Review: Justice League #0 (DC)

Where is the Wizard?!?!?

Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Gary Frank
Cover Art: Gary Frank

Publisher: DC Comics
Cover Date: November 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

Ok. I’m just going to come right out and say it. I don’t like what they’re doing with Shazam. At all. Now look, I can’t say I know all the particulars of the once Captain Marvel/now Shazam. I can’t say I was a big Shazam fan growing up, either. I do vaguely remember watching the show on TV, but that was a bit before my time.

I know the bullet points, though. Little kid (Billy Batson), says that crazy, magic word… SHAZAM! And WHAM! becomes… well, Shazam. I know there’s a “family” of Shazams (at least there used to be, pre-new 52), including Mary Marvel (me-ow). And the bad guy/bad wizard Black Adam.

Oh…hello there!

But, I don’t think I need to be steeped in Shazam canon to know that I don’t like what DC is doing/has done with Captain Marvel, err… Shazam.

Billy Batson is a creep. There’s nothing likable about him. He’s a troubled youth being shuffled from foster home to foster home. Which, should provoke some sympathy in me, but doesn’t. Because there really isn’t anything likable about him or anything to feel sympathetic about.

Even when he’s doing something “good”, it isn’t willing me as a fan

In fact, there isn’t any character I really like so far. I get that the kids around him are all foster kids, and they’ve had a hard life, but there’s nothing likable about any of them, either. And the old wizard? Man! Another curmudgeon!

I don’t think the artwork helps, either. Gary Frank’s realistic style makes the kids too unfriendly?!?!? Throughout the story everyone just looks…really unpleasant.

I get it. She really isn’t nice, but NONE of the people in this story are…

But…here’s where I really gotta get a little nitpicky. I apologize ahead of time. Sorry…

What the heck is going on here? Did this guy’s cape belong to Spawn?

What’s the deal with Shazam’s cape? How many layers is it? And what’s with the hoods in the New 52? Look, I know I’m old. I admit it. I’m not ~~too~~ ashamed. But I don’t get the hood look. Damian’s got it over in Batman and Robin. It looks like Black Adam has it, too. And now Shazam. I don’t get it. It kinda works on Damian. But Shazam and Black Adam?!?!

Shame a good idea goes to waste.

Not all with me is negative. I don’t like to just tear down. You gotta build up, too. What I did like is how DC set up Shazam’s story in the pages of Justice League. They did it in the back pages, as a separate story, like in the old days. Smart of them. A clever way to build up a story.