DC Comics Universe and Shazam #14 Spoilers and Review follows.
Superboy-Prime, Black Adam and More!.
Plus SHADE On Dark Nights: Death Metal In…
…Geoff Johns’ Final Issue?!
The book opens with a bit of a recap of Geoff Johns past 12 years issue of story (Shazam #12 was a pretty decent fill-in by a different creative team featureing a Batman visit [full spoilers here]).
This recap was helpful considering Shazam #1 debuted in December 2018.
That’s a two year and eight month sojourn for readers for 13 issues of story.
With that, we get into the action with Mr. Mind and Dr. Sivana’s Monster Society vs. the Shazam Family as…
…Superboy-Prime has been freed from his magical prison to wreak havoc!
Inside his dad’s brain – who was believed to be the seventh and final Shazam champion (page below from a previous issue) – where…
…Shazam takes on Mr. Mind and defeats him and his magic casting ways, but destroying his voice box!
That causes some magical feedback…
…taking out the Monster Society and freeing them from Mr. Mind’s magical and telepathic hold.
Shazam uses magic to get back to normal size, but Superboy-Prime attacks…
…leading to Black Adam joining the fight!
We then get a team-up between one-time rivals and then frenemies and now allies…
…who take on Superboy-Prime with muscle and…
…magic!
Superboy-Prime is defeated and the work of righting all the magical mischief is needed, but first…
…Shazam learns that his biological father believes he and Billy Batson are better off apart.
Superboy-Prime is delivered to the Justice League as…
…Black Adam – not Billy Batson’s dad – is the prophesized seventh and final champion of Shazam.
Superboy-Prime next pops up in his classic costume on the Alex Garner variant cover to the next issue of DC’s current event Dark Night: Death Metal #4 which hits stands on October 13 / 14, 2020; presumably he’ll be inside the book too.
Dark Nights: Death Metal #4
(W) Scott Snyder (A) Jonathan Glapion (A/CA) Greg Capullo
In Shops: Oct 13, 2020
SRP: $4.99
Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman are trapped in nightmare worlds within the Dark Multiverse! They’ll need to face down their fiercest foes once again if they hope to accomplish their mission and bring back a power capable of stopping the Darkest Knight. But what horrors has he unleased on Earth while they’ve been locked away?!
The Shazam series ends in a few weeks with Shazam #15 with a new creative team in timely story for modern times.
Shazam #15
Written by JEFF LOVENESS
Art and cover by BRANDON PETERSON
Variant cover by FRANCIS MANAPUL
ON SALE 09/22/20
$3.99 US | 32 PAGES | FC | DC
FINAL ISSUE! After a night battling robots across the globe, Billy Batson finds out not everyone loves superheroes when one of his teachers unleashes a lecture on the ethics of unchecked power and privilege. It’ll take more than just the wisdom of Solomon for the teen hero to figure this one out.
The Pulse:
An action-packed finally written by Geoff Johns with some of his favorite collaborators in pencillers Dale Eaglesham and Scott Kolins. A fitting, but long overdue ends to Johns’ Shazam opus begun with the characters reintroduction to DC Comics during the Rebirth era with artist Gary Frank. Good on DC for giving Johns a few extra pages for the issue, but not cool that it’s a dollar more. DC should have eaten the cost considering how delayed this series was. All that said, what’s in the book was great and the redemption of Black Adam teased for the future may or may not come to pass since the multiverse has been destroyed in Dark Nights: Death Metal with a new reality to come with that series ends on its sixth issue. Nonetheless a fun, action-packed and even emotional issue. 9 out of 10.
