Review by Frank Plowright

For the purposes of The New Champion of Shazam! Billy Batson is no longer Shazam, and because he’s sealed himself away from Earth the power he shared with other members of the Marvel family has been revoked. It leaves the orphaned Mary Bromfield able to start a new chapter by heading to college.

As cleverly written by Josie Campbell, everything changes very rapidly. While this is a new start any reader can pick up without knowing the back story, those who do will experience a pang of suspicion when a rabbit named Hoppy is introduced.

The New Champion of Shazam! is easy to love for anyone with a fondness for the light superheroics applied to the Shazam characters. How Mary is powered up again is suitably whimsical, the attractive art of Evan “Doc” Shaner is to die for, and there’s a varied and loveable supporting cast. Most importantly, although there are villains, some quite noisy, a feeling of darkness is downplayed in favour of light.

That’s partly down to Shaner. His drawings are clear, but finely composed and dripping with emotion when necessary, yet largely resolutely cheery, and because he works in colour he ensures brightness prevails. A villain with a novel superpower features, and Shaner really nails the effect.

Campbell includes versions of most characters from the Shazam movies, but due to reasons explained, Mary is the only one with super powers, and due to that she’s even stronger than usual, although it’s not something that can easily be quantified. The problem overcoming her reluctance to be a superhero again is that people are going missing in quantity, and while any smart reader’s going to guess who’s behind it before Mary does, it’s no great issue because Mary’s so well defined, and this is about her rather than perpetuating a mystery.

There’s a brief subtext about misogyny, but it’s rather undermined by the closing chapter restoring the status quo by reintroducing Billy as Shazam. That’s neatly achieved, but not as interesting as the main story, and although Caitlin Yarksy’s a good cartoonist she’s nowhere near the quality of Shaner. The ten pages are a warm-up for a 2023 DC crossover, Lazarus Planet.

Don’t concern yourself with that, though, as the main story’s almighty fun, which is what anything Shazam related ought to be, and it’s worth your money alone.