and as Captain Marvel Jr, sports a red cape. Waid gives us the best insight into Billy and the Captain's inner personalities since Alex Ross or E. Nelson Bridwell.  Best of all, while mentioned, none of the three Flashpoint kids or the foster parents appear in the story to clutter it up. 

All is not perfect though.  The opening scene where the Captain helps a family of alien dinosaurs just seems a little too out of place (I never pictured Captain Marvel to be that invested in a sci-fi setting), and as The Captain, there is still that tinge of Big influence, although not nearly as annoying and obnoxious as some previous writers or the movies have done it.

In many ways, this issue is like the new52 timeline seen through Thunderworld lenses. As a classic and traditional Captain Marvel fan, I can encourage the premiere issue is worth getting and supporting.  Hopefully the issues that follow will get even better.  This issue earns a solid B.

PS- in case anyone is interested, I watched Black Adam on HBO (did not go see it at the theater). I thought it was slightly better than Shazam! which isn't saying much. I didn't see any reason to have the JSA in it, when the Fawcett heroes would have worked just as well, if not better- Ibis instead of Dr Fate, Bullet Man instead of Hawkman, Bullet Girl instead of Cyclone, and Minute Man instead of Atom Smasher.  And of course, Captain Marvel instead of Superman at the end.  Also, I thought that kid was kind of annoying, and was basically a carbon copy of the way Freddy Freeman was portrayed in Shazam!.  I have not yet seen Shazam! Fury of the Gods (which apparently neither has most of the movie going public), but may watch it when it airs on HBO.