Shazam! #9 Review

We Are Family!

Written By: Geoff Johns

Art By: Marco Santucci, Scott Kolins, Dale Eaglesham, Michael Atiyeh, Rob Leigh

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 18, 2019

The powers of Shazam have been acting a little wonky lately now that Billy's met his father and with the doors to the Magiclands open and Dr. Sivana and Mr. Mind teaming up, this is probably the worst time this could possibly happen.  In our previous issue though it looks as if the seventh champion was picked by Billy and that person was..... his father.  So let's see what the world of Shazam looks like with Billy and his foster brothers and sisters and his wayward father sharing the power of the living lightning.  Let's check it out.

In this issue we continue to see the powers of Shazam being affected like we did previously, but here we actually sit and talk about it a bit, where previously we just heard that Billy's heart had changed in who he wanted to share the power with now that he's met his father.  In this we see the different kids and even Billy's father's powers failing and returning throughout the issue and it's when we get to the Wozenderlands that the Wizard actually breaks things down and tells Billy that he has to make a choice in who he wants to be a part of this family and with it, who he'll share his powers with.

Beyond that aspect to the story though, we pretty much start the issue out with Black Adam and the Seven Deadly Sins attacking Billy, his father and Mary, but everything stops when the Wizard teleports everyone to the Wozenderlands, where Geoff Johns tries to give us a little bit of background to this land that combined Oz and Wonderland the last time that the Monsterlands were open.  By the end though we get back to some more villainy when Dr. Sivana intends to create a distraction by releasing King Kid from the Funlands to Philadelphia, but with all our champions in the Wozenderlands, I'm not sure what this will accomplish and with that, I'm still waiting for the reveal about who the traitor is in Billy's camp, who the wizard warned us of a bunch of issues ago.

All in all, the art struggled this issue with the amount of artists we had on because where before we'd have different artists for different sections of where the story was being told, here it's just split up and changes wherever.  That being said though, it's really Scott Kolins' parts in the Wozenderlands that I really wasn't a fan of....... the rest looked great.  As for the story, I did appreciate the time we took to talk about the way Billy's powers work and what was going on with the rest of our Champions, whether it mattered by the end of this issue or not, but for the most part this issue feels a lot like the last, where things feel like they've been changed and it doesn't flow as well as it did earlier in this series.  It's in a weird spot and with what's going on here, I don't know when we'll finally be done with the Magiclands and move on to something else for our Shazam Family to do, but this storyline is running a bit thin for me.

Bits and Pieces:

While we do get an explanation here about what's been going on with our heroes' powers for the last couple of issues, it does take up the majority of the issue and doesn't feel like it really mattered by the end.  The art for the most part was great, but I'm still looking for a bit more out of this book because it seems to have stalled into an odd funk lately that I desperately want to get out of.

6.8/10