Broken Frontier

As magic runs loose in the world, it falls to one hero to keep it all under control. But can he keep himself under control, or will the changes he’s about to undergo spell doom for us all?

Demons. Gigantic frogs. Stygian elves. Engorging spirits. The seams built over thousands of years to hold magic in check have come loose. The world has changed, and in Captain Marvel’s words, "the books of magic" have been rewritten. He has a new place and a new home in this new world, but he doesn’t truly understand the scope of his new responsibilities until that big lightning bolt hits one more time . . . and changes everything.

Guy walks into a comics shop wearing a Captain Marvel t-shirt. The newbie behind the counter points at the lighting bolt saying, "Hey, man, who’s your favorite rogue?" Guy says, "Dr. Sivana, of course. Yours?" The newbie frowns quizzically, and says, "Dude, Captain Cold." That exchange never happened, but it gets at my impression that there’s no bigger stepchild in the DCU than Captain Marvel. This is someone who could go more rounds with Superman than any other hero who’s not from Krypton; and yet, for various reasons he’s had revamps like Miami Beach housewives have plastic surgery, and the Hydrogen Age has yet to see him headlining his own on-going or leading a bona fide super-team. But while he’ll never be as cool as Black Adam (if only because "Black Adam" is one of the best names ever), the time couldn’t be more ripe to take yet another long, hard look at Captain Marvel.

Judd Winick’s biggest challenge in this series is twofold: 1) He has to change Captain Marvel’s character in a way that truly reflects the change in his status quo without losing anything essential. And 2) He has to grab those of us who’ve been complacent about the character and shake us by the collar until we realize why the world needs Captain Marvel. How well he handles the first challenge needs more than one issue to determine, but from the jump he seamlessly integrates Billy Batson’s and Captain Marvel’s voices and shows that he has a firm grip on who Captain Marvel is. Or was. But more importantly, Winick nails an essential feature of Marvel’s character—sacrifice—that saw its greatest moment in Kingdom Come. The opening scene captures how much Billy Batson has given up while also introducing a threat from the world of magic in way that gives that sacrifice meaning. And in the last scene there’s a much deeper sense of sacrifice that’s bound to change the character in many as yet unseen ways. As far as Winick’s second challenge, he takes it on in a way that can get a previous non-fan like me intrigued by where the character’s going. Picking up on the groundwork laid in Day of Vengeance, Winick does a great job of using character and action moments to convey how much the world has changed and how much Captain Marvel has to change in order to deal with it. There’s nothing left of Dr. Fate except a helmet, Zatanna is good but not good enough, The Shadowpact are the Kansas City Royals of super-teams, and Superman wants no part of magic. That leaves a huge vacuum for a new Captain Marvel to fill and a huge reason for him to fill it—there’ no one else who can.

The Trials of Shazam! seems like the sort of title whose sales success will depend heavily on the quality of the artwork, and the strength of his previous work on JLA and The Flash definitely suggests that Howard Porter is a great choice. He’s brought a radically new style to this title, however, and while it shows promise, there are a lot of kinks that need to be worked out. He’s got full duties as artist this time out, and how well the end product gels together too often varies from page to page. Some pages are like page 5—an excellently rendered splash that’s highly effective in every respect—where we get a real sense of what Captain Marvel is capable of before he even throws a punch. But other pages are like pages 1 and 2, where the lines and colors are murky in a way that doesn’t work for the scene, or the last, where the head seems out of proportion with the rest of the body. Porter’s framing is solid throughout, but much of the issue has this uneven quality—sometimes there are great action shots with a nice sense of proportion, movement, and energy, and sometimes there are panels where the figures seem stilted or the linework seems rushed. Lastly, Porter’s brushed, painterly approach to coloring this issue, while an interesting nod to the look often found in the sorcery genre, has mixed results, as well. The page introducing the villain Rimeen has great punch, for instance, and in general Porter’s coloring works quite well in action sequences with longer shots. Likewise, many of the close-ups are well done, but some seem unnaturally lit, and the issue’s quieter moments are flattened out by pale tints. All this said, Howard Porter is a strong artist trying something new, and it’s unrealistic to expect perfection the first time out. Because his style in The Trials of Shazam! has potential, I’m willing to give him the time he’ll need to find it.

It’s easy to see how long time fans might not like the changes Captain Marvel is going through in The Trials of Shazam! But let’s face it—if there were enough of those fans, there wouldn’t have been so many revamps. One more can’t hurt, and this one may end up helping.