Justice League #19

[flint_marko]

Since this installment was only eight pages, I'm only going to be posting 2.6.

Billy and his foster siblings are underground in the subway car. Billy tries getting back to the Rock of Eternity, but nothing happens. A woman named Francesca contacts Billy through Eugene's iPad (explaining she can contact him through any reflective surface.) The others can't hear her, and Francesca explains to Billy it's because they haven't established a connection to magic.

She tells him how he can't enter the Rock until he turns into Shazam, but Billy is worried that doing so will attract Black Adam to him. Francesca tells tells him that he and Adam that are the last two beings of the six magic realms to possess the magic of the living lightning, and that they are forever connected. "You are as connected as family now." Mary hears the word "family," to Billy's surprise.

Billy tells Francesca that he needs to see the Wizard to give him back his powers, but she explains that once the Wizard bestows the connection to the living lightning it cannot be severed, which is why Black Adam still holds the power and Billy is the only one who can stop him. Billy asks her who Black Adam is, and Francesca shows him the country of Kahndaq in ancient times.







Billy runs off to find Adam. Francesca tries stopping him, telling him he needs to listen, but Billy tells her he knows how to make Adam stop; he just needs to talk to him.

Billy finds Black Adam and tells him that he's the new champion.

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Great installment--the story that Johns has been telling is really starting to come together. :)

[shadowpsykie]

i said it from the begining, Johns is a long grift writer. some times that falls flat. but sometimes it pays off. this might be the begining of the pay off. the fact that BIlly DOES try talking says a lot.

curious about mary, is she older in this comic?

[darkknightjrk]

Older at the start of her involvement in superheroing than she was in the past? Probably. In the golden age she was probably around 12-14, here she's probably around 16.

[icon_uk]

Since she's his twin, she should be the same age as Billy.

[shadowpsykie]

ah yes that is what i meant. that makes sense. i was never sure. sometimes she seemed younger than him, at times older (like here), maybe its because of his bad posture :D

[darkknightjrk]

Really? I knew they were related in the old continuity (and that probably doesn't apply here), but I didn't know they were twins. That's really weird because from what I remember, Mary always seemed visibly more older than Billy when he wasn't Captain Marvel.

[icon_uk]

The fact she (and only she) heard the word "family" suggests to me a familial link still exists.

And yes, they have always been twins in every iteration of Billy and Mary there has ever been.

[jaybee3]

A large part of that was because Billy suffered from Franklin Richards syndrome until Johns made him (and Mary) 16 so he could that romance with Courtney in JSA.

Meanwhile Mary too was off-limits until DC realized the potential in an underage girl who could transform herself into a hot adult and thus we get the Mary who at 16 is suddenly the butt of sex jokes and come-ons in Giffin/DeMatteis's SuperBuddies comics, who apparently has her own apartment and no longer has to go to school and receives offers of being a concubine from Darkseid in Countdown, who becomes an S&M pin-up constantly making sexual suggestive language in Final Crisis - all apparently OK as long as DC never mentioned her age (which readers already knew to be explicitly 16 - legally a minor in most states - because she was Billy's twin). Given her in-universe age,they did some sick stuff with Mary (even Johns in his last JSA arc).

[icon_uk]

Seem odd that for a concept rooted so deeply in the concept of six powerful beings (You know, S H A Z A and M), he's suddenly standing in front of seven (Though since one of them is apparently Japanese, and no one in the SHAZAM acronym matches that, things have clearly changed again)

[biod]

A seventh for the exclamation mark?

[silicondream]

Same guy who empowered Agent "!" from the Brotherhood of Dada, I guess.

[icon_uk]

Darn, you beat me to the Agent "!", he comes as no surprise, reference.

Well played scans_daily, well played...

[filthysize]

The wizard never said that "Shazam" is an acronym in the new origin, I believe.

[icon_uk]

Well, that would be.... depressing.

[cypherfdp]

Have any of their names been stated? It could be Amaterasu.

[icon_uk]

It could be, but Ameratsu has never been part of the S-H-A-Z-A-M construct.

[skemono]

Amaterasu is female, and that person would not appear to be. Perhaps Susanoo.

Of course, since Japanese doesn't have an alphabet like English, that would make the magic word Suhazam.

[cypherfdp]

Turns out I'm a dummy and was looking at the girl second from the left. I completely forgot about the samurai guy.

[akodo_rokku]

This is the same "council of the immortals" or whatever that made Phantom Stranger, Question, and Pandora, is it not?

[kenn_el]

Possibly more to do with counterbalancing the Seven Deadlies than with the letters in the SHAZAM name?

[superfangirl1]

You know with all the trouble that Black Adam giving Billy. I will love and enjoy the gratifying butt kicking he will give Adam later in the story arc.

[silverhammerman]

Is casting Black Adam as an angry/scared kid a new idea? I mean I really like the idea, but I feel like it's been done before.

Things definitely seem to be picking up though so that's good, I just wish the story weren't proceeding at such a glacial pace, I feel like we've spent forever seeing Billy whine and moan and try to avoid being a damn hero.

[espanolbot]

Although Black Adam as a child hasn't been done before, the idea of evil versions of Billy and freedie have happened before, with the previous versions of Ibac and Sabbac, who were essentially Captain Marvel and CM3 but with demons giving them powers instead of Gods.

[espanolbot]

Thought that they were going to take the Conan route for a second there, with Adam toiling in the mines until he became strong, overthrew Ibac and was chosen by the council to be their champion due to how heroic he was, only to fall to the darkside when his new family is murdered.

...That's how I would have done it at least. Rather than him being straight up evil or an angry child, I'd have Adam as a man whose actions are a thousand or more years out of date. Conan the Barbarian is a hero in his setting, for example, but in others he's a thief and mass murderer.

[flint_marko]

I have a feeling Black Adam will actually be an adult; he got his powers as a kid, but as he grew older he became corrupted and that's why the Wizard imprisoned him. Billy just assumed he was still a kid and ran off before Francesca could finish.

Rather than him being straight up evil or an angry child, I'd have Adam as a man whose actions are a thousand or more years out of date. Conan the Barbarian is a hero in his setting, for example, but in others he's a thief and mass murderer.

I think that's how he's being written. Like when he dropped the CEO out the window because he thought he was a pharaoh who was living off slaves.