SHAZAM #11: All in the SHAZAMily

Starting with the artwork this month, it was refreshing to see consistent art from a single artist all the way through. None of the artists that have been working on this title are bad artists but the constant switching back and forth has made staying mentally inside the narrative difficult, a problem erased by having Kolins work the book in its entirity. The downside, of course, is that Kolins is a polarizing artist in that some love his style and others hate it with very few inbetween but his work in this issue was consistent throughout whether you love it or hate it and for me, that was an improvement.

The events of this issue see the newly re-imagined Monster Society of Evil freed (along with that other, spiteful little monster). In seeing the formation of the Monster Society, the grand plan for the Magic Lands and its worst denizens begins to pay off, although at the expense of Billy’s reunion with his father. There are a number of tried and true tropes throughout the history of the character, from being an orphan to recurring villains, and Johns is making sure to meet every benchmark along the way with this first, maxi-length arc, restructuring each trope with a classic sense of Johns vision. While all in all, thus far this series hasn’t been what fans envisioned it to be given Johns’ track record, this book lays a strong foundation for the future of the characters involved that could end up making this an underappreciated gem if it isn’t totally abandoned when Johns leaves the book.