Shazam* and the Light in the Darkness

The Multiversity: Thunderworld Adventures #1
“Captain Marvel and the Day that Never Was!”
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Cameron Stewart
Colorist: Nathan Fairbairn
Letterer: Steve Wands
Cover: Cameron Stewart
Editor: Rickey Purdin
Group Editor: Eddie Berganza
Released: Dec. 17, 2014

After buying multiple copies of the same issues of “Alpha Flight” and Peter David's “Aquaman,” I finally wised up and started keeping a list of the comics I was missing from my collection. It's also where I add individual issues I want to pick up after reading stories from the library, Hoopla or Marvel Unlimited.

Among the entries I crossed off my list a while back was “The Multiversity: Thunderworld Adventures” #1, a one-shot from Grant Morrison's much-anticipated 2014-15 Multiversity series, which appealed to me because a) Morrison was writing it and b) multiverse.**

I don't remember many details from the overall story, which could be due to the passage of time or the fact that it was written by Morrison, whose work I tend to enjoy, even if I'm a little slow in following it. I also wasn't 100% sure why this particular issue, featuring the original Captain Marvel, who I don't dislike but also don't have a particular affinity, was the only one I'd made it a point to add to my collection.

So, with “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” in theaters and me overdue for another blog post, I thought I'd find out.

The story opens at the Rock of Eternity with a terrific old school comic book title: “Captain Marvel and the Day that Never Was!” Dramatic narration by the wizard Shazam (before DC just gave up on having a character with “Marvel” in his name and made that the hero's name too) gives way to grumpy-old-man narration by the same wizard. Before things get too cynical, he discovers a new day on the calendar, Sivanaday, and the Rock is attacked by – you guessed it – the Shaggy Man.

No, wait, it's Dr. Sivana, and it looks like Sivanaday is also Take Your Kids to Work Day, because he's got his two sons and daughter in tow. In addition to creating an eighth day of the week, he's also figured out how to scientifically duplicate Captain Marvel's powers, with which his children are imbued when they say his name.

Looking like dollar store versions of the Marvel Family, this trio heads to Fawcett City, where young Billy Batson is reporting live on timequakes striking the city … and talking to a fading version of himself claiming to be from the future. Soon, Present, Not-Fading Billy says the wizard's name and transforms into Captain Marvel to battle the Super Sivanas.

We learn Sivana got help from his counterparts on alternate Earths, in part thanks to messages between the worlds in the comics that make up the Multiversity series. Reality in one world is a comic book in the other, and Sivana is getting his intel from “The Multiversity: The Society of Super-Heroes: Conquerors of Counter-World,” set on an Earth whose inhabitants aren't into the whole brevity thing. and ties in to the overall Multiversity story by reading one of the previous issues. The idea of worlds communicating with one another through comics was central to the Multiversity story... but that's about all I remember.

The Sivanas on Multiple Earths pooled their resources to collect enough of the magical mineral Suspendium to make the new day. He and his robot henchmen plan to steal even more by mining the Rock of Eternity. As they dig out their treasure and turn the Rock into a cubicle-filled, office-like setting, the wizard worries depletion of the mystical resource will result in the loss of magic and “the secret heart of the universe.” Sivana's just planning on stealing time so he can sell it.

The odds are evened in Fawcett City when Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. join the fight. It's a combination of brute force and wits that turn the tide, as Junior knocks one Sivana to the Moon with a crane and gets their female foe to turn human again by pretending to fall for her extensive physical attributes and asking her name.

The elder Sivana wasn't putting all his eggs in the basket of his progeny, however. He unleashes the massive Monster Society on the city, all in an effort to keep the Big Red Cheese*** from returning to the Rock. But he's got backup too, in the form of the Lieutenant Marvels and talking tiger Tawkie Tawny, equipped with jetpacks and ray guns and ready to kick kaiju tail.

As Captain Marvel makes his way to the wizard and through Sivana's robots, we get a better look at some of the alternate Sivanas, including one in a Hannibal Lecter mask who hails from a much darker reality than this brightly colored world and one who is just a scientist with no villainous aspirations.

The one who's orchestrating the whole plot, Earth-5 Sivana, says his own name and transforms into Black Sivana, who actually looks like a cross between Black Adam and, well, the shaved Shaggy Man from Morrison's JLA run. Captain Marvel transforms back into Billy long enough to use some of the crystallized time Sivana's collecting and be the time traveler he saw when he entered the story.

That's how he clued himself in to the fact that Sivanaday is just eight hours because the doc's multiversal counterparts cut corners to keep more Suspendium for themselves. While yelling at his erstwhile allies, Sivana shouts his name once more and reverts to human form – unable to transform again because his artificial day is over.

Captain Marvel returns to Earth where his allies have defeated the monsters. He flips through the Society of Super-Heroes issue Sivana was reading from and throws it away, disgusted by the dark content.

And that jogged my memory. I wanted this issue because it was so much fun and so light amid darker entries in the story.

The optimistic nature is no accident, nor is it a throwaway homage to an earlier time. That masked Sivana? He's too dark for this reality, but not for a lot of modern comics or even, as I recall, the rest of Multiversity. His blood-soaked mask and obsession with Mary Marvel are a stark, intentional juxtaposition with the throwback story and tone, which Morrison seems to be saying are just as valid as grim and gritty. He makes the story simple to follow on the surface, though there are complex multiversal equations underlying it all. Stewart's art is impeccable in creating this atmosphere.

Naturally, I'm curious to reread the rest of the story, and I probably will at some point. But Thunderworld Adventures is enough fun to stand on its own and shine a light in the darkness that too often covers the contemporary comics landscape.

* – He's Captain Marvel in this story and to me, but I used the revised name for the search engines.

** – Listen, I liked the Multiverse before it was cool.

*** – That's Captain Marvel's nickname, though I can see why they opted to go with Shazam for the movie.