Some thoughts about Shazam #5

Shazam needs his family more than ever.

Billy is about to die in space unless his family save him but even if they manage to defeat their enemies, there might be a much bigger challenge ahead involving one of his Billy's brothers.

This worked pretty well I believe.

Mark Waid offers a content packed chapter in which he delivers quite a few surprises. The plot-progression is great since it includes many of the side characters that the writer has been introducing over the course of the series (including the space dinosaurs and intelligent gorillas which makes the read much more fun) in a logical way and while the villains are not particularly intriguing (a classic Waid weakness) they serve their purpose as a believable threat. There are also solid moments of character work for most of the cast and all of this complements the story perfectly.

If there's a complaint is that I feel like there's too much content at some points, almost like Waid needed to rush the conclusion of this storyarc and this is especially obvious once that Mary quickly figures out who is behind the weird emotional changes that Billy has been suffering later as Shazam (although I don't mind this too much since Mary is meant to be smart). However, this is mostly a nitpick for what is a very entertaining read and leads to a very interesting cliffhanger.

Dan Mora remains in art duties and his work is still amazing, delivering a lot of detail and energy in every page with a very beautiful style.

Good read, can't wait for the next one.