Reviews

Shazam! A Celebration of 75 Years by C.C. Beck, Bill Parker

nijhum's review against another edition

4.0

Good book for those who don't know anything about Shazam!

jbleyle63's review against another edition

3.0

Good historical survey of 75 years of The Big Red Cheese proved an entertaining followup to the popular 2019 movie.

wolvie616's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

fungivibes's review

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

sonshinelibrarian's review against another edition

4.0

I like these sort of "best of" collections when I don't know much about a comic. I really liked the essay excerpts that explained the evolution and history of Captain Marvel/Shazam over the years. However, it can be frustrating to just get part of a story and not know how it began or how it ends.

johnd17efd's review

5.0

This might be the best of the DC "A Celebration of XX Yers" collections, with nearly a third of book dedicated to the Otto Binder / C. C. Beck era stories originally published by Fawcett. Re-reading those stories, even as dated as they seem, it's easy to see why DC panicked over the character. (No, it wasn't because he was a Superman rip-off, its because he was outselling Superman).

The newer stories are mixed bag. DC hasn't really know quite what to do with the Fawcett characters in any of their Post-Crisis continuities. Captain Marvel is, more than many Golden Age characters, an artifact of his time and world; and forcing him into the modern DCU era just feels wrong at times (although Jerry Ordway did a bang-up job trying to make the character work during his tenure with him).