The Darkseid War: Shazam #1

At the end of Justice League #45, Shazam was hit by all of the lightning bolts and became God of All Gods forever. So now a twelve year old boy is running the universe. Great. It's suddenly going to be infested with Rust Monsters, Troglodytes, and Beholders. And they'll probably all have naked breasts.

Oh wait! I misunderstood the use of "God of Gods" in the last issue of Justice League. Apparently Billy's body was simply taken over by six different gods. So instead of Solomon (who wasn't a god by why quibble?), Heracles, Atlas, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Medusa silently helping him by granting him their powers, six new gods have decided to take residence in his head and bicker constantly. One of them (the "Z" one!) is named Zonuz and he's a bad dude! Billy has to keep him in check or shit is going to go down in much the way most people don't want shit to go down. I suppose if I actually continued to read more than just the first two pages of the comic book, I would know what's going on.

Shazam doesn't know what the fuck is going on either and he's several pages ahead of me. Eventually he just says his name and lightning strikes and he's a boy again. Although he only had to say "SHAZ" to turn so I think only four of the six gods inside of him matter. There is Orange Impatient Voice and Black Strength Voice and Blue Let's Chill Voice and Floppity Fire Voice! The Wizard also continues to speak with Shaz but he's just an impotent old man. Not that all old men are impotent. But when you're an old man who lives in a place called the Rock of Eternity, I have to imagine you're compensating for something.

Okay, so I got some of the gods wrong! It was mostly wishful thinking on my part. I want a Shazam with the powers of beauty and turning asshats to stone.

After transforming, Billy has found himself bouncing around The Source visiting all the New Gods whose powers he is borrowing. They begin to tell him that Zonuz was the original God of Evil but his son defeated him. Since Darkseid keeps being referred to as the God of Evil, Zonuz must be Darkseid's father, Yuga Khan. I think he was supposed to be returning as a big player in the cosmic game according to Infinity Man and the Forever People. I wonder if all these gods now inside Billy's head are the ones who Darkseid killed when he decided to stop being a Mudgrubber? I suppose I could dig out my copy of Darkseid #1 with the radical mind-bending cover but I have no idea which white box it's in. Who knew labeling things would be so helpful?!

The second New God Billy encounters is S'ivaa. I previously referred to him as Black Strength Voice. He explains how Billy was transported to The Source between syllables while shouting his name. The gods are going to fill him with information so that he can defeat Zonuz. Billy will be facing him powerless when the lightning gets done striking.

My favorite gifts are the ones that are rubbed in my face!

The next New God Billy sasses back at is the Goddess of Impulse. If I worshiped any god, it would be the Goddess of Impulse because she's sexy and she has Rob Liefeld eyes. That doesn't mean she has the gorgeous gray-blue eyes of the putty-faced man himself! No, no. That means she has the type of comic book eyes that he loved to draw back in the nineties. That isn't particularly clear because he had a number of favorite ways to deal with eyes. The Goddess of Impulse has the kind without any pupils. The reason those were choice eyes is that you never accidentally made your character go cross-eyed (which was a common mistake when you're drawing skill-set is that of an eight grader drawing demons and anime characters on your Pee Chee folder). The other Rob Liefeld eyes choices were having one eye covered or having one eye simply be a glowing box!

I suppose I'd have to allow myself the possibility to also worship any of the Greek Gods since I'm really just looking for a god who is willing to fuck me. I'd prefer that my god fucked me while looking like Ally Sheedy around age 23. But I suppose if I can't choose, I'd take being ravaged by a swan or a willow tree.

Billy Batson doesn't spend much time with Ate the Goddess of Impulse before heading off to see H'ronmeer. Isn't he the god of Martians? Does that mean I should recognize the other gods as well?! Is Ate some kind of speed force god that was connected to Bart? Anyway, H'ronmeer is all, "Get this one, kid. Totally impresses the masses: 'Change is the only constant!" BOOM! Philosphical mic drop! KERCHING! Is that a thing the kids say? 'KERCHING'? Sometimes change can be a motherfucker to keep up with, you know?" Then Billy is all, "You think you know me? You don't know me!" And H'ronmeer is all, "This one is precocious! He might be able to defeat the father of Darkseid with his mighty talk-back!"

No! Beautiful Dreamer's dreams have all come true! The end of everything is upon us! If only Mark Moonrider had been a better lover, he could have kept her from dreaming!

Yuga Khan points out that now he can turn into Shazam and harness the power of four gods because he counts just as well as I do. Which happens to be better than the editors can count.

I suppose Zonuz was supposed to be the "Z" but the wizard couldn't handle him. So I guess it's going to be whoever the hell the "M" is to the rescue!

I think the "M" in Shazam now stands for "Malkovich". That way, Billy would be all, "You don't know what you're talking about, George. Dat lightning staff ain't a staff at all, George. It's a rod and when I says 'Shazam' it is going to attract da lightning, George. Oops! I didn't mean ta say 'Shazam,' George! I didn't mean to! Uh oh, George! I said it again! I said 'Shazam'! I didn't mean to hurt da Darkseid's father, George! I didn't mean it!"

The "M" turns out to be Mammogram the Wizard. He was originally an aboriginal thunder god before he became a big brother with Rock of Eternity's Big Brother/Big Sister program. Now he's overstepped his authority and put himself inside Billy Batson. I'm fairly certain that not entering your little brother or sister is like unwritten rule number one of the program. Hopefully it's actually a written rule. It seems like an important thing to tell candidates to the program.

Shazam is allowed to head back into Justice League #46 with all new powers and a bunch of stupid New Gods as his sources of power. Whose stupid fucking idea was this? Jesus Christ, comic books. If you're going to update an old character, do it in a way that will mean something to the new generation of comic book readers. Give Shazam the connections of Social Media! The boldness of Hip hop! The delicious naughtiness of Anal sex! The incomprehensible simplicity of Zippers! More Anal sex! And the victimhood of Millennials! That's a Shazam I'd want to read! Mostly for the zippers and the anal sex. His new costume might be a bit Gimpy but what are you going to do? Not update him in a totally inappropriate and probably offensive way?

The Darkseid War: Shazam #1 Rating: I guess the old Shazam was boring because he was an unsure foster kid with the powers of a bunch of old gods that nobody cares about anymore. But now the new Shazam is a confident bad-ass kid with the powers of a bunch of new gods that nobody cares about or has even heard of (shut up, nerds. I know you've heard of some of them. Great job. Pats on the backs for all of you. Go get your dicks sucked)! Plus he's now got the added excitement of being schizophrenic! I liked Shazam as a happy-go-lucky kid excited to be playing around in an adult's only world (not that kind of adult's only, pervert). But now it feels like the emphasis is going to be on the gods jabbering away inside of his head trying to tell him what to do. Hopefully all of the voices in his head thing was just to introduce the gods behind his new powers because I don't want to read a Shazam comic book that is an ensemble cast of voices. I don't mind when it's an ensemble because it's the Shazam Family because that includes a talking tiger. But I guess I'm stuck with whatever DC Comics slips into my drink!