scans_daily | Justice League #21

Shazam shares his powers with his foster siblings, turning them all into Marvels (which was already posted).

The seven deadly sins find the most rotten man in the city, Mr. Bryer, and turn them into their host, making him a giant demonic monster.

Shazam tells the others to help evacuate the streets while he goes after Black Adam.

While the others fight the demonic Bryer, Shazam fights Black Adam. They end up at the zoo, and the tiger Tawny attacks Adam. Shazam shares his powers with Tawny, making him a giant.

Shazam and his siblings start to lose their powers, and Black Adam tells Shazam that he enchanted his animal avatar incorrectly, and that he's damaged the spells he's already cast.

Billy transforms back into Shazam. The Seven Sins sense Black Adam has been destroyed and leave Bryer, leaving him naked and powerless.

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From:

zabilac

A caterpillar is the new bad guy?

From:

flint_marko

He's Mister Mind, a classic Captain Marvel villain.

From:

auggie18

Don't underestimate Mister Mind. He's the world's wickedest worm and he can really mess people up.

From:

icon_uk

That's "The World's Wickedest Worm" thank you very much!

From:

espanolbot

He ate Hypertime!

From:

crinos

Indeed. Mister Mind is the Mastermind behind the Monster Society of Evil, a Golden age story which is one of the first epic, multipart stories in a comic, and also one of the first, if not the very first, Villain team up stories.

He assembles all of Captain Marvel's enemies, as well as a veritable army of monsters, and tries to destroy Captain Marvel. At first we don't know what Mind looks like, as he communicates through a radio, but after Captain Marvel breaks into his base we discover that he's a tiny alien world.

And he kept going after that! Mothers told children stories about Mister Mind to Scare them. Big tough guys were terrified of little worms thinking it may be him. Mister Mind was a seriously bad mofo.

These days he's mainly categorized as being a powerful mentalist. His primary schtick aside from heading the Monster society is to crawl into people's ears Yeerk style and control them.

From:

q99

Yea, in JSA he took over... Brainwave Jr., right?

Plus he was a big bad in 52 (the original, awesome series)

From:

crinos

Yeah, but I largely know him from the Monster Society thing.

The old Fawcett comics featuring him are in the public domain if anyone cares to track them down (Bit of a trigger warning though: These comics were pre civil rights movement, so their portrayal of African American characters is... well... yeaaaaah.)

And from scans here I know there was a time he fought Luthor, but in that one he was the size of a small dog, not a worm (And I thought he was adorable.)

And then of course there was the Jeff Smith miniseries, where Mr. Mind was more like a snake than a worm.

From:

jlroberson

Didn't the enemies of the Justice Society (including Vandal Savage, Per Degaton, the Gambler and others) team up prior to that?

From:

silverhammerman

They're available free digitally from The Digital Comics Museum, as a download!

http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=3

That said, I think Captain Marvel appeared in several titles from Fawcett simultaneously, so reading them in publication order might be bit of a headache.

(That link leads to the Fawcett Comics page, so all the related and unrelated titles from them are their too, there doesn't appear to be a page devoted to just stuff featuring Captain Marvel.)

Edited Date: 2013-06-28 06:03 am (UTC)

From:

md84

Mister Mind is one dangerous, dangerous villain despite his size. There's a reason a bug managed to be one of Captain Marvel's, a superhero with the powers of seven gods, archvillains.

From:

walkingthroughforest

I actually really like how this arc concluded. One of the best re-imaginings of the reboot.

From:

kenn_el

Absolutely! I forgive them everything (except maybe Phantom Stranger) at this point because this is what I'd been hoping for with the series. I assumed the Flashpoint Shazam (and that may still be what occurs in the Trinity War), but having individual Shazams was pretty darn terrific! (I still miss not-blond Freddy though)

From:

jlroberson

I forgive them nothing, and in fact read less and less DC with every month, but this turned out far better than it threatened to be at first, and all the stuff that seemed like wrong turns--especially with Billy--in retrospect work. It does make sense, if he still thinks as Billy, that the first thing he'd think to do is have fun and make a buck off it--that's what Peter Parker did at first too. And Sivana is looking his proper self now, so I'm fine with it. And thank GOD that they didn't end up actually doing that awful Flashpoint thing of having them be all merged.

So all in all, I think it's a successful reimagining that's lighthearted enough to ring right. And a hell of a lot more entertaining than the book hosting it.

From:

jaybee3

It's also a good of diluting the Shazam power so as to not make him superior to Superman-level (which he should be at full power). I know Ordway did the whole power-sharing thing with Mary and Freddy back in the Power of Shazam thing but it was either treated as a joke (Billy losing a arm wrestling match to Supes because Mary/Freddy said "Shazam" and robbed him of power) or quickly forgotten (generally whenever they wanted to have a Superman/Captain Marvel fight). Maybe this time they'll stick to it.

From:

jaybee3

I just hope giving the Marvel Family extra members doesn't result in them being used as cannon fodder in some future crossover. That is DC's M.O. and we know they have no problem killing off little kids if it gets the readers to "feel something" (i.e. Lian Harper).

From:

kenn_el

I doubt it. If nothing else the "New" DCU is all about promoting diversity of appearance, and each of the new kids represents a desirable minority. Freddy and Mary had best watch their backs, though.

From:

benuben

I should be noted that supposed "diversity of appearence" came with giving two (three if you count Ma Hunkel) fat heroines supermodel figures, so let's not set our hopes too high.

From:

flint_marko

Amanda Waller and who else?

From:

shadowpsykie

did the other Marvels keep thier powers?

also was this issue dedicated to them?

From:

darkknightjrk

No--apparently Billy cast the spell incorrectly in ciphering his powers to the others, so when he gave power to Tawney, the spell quickly broke apart and left everyone other than Shazam powerless. The assumption, though, is that when Billy figures out how to do the spell right, the others would probably have a portion of his power at their call.

From:

silverhammerman

Mister Mind and Tawny are awesome, though I wish DC had the sincerity to just make him a talking tiger.

Not sure I like Black Adam dying right out of the gate, but then again I'm soured in general on superhero stories where people die, thanks to a certain movie.

From:

crinos

To be fair, this is how his first appearance ended as well: They tricked him into saying Shazam and he turned to dust from old age. It carried over to the Brave and Bold cartoon and to the animated short DC put out a while back with Cap and Supes.

From:

jlroberson

Yes, what happens to him here is entirely traditional. And then he wasn't even around for decades. Most of what we think of as Black Adam now is a modern invention that's existed mainly since Jerry Ordway.

From:

flint_marko

He's not going to stay dead for long; he's getting one of the Forever Evil issues, and he's appeared in art for the Trinity War.

From:

darkknightjrk

"Mister Mind and Tawny are awesome, though I wish DC had the sincerity to just make him a talking tiger."

Well, Adam did say that Billy did the spell incorrectly, so who knows what would happen when Billy does the spell right?

From:

jaybee3

Not a bad finale (Black Adam won't stay dead, Johns loves him too much). I still don't see the justification for the beginning of Billy the Juvenile Delinquent to get him to this point.

From:

darkknightjrk

"I still don't see the justification for the beginning of Billy the Juvenile Delinquent to get him to this point."

Character development?

From:

jlroberson

Precisely. It's better if Billy LEARNS to do what's right and gets past his bitterness, rather than simply being nice and perfect from the outset. It makes sense in retrospect. There's a character arc and I think it works nicely.

From:

lieut_kettch

I'm guessing there's a version of Theo Adam in the Nu52 form Bladam to take over.

From:

freezer

But doesn't tricking Adam into killing himself make Billy less of a hero? #injusticelogic #MoSlogic

From:

akodo_rokku

It's hard to tell if Billy expected that to happen. He may have just thought that making Adam face his real self again would make him come to his senses.

From:

md84

TBF, this is (as has been mentioned above) exactly how Black Adam's first appearances ended in all of his other incarnations, so it's consistent if nothing else. And like akodo_rokku mentioned, it's not clear if Billy knew that would happen.

And this guy murdered his own nephew for power, making him the least sympathetic version of Black Adam yet. He'll be back of course, but I almost wish he would stay dead.

From:

big_daddy_d

Ooo Mr. Mind is back!

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Justice League #21

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