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The Power of Shazam! (Collected Editions) #2
The Power of Shazam!: Book 2: The Worm Turns (The Power of Shazam
The adventures of the World’s Mightiest Mortal continue! Young Billy Batson, in his superhero guise as the adult Captain Marvel, uses the powers of Shazam to face challenges in Fawcett City, New York, Venus, and the far future. Through it all, a small but terrifying new danger is inching its way closer-and this threat wants to take over the world! Collects The Power of Shazam! #13-23, The Man of Tomorrow #4, Showcase ’96 #7, The Power of Shazam! Annual #1, Superboy Plus #1, and Supergirl Plus #1.
414 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 30, 2023
5 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Ordway
920 books47 followersJeremiah "Jerry" Ordway is an American writer, penciller, inker and painter of comic books. He is known for his inking work on a wide variety of DC Comics titles, including the continuity-redefining classic Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985–1986), his long run working on the Superman titles from 1986–1993, and for writing and painting the Captain Marvel original graphic novel The Power of Shazam! (1994), and writing the on-going monthly series from 1995-1999. He has provided inks for artists such as Curt Swan, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, John Buscema and Steve Ditko.
Ordway was inspired in his childhood by Marvel Comics, and dreamed of drawing Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Avengers. (To date he has only worked on the latter.) He produced occasional work for Marvel between 1984 and 1988, then returned a decade later to write and illustrate a three-issue arc of Avengers (vol. 3) #16-18 (1999), as well as penciling the four-issue crossover mini-series Maximum Security (#1-3 and prologue Dangerous Planet) in 2000-2001.
In 1986, along with writer/artist John Byrne and writer Marv Wolfman, Ordway was one of the architects trusted with revamping Superman, in the wake of the Ordway-inked continuity-redefining maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths. Launching, with a revised origin and new continuity, in Byrne's miniseries, The Man of Steel, Superman soon returned to featuring in a number of titles. After the titular title Superman was cancelled and replaced with Man of Steel, it was swiftly relaunched as Adventures of Superman, continuing the numbering of the original Superman comic, with Wolfman as writer and Ordway as primary artist.
When Wolfman departed the title, John Byrne briefly took over scriptwriting duties before Ordway assumed the mantle of writer-artist and took over the series solely. Switching from Adventures of Superman, Ordway took over as writer-artist on the companion title Superman (vol. 2) between 1989 and 1991, before later returning to Adventures.. as writer. While writing for the Superman family of titles, he helped devise the epic "Death of Superman" storyline in 1992. After seven years working on the character, Ordway largely left the Superman titles in 1993, although he would make frequent returns to the character as writer and artist throughout his career.
In 1994, Ordway masterminded the return of the original Captain Marvel to the DC Universe with the 96-page hardcover graphic novel The Power of Shazam!, which he both wrote and painted. The story saw Ordway depict the revamped origins of the former-Fawcett Comics superhero. An early example of the one-shot Original Graphic Novel, it proved to be a success, and was followed by an on-going monthly series, also titled The Power of Shazam! (which ran between 1995 and 1999). Ordway wrote and provided painted covers for the entire run of the regular series, as well as illustrating fill-in issues between series-regular artists Peter Krause and Mike Manley. Towards the end of the series run, he again took on the dual role of writer & artist.
For Image Comics, Ordway co-created the character WildStar (with Al Gordon) in 1993, and published his creator-owned one-shot The Messenger in July 2000.
Ordway was inspired in his childhood by Marvel Comics, and dreamed of drawing Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Avengers. (To date he has only worked on the latter.) He produced occasional work for Marvel between 1984 and 1988, then returned a decade later to write and illustrate a three-issue arc of Avengers (vol. 3) #16-18 (1999), as well as penciling the four-issue crossover mini-series Maximum Security (#1-3 and prologue Dangerous Planet) in 2000-2001.
In 1986, along with writer/artist John Byrne and writer Marv Wolfman, Ordway was one of the architects trusted with revamping Superman, in the wake of the Ordway-inked continuity-redefining maxiseries Crisis on Infinite Earths. Launching, with a revised origin and new continuity, in Byrne's miniseries, The Man of Steel, Superman soon returned to featuring in a number of titles. After the titular title Superman was cancelled and replaced with Man of Steel, it was swiftly relaunched as Adventures of Superman, continuing the numbering of the original Superman comic, with Wolfman as writer and Ordway as primary artist.
When Wolfman departed the title, John Byrne briefly took over scriptwriting duties before Ordway assumed the mantle of writer-artist and took over the series solely. Switching from Adventures of Superman, Ordway took over as writer-artist on the companion title Superman (vol. 2) between 1989 and 1991, before later returning to Adventures.. as writer. While writing for the Superman family of titles, he helped devise the epic "Death of Superman" storyline in 1992. After seven years working on the character, Ordway largely left the Superman titles in 1993, although he would make frequent returns to the character as writer and artist throughout his career.
In 1994, Ordway masterminded the return of the original Captain Marvel to the DC Universe with the 96-page hardcover graphic novel The Power of Shazam!, which he both wrote and painted. The story saw Ordway depict the revamped origins of the former-Fawcett Comics superhero. An early example of the one-shot Original Graphic Novel, it proved to be a success, and was followed by an on-going monthly series, also titled The Power of Shazam! (which ran between 1995 and 1999). Ordway wrote and provided painted covers for the entire run of the regular series, as well as illustrating fill-in issues between series-regular artists Peter Krause and Mike Manley. Towards the end of the series run, he again took on the dual role of writer & artist.
For Image Comics, Ordway co-created the character WildStar (with Al Gordon) in 1993, and published his creator-owned one-shot The Messenger in July 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 14, 2023
I love this series so much! I really hope DC finishes collecting it as it’s so wonderful.
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January 17, 2024Jerry Ordway is the only name on the spine, but unlike the first volume, the art he provides is just for the covers; instead, interiors are from a selection of nine pencillers and five inkers, among them Mike Manley and Brett Breeding, both of whom sound like they should be making their living in a very different field. Admittedly, some of the profusion is because of the crossover issues from various Superman books, including Superboy and Supergirl when they had odd and easily forgotten situations (for him, Hawaii and art with those really thick black outlines that make characters look like they're not really in the scene, a perverse achievement in comics; for her, some sort of astral entity bonded to a small-town teenage human with a drunk cop dad). The Superman proper appearances are fun, though - this is very much his soap opera era (Bibbo!), and the plot revolving around literal demon drugs and ending with the world's two strongest heroes arm-wrestling is exactly the right level of corny for me. The actual Shazam issues, on the other hand, remain a little too grounded for my taste, a bit embarrassed by the primary colours and goofy ideas of their star. As the subtitle suggests, Mr Mind is the big antagonist of the volume, but even he gets lumbered with a whole backstory as part of a Venusian hive organism when one little worm with a voicebox is just much more fun. Not that there's no fun to be had here - see Plastic Man's Wolverine riffs - but it's not enough to offset the halfhearted jumping of the realism bandwagon. Or maybe I'm just reacting badly to the ongoing story of orphan Billy being mistreated and ripped off by his supposed guardian, a plot which I always find distressing, but which is at least easier to stomach in bounded formats with restitution before too long. By the end of the volume we're on to one-shot stories that seem to be relaxing a little (though the very end is from Legends Of The Dead Earth, an annuals event I don't think I've run into before and which mainly feels like DC One Million done wrong). All the same, I'm not sure I'd persevere with any Volume 3 DC may or may not deign to publish.
July 1, 2023
THUNDERINGLY mediocre.
Lacks any attempt at subtext, theme, nuance, or wit; it's the textbook definition of "what you see is what you get", and what you get isn't very friggin' much. Frankly, these stories are too simplistic and vapid for adult readers-- but they're also far too pointlessly grim and relentlessly horny to really feel appropriate for children. And to add insult to injury, it also includes the deeply unpleasant and inappropriate Supergirl Plus Mary Marvel one-shot that I ranted about in my review of Supergirl by Peter David.
A tedious and listless read that bungles all the potential of a character like Captain Marvel. This suuuuuuuuuuucks.
Lacks any attempt at subtext, theme, nuance, or wit; it's the textbook definition of "what you see is what you get", and what you get isn't very friggin' much. Frankly, these stories are too simplistic and vapid for adult readers-- but they're also far too pointlessly grim and relentlessly horny to really feel appropriate for children. And to add insult to injury, it also includes the deeply unpleasant and inappropriate Supergirl Plus Mary Marvel one-shot that I ranted about in my review of Supergirl by Peter David.
A tedious and listless read that bungles all the potential of a character like Captain Marvel. This suuuuuuuuuuucks.
December 11, 2024
DC had tried a few times tying in Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family into the bigger DC Universe to little to no success.
Finally, here we have some pretty, darn-well handled tying in of these characters with the Super family!
As well as appearances and explanations of the Marvel Familys place in this world!
We get continued fun villains like Sivana, Arson Fiend, and Captain Nazi in here too that each truly push the Captain Marvels as characters!
Additionally the future elseworld tale at the end ended up being really interesting too!
Finally, here we have some pretty, darn-well handled tying in of these characters with the Super family!
As well as appearances and explanations of the Marvel Familys place in this world!
We get continued fun villains like Sivana, Arson Fiend, and Captain Nazi in here too that each truly push the Captain Marvels as characters!
Additionally the future elseworld tale at the end ended up being really interesting too!
Review of advance copy received from Autre
The first half with Mr. Mind is good (not as good as the first book though) but the second half is a series of one-shot stories in team-up with other heroes.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews