Shazam! #8 Review

Power Outage

Written By: Geoff Johns

Art By: Scott Kolins, Michael Atiyeh, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: November 27, 2019

It's finally here!  The next installment to the seriously delayed Shazam! series and I think we should all take a minute, breath and take this all in because who knows when we'll get the next issue.  Okay, shade aside, I'm happy as hell that this came out this week because I've been dying to know what Billy Batson would do after the last issue, when he was pulled into the Darklands while looking for Darla and Freddy.  Let's just hope that Pedro and Eugene can hold out a little longer in the Wozenderlands because sadly, they really aren't a priority this issue.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Alright, we're back with the Marvel Family...... finally... and the issue we get sadly...... feels like something was changed between the delays because the final product here, while still really enjoyable for the most part, felt like certain aspects were glossed over or just down right abandoned, which led to a bit of a disjointed feel to this book.  With that in mind though, we do get Freddy and Darla with Tawky Tawny out of the Darklands, which I appreciate, but that big cliffhanger of Billy waking up in a grave in the Darklands, only to find the grave of Captain Marvel around him kind of went nowhere here.  The Darklands are barely explored and just come off like Halloweenland from A Nightmare Before Christmas, where Billy is confronted by the skeleton ghosts of Champions past, who seem to want to live again.  Yeah, that last bit is interesting, but I have no idea what this land is really about and with the infrequent way that this book comes out, who knows when we'll get back to this angle. 

I will tell you this though, the villains of this book are being ramped up to an out of control degree because on top of Dr. Sivana, Mr. Mind and Black Adam, we now have the Seven Deadly Sins making their way out and about, not to mention that Mr. Mind still plans on putting together his Monster Society.  I like this bit a lot, but again, the way our villains are going to get to this outcome is still a mystery and now they're focused on Billy's father, which can only mean that we're going to spend more time away from the Magical Lands, where Pedro, Eugene and the Wizard are still stuck in the Wozenderlands, talking about why their powers don't work, but yet we never go fully into this and Billy's powers are still fine, not to mention Mary was using her power fine previously.  It's a bit odd overall because it feels like too much is going on, while we're not getting enough progression, while also continuing to add new aspects to the story, which just kind of leads to a bit of a mess.  Thankfully though, this issue does come to a pretty weird and fun cliffhanger that leaves me wanting more for when the next issue eventually comes out.

All in all, I wasn't a huge fan of the art this issue, but I've never been a big fan of Scott Kolins who has the reigns here.  Yeah, I know a lot of people won't mind because he does have his fans, but it's just not something that I really enjoy.  As for the story, I like a lot of what's going on here, it's just that we're getting too little of what I like, while other aspects seem glossed over or changed as our story progresses and I don't know if this is leading to the delays or the book needed to be changed because of the delays, I just know that it's creating a disjointed feel to the book that previous issues didn't have.  There's still a lot of fun here, but at this point with all the ideas that Geoff Johns is trying to put into this book it feels like he might have bit off more than he could chew and the book is suffering because of it.

Bits and Pieces:

We finally have the Shazam Family back in action here, but the end result feels a bit rushed and certain aspects of the story feel off because of it.  I'm not a huge fan of Scott Kolins art, but he does a decent job here in depicting the many places that Geoff Johns wants to go with this story...... which really, needs to be tightened up a bit because while I like a lot of what we're getting, we don't get enough of it to really satisfy by the end and I just hope that the next issue, when it finally comes out is able to feel more cohesive.

6.5/10