There’s a game you play in reviewing comics. Let’s call it “How Long ‘Till I’ve Found Out.” It’s where you make a few claims and ponder some questions and then wait to see if you’re proven right or wrong (and the value those outcomes might then provide). Sometimes you wait a couple issues, and other times you never get the answers you’re seeking.
In the case of The New Champion of Shazam, I only had to wait until issue #2.
One of the biggest questions or issues I’d raise in my review of the mostly excellent first issue was the whole sitcom-y vibe of Mary balancing college and her new role as Shazam. Creators Josie Campbell and Doc Shaner have since doubled down on those vibes, as issue #2 sees Mary go full on Community when she returns home, enrolls in a community college, and tries to raise her siblings while cracking the mystery of her missing foster parents. (There’s already a great supporting cast featuring a cool professor, Dr. G, and the handsome but seemingly dim teacher’s assistant, Tim.) It’s a little hokey but it genuinely works, and it feels like we’re setting up the world for something that will let Mary work through these big issues in a really compelling way. There’s an innate connection between comics and sitcoms, and this series proves that by emphasizing story structures and a general approach to pointed character interactions.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
Writer Campbell clearly understands the whole TV formula (again, see her experience with the mostly great She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), and she uses some of these tropes — a dumpy community college on an actual highway, a magical talking rabbit, etc. — to create a structure focused on compelling interactions between the cast while wringing the most out of all those robust emotions. This issue doubled down on the comics-TV connection in a way that felt fresh and vital while still ensuring that this remains centered around comics’ weird and very specific glory.
Similarly, Shaner’s art (alongside letterer Becca Carey) once more shines in this issue. I think the first part of the issue, featuring a great cheesy ad for the college, shows how much the entire aesthetic and design choices here can make this universe feel all the more entertaining and rich in personality. (It also felt like a decision you’d see in the Tom King/Mitch Gerads Mister Miracle or Strange Adventures, and that’s a solid spiritual connection to have made.) But that’s a quick hit of sorts, and the rest of the issue feels like a proper extension of the visual identity forged in #1.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
Whether in a classroom, or fighting a giant crocodile monastery, Mary and her world have a balance of style and earnestness and organic fun that make the story all the more engaging while further building this very specific tone and energy. It just makes this book feel more deliberate and effective, and that’s both important so early on and really indicative of the magic happening here. The creative team’s focused efforts to create this visual identity and align it so well with the narrative shows how much of this book works in what you see before anything else. It’s the evocative faces and the great scene arrangements that help all this family drama really resonate the way it should.
But beyond the more positive tidbits, I did also mention a couple of not insignificant issues in my first Shazam review. Namely, how the book undersold the reveal of Mary as a champion of Shazam, and what that meant for the larger stakes in this title. Luckily, this issue really does a lot to set and achieve the larger emotional and narrative targets here. It’s not just missing parents but also Mary’s connection with her foster siblings and how they’ve all tried to move on in the wake of losing their powers. That tension crackles throughout the issue, and it gives Mary a lot of things to play of, and that decision-making feels important in a book about Mary and how she handles this rush of life-changing madness.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
Does it feel a little too CW teen drama-y at times? Sure, especially some of the interactions with super genius Eugene. (They’re still good, but those moments just feel extra deliberate in a book that’s more organic in exploring these multifaceted relationships.) But this cast of characters have lives, and those ricochet and bound off Mary’s own stuff, and it’s important to witness the tension and emotionality of all these moving parts. It all makes this feel alive and actually makes what happens to Mary feel significant.
Plus, the emotional “stuff” here takes center stage in a way that doesn’t impede or diminish the superhero happenings. If anything, Mary’s fights with the croc and subsequent experience with a local news affiliate show how character development and comics hijinks can and should go hand-in-hand. It’s about storytelling and letting every tool available contribute fully to some grander experiment in deeply human storytelling.
Courtesy of DC Comics.
As good as this issue was, it still left me pondering some big things. Like, what’s going on with the big bad, which is basically like Electro meets Multiple Man, and is that whole thing going to take away from the book’s nougaty core of interpersonal drama? Or, can Hoppy maintain his mostly fun-and-not-entirely-annoying status as comic relief? And will all this humanity maintain its precarious balance, or could this all fall into a hackneyed drama like Riverdale (or whatever the comic book equivalent of Riverdale might be).
There’s no way to know, but for the moment, these queries actually make me feel hopeful. Because however long we wait for their respective resolutions, or whatever new story events/tidbits pop up, this book’s already done plenty to answer the one question that matters the most:
Yeah, it’s totally good.
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