Book: Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil Author/Artist: Jeff Smith
Audience: Tween to Teen
In a Nutshell: a fresh look at Captain Marvel
I've never read any other Captain Marvel comics, so I don't have anything to compare this to in the pantheon. But I like Jeff Smith (of Bone fame), and I liked both the bright, appealing art and the story here. This incarnation of Marvel has the aw-shucks charm of an Old School superhero without descending into total cheese ball territory. And some people have said that the megalomaniacal Attorney General character bears a striking resemblance to Dick Cheney, but Smith denies any intentionality there. ;) The world it's set in is definitely influenced by the current state of the union, with a "Heartland Security" division flexing increasingly militant power. Aside from the political stuff, the story of orphaned Billy and the superhero he becomes with a magic word, and the crazy monsters and threats to the space-time continuum that he and his friends fight, is solid comic book fare. The bad guys swear once in a while, but overall I'd put this in the same all-ages appeal category as Bone.
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