DCU Comic Book Reviews

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #25

Black Adam and Isis, Part Three: Family Feuds

May 2009

Written by Geoff Johns and Jerry Ordway

Pencils by Jerry Ordway

Inks by Jerry Ordway and Bob Wiacek

Cover by Alex Ross

Synopsis

In the Rock Of Eternity, Mary Marvel infused with the powers of Black Adam forces her brother Billy to take a part of her power.  In Khandaq, Black Adam and Isis battle against the Justice Society.  Black Adam wants to be left alone.  Isis wants revenge and attempts to kill the people of Khandaq in order to start anew. Black Adam tries to stop her.   In the Rock of Finality, Billy and Mary’s father take Jay Garrick to see the wizard Shazam.  Meanwhile, Billy and Mary arrive in Khandaq to join Isis in the fight against the Justice Society.  Suddenly, the statue of the wizard of Shazam appears.  Billy’s father tells Black Adam he can give his power to Shazam, who can then save Isis.  Black Adam agrees.  Once free, Shazam takes away the power from Isis, Mary, and Billy.  He then casts Adam and Isis into statues before he disappears.  Later, Billy and Mary search for the Rock of Eternity with no luck.  They remain powerless.  In New York City, the Justice Society invite Atom Smasher to join the team.  In Khandaq, a mysterious figure appears near the statues of Adam and Isis.  He has his own champions to play with.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Overall, this was a decent issue that fits well into the first part of the storyarc and delivers on various threads Ordway had been weaving into the story.  However, is this the end of the story?  Sure seems as if there is a whole lot more of the Marvel story that still needs to be told.  This issue is not an ending, even if you ignore the cliffhanger.  I mean, Billy and Mary are back together, searching for the Rock Of Eternity.  Shazam is back and seemingly pissed off with what happened to him.  Hell, Freddy is somewhere out there, unaware that Shazam has painted a target on his back.  There is a lot of set-up for more stories to be told.  Yet, next issue brings the return of Geoff Johns for his final hurrah before the new writing team of Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges take the reins.  This suggests that, at least for the moment, the Marvel story is finished for this book, but it doesn’t seem to be finished for the DC universe at large.  So, did Ordway plan to tell more and was forced to shorten the story because of the editorial edicts with the changing of the writing teams or does the story appear as it was planned with the idea of setting up some future mini-series?  Either way, I am annoyed.  I think if you start a story, you should finish it or at least put the characters in a place where they can be used again.  And while the Marvels can be used again, whoever wants to use them will need to explain how Billy got his powers back.  So, really this storyarc didn’t really accomplish its goal, leaving us with half a story.  Hopefully, at some point, DC will let Ordway finish the damn story. 

Thinking about it, this story was written more to change the status of the Marvel family than to tell a story of the Marvels within the Justice Society of America.  In fact, I think making this part of the JSA book hinders the story more than helps.  Ordway (with help from Johns would be my guess) had to incorporate elements of the JSA and questions on the team, scenes that ate up chunks of pages that could’ve been given to the Marvel saga.  This really should’ve been a miniseries.  Or if DC wanted to put this in the JSA book, then it might’ve been better to use a stand-alone issue for the questions on the JSA team and let the Marvel saga appear on its own. 

Actually, I think the lack of an ending may have been due to the upcoming Justice League spinoff (briefly mentioned here) that features Freddy in a prominent role.  So maybe DC is holding off on changing the status quo until that mini-series is completed because it look bad if Freddy appears as Shazam (based on what happened in the Trials of Shazam!) after things had changed him back to the character of Captain Marvel Jr. (which is where I assume DC is headed). 

An odd note:  the costume that Mary Marvel is shown wearing on the cover does not this issue.  Instead, we get the J.G. Jones version from Final Crisis.  So either Alex Ross didn’t particularly care to paint Jones’ costume or he did it long before the costume in Final Crisis appeared.  Either way, why did Ross have to go with that angle for the drawing?

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