The Power of Shazam! #38-41

The Power of Shazam! #38-41

Originally released in 1998

Written by Jerry Ordway

Art by Peter Krause

DC's Captain Marvel, or Shazam, has three main villains as far as I can tell - Dr. Sivana, Black Adam, and Mister Mind.  Of the three of them, I'm least familiar with Mister Mind - looking into the DC Universe Infinite app, his Golden Age debut doesn't seem to be on there, but there was a 90s storyline that included him, so I chose to read that.

Mister Mind is a green mind-controlling worm/caterpillar from the planet Venus.  Physically, he's as much of a threat as a regular worm is, but from what I've seen, the end of his debut story had him executed via electric chair for killing over 150 thousand people, with even his lawyer hoping that he'd get the death penalty.

The 90s were a time where heroes had names like Bloodwynd, Killstorm, and Deathkix, but Billy Batson kept his light-hearted nature (even his catchphrase "Holy Moley" remained intact).  His sister, Mary, was adopted by the Bromfields, and they live in the city of Fairfield, which is just outside of Fawcett City. (Fawcett Publications being the original publisher for Captain Marvel's comics)

In an interesting choice, both Billy and Mary go by the name of "Captain Marvel" while in their superpowered forms. (Freddy Freeman, who is with the Teen Titans at the time and previously went by Captain Marvel Junior, now goes by "CM3" - given that he needs to say the name "Captain Marvel" to transform, a name change makes sense)  I'm not sure how confusing it would be if people needed to refer to one of them while both were present (though their genders and different-coloured uniforms would likely make it easier), but it makes sense in hindsight - having Mary call herself "Mary Marvel" defeats the purpose of having a secret identity to some degree.

Unfortunately, the darker tone of 90s comics still managed to touch Billy's life, as Mister Mind controlled Sargent Steel, a military man with a metal arm, and used his authority to detonate a nuclear bomb in Fairfield, annihilating the city.  One of Captain Marvel's friends, Ibis, uses magic to remove the radiation after the bomb has been detonated, though he can't bring back the dead.

That's only the prelude to Mister Mind's plans, with the nuking of Fairfield seemingly done for no reason other than spite. (Superman makes a brief appearance in the aftermath, but rather frustratingly, he's seemingly only there to tell Billy off for going after an employee of the American government, and he does nothing to investigate a nuclear explosion that destroyed a whole town.  I get that it's Captain Marvel's comic, so he's not going to be overshadowed by Superman, but it seems weirdly out-of-character for Superman)  Mister Mind's full plan is to take over the minds of people around the country and nuke the entire planet.

Despite the storyline being called the Monster Society of Evil (named after Mister Mind's debut story from the Golden Age, where he gathered a whole army of villains to do his bidding), Mister Mind is the only real threat.  Sargent Steel was brainwashed by Mister Mind, there's a robot called Mister Atom that detonates to destroy Fairfield, and there's someone named Sinclair Batson (presumably a relative of Billy's) who brought Mister Mind to the area of Fawcett and Fairfield in the first place, but the group largely consists of Mister Mind's mind-controlled hosts.

It's an interesting (and nice) change to see Billy and Mary treated as equals, and Mister Mind makes for an entertaining villain, with one of his comments reminding me of a moment from Futurama.  Despite the darker start, the story ultimately ends on a happier note, revealing that the Bromfields survived. (I was relieved to find that out; I didn't know much about Fairfield, since I hadn't read the previous issues, but murdering Mary's parents with a nuclear explosion seemed rather bleak)

I thought Jerry Ordway did a good job with capturing the right tone for Shazam despite the bleak subject material at the start.  I'm not sure what the aftermath of this story will be, or how the series will address the loss of Fairfield, but I had a good time when reading the rest of the story.