Future State: SHAZAM! #1: “Don’t Call Me Billy…”

Tim Sheridan, along with a new art team, picks up the threads from the outstanding Future State: Teen Titans #1 and shifts the timeline to the right a ways to look at the fallout for SHAZAM! and his field team following the Battle for Titans Tower. In doing so, the team manages to perfectly capture what seems to be the spirit of this two-month thought excercise that is Future State– creating stories that feel like they could logically come out of the current timeline but may not necessarily happen. Everything in this book makes sense despite the massive lack of context. The “how did we get here” becomes secondary to the “where are we headed” which seems to be the spirital shift Snyder and company were shooting for with Dark Knights: Death Metal. All is canon so get on with telling great stories and clearly Tim Sheridan is on board for telling great stories.

The art team does an outstanding job with nearly every element to this issue. There are a number of moments where the perspective work is truly stellar, taking odd angles at a panel and maintaining consistency throughout the image. The character design work is nearly flawless.  In a book like this one, there seems to be a tendancy to alter classic looks for characters to reflect the passage of time but instead, the team opts to preserve the looks quite closely which helps to preserve a sense of legacy in the book and in the various members.

There hasn’t been as much talk about this book as some of the others and that’s a shame because it stands as one of my favorites of the week. Hats off to the entire team and here’s hoping we see much more of them at DC in the future!