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| The Marvel Family #50 |
Professor Thorne reappears in Shazam! #16 in the story, "The Man Who Stole Justice!" Thorne has hatched a new evil plot, but this time he is not stealing speech, he is stealing justice! Professor Thorne wants to get his revenge on Judge Pleasant who had sentenced him to 25 years in jail for his speech stealing crime! Of course, he was creating and perfecting this plan while in jail.
How does Thorne steal justice? He removes the statue of Lady Justice outside of the courthouse and replaces it with a statue of Injustice (one of the 7 Deadly Enemies of Man). But this is no ordinary statue as it transmits vibrations to Judge Pleasant's mind making him reverse justice by releasing the guilty and penalizing the innocent. Even Captain Marvel himself is sent to jail by Judge Pleasant!
While everything seems to go according to plan and Professor Thorne is enjoying his revenge, he forgets to factor in the fortitude of Captain Marvel! Cap destroys the statue of Injustice and captures Professor Thorne once again.
I enjoyed reading this story and seeing a villain brought back from Captain Marvel's golden age. I appreciated the continuity from The Marvel Family #50 to this issue of Shazam! Professor Thorne made a brief come-back in his life of crime only to be thwarted by the come-back of the World's Mightiest Mortal, Captain Marvel!
I love this little story, and the entire Shazam #16 100 Page Spectacular. I really enjoyed the freedom that the 20 years in suspended animation offered to the creative staff. They got the rare chance to keep the core cast of characters the same as they were in the Golden Age, while being able to age the tertiary characters, like the villain Professor Thorne, in real world time. It's really neat that you get Thorne serving the full term of his 25 year sentence (well close anyway, 24 years between this issue and his appearance in Marvel Family #50), that's a really neat dynamic that you can't find with any other hero in any other era. It offers a more compelling story premise than say the Joker escaping from Arkham for the 500th time in a sliding 5 year timeline.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend Shazam #16, it has a lot of great content and some fantastic Golden Age reprints, even though they missed a great opportunity to include the reprint of the original adventure starring Thorne.
If you're going to pick and choose which issues to buy from this run, I'd really recommend starting with all of the 100 Page Spectaculars (Shazam #8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17).
Great post Jeff!
Shazam! #16 is one of my favorites! I agree with you - I like how they kept the continuity between the Marvel Family comic and Shazam!
ReplyDeleteI love all of my Shazam 100 page comics. Its like owning the original Fawcetts
ReplyDeleteOne thing I also liked about this story was how they updated Billy's wardrobe. This was actually the first SHAZAM! Comic I ever read, so seeing him in the hip leisure jacket and later with the open collar sticking out over the vest was completely natural to this Son of the Seventies.
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