Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Review: Curse Of Shazam, part 5

Chapter 5 of Curse of Shazam from JUSTICE LEAGUE #11 begins where chapter 4 left off, with Black Adam demanding to know where the Wizard is. Adam grabs both Sivana and his henchman, and kills the henchman with a bolt of lightning that emanates from his chest emblem.  Sivana assures Adam he will help him find the Wizard.

Cut to the Bryer house.  Billy and Freddy are trying to break into Bryer's car, so they can roll it down the hill.  The car alarm goes off, and the boys take off.  Freddy is moving too slow, so Billy pushes him into a bush, and tells him to hide there while he draws the Bryers away.  The Bryers chase Billy as he runs into a subway station, then hops onto a subway train, just as one of the Bryer boys punches Billy in the nose, warning him this isn't over.  Suddenly there is a bolt of lightning, and the subway train transforms into something more archaic.  Mysterious fog rolls in as the trains comes to a stop.  Billy exits, finding himself at the Rock of Eternity, and he exclaims, Holy... crap.

My thoughts:  Unfortunately, Billy and Freddy's prank was just a way to get Billy onto the subway train by leading the Bryers on a chase, and not a well crafted, entertaining "Dead End Kids" type antic.  Johns missed an opportunity. I still have doubts about the new costumes.  Don't care for the small Wonder Woman style wristbands, the Spectre style hoodie, and when we get a good look at the lightning emblem, it's actually a lightning emblem inside an inverted triangle.  Hmmm... an inverted triangle?  Kind of like the original 1938 Superman chest emblem.  Black Adam emanates lightning and electricity.  This would make for a good visual for a movie.  In fact, I wonder how much of Curse of Shazam is actually recycled from the rejected Geoff Johns-Bill Birch Shazam movie script.  Things like the emanating lightning, Billy's "holy crap", and the very way the whole story started with the random people being abducted seems very cinematic.  With Billy now at the Rock of Eternity (which looks nothing like the classic version, this is more Harry Potterish, for lack of a better term), business is about to pick up.  I give chapter 5 a B+.

1 comment:

Chris said...

I agree about the missed opportunity of the prank on the Bryers, as it did seem very rushed through the panels. I wonder if Captain Marvel may decide to finish the job, but then, that would completely ruin Billy's character. I have a feeling that Cap will get his chance to get even when the Bryer's business practices alert his attention (just an assumption that they're dirty).
I love how Frank captured the ferocity of Adam. I agree that, while the new suit is pretty cool, the one drawback is something that you mentioned in the triangle outline for the lightning bolt.
I am liking the new 52 Rock of Eternity more, considering it has always been the hot-bead for magic as a whole. so it makes sense for it to have homages to different strands of the occult (Eastern and Western practices). Hopefully in the next issue, we finally meet the New 52 wizard, and Captain Marvel is born!