Just Imagine: Stan Lee and Gary Frank's Shazam

Just Imagine Stan Lee with Gary Frank Creating Shazam
Writer: Stan Lee
Pencils: Gary Frank
Inks: Sandra Hope
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorist: Chris Chuckry
Cover: Frank and Hope, colors by Alex Sinclair

“On the Street”
Plot: Michael Uslan
Dialogue: Lee and Uslan
Pencils and inks: Sergio Aragones
Letterer: Oakley
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Editor: Mike Carlin
Released: March 27, 2002

The Shazam that Stan Lee and Gary Frank came up with is a magical monster with definite Hulk vibes, but some might not even notice him on the cover behind his blond bombshell co-star as rendered by Frank.

However, Carla Noral looks positively Amish compared to the character who opens the issue: perennial villainess Morgana Le Fey, whose attire can scarcely even be called attire. It's an elaborate contraption of material seemingly designed only to obscure the bits that simply must be covered in order for the book to avoid a mature readers label. Not lust but sheer confusion over her getup may distract readers from her attempt to kill the wizard Merlin, who punishes her by trapping her in a tree and then creating a magical-but-dangerous being to protect the world from Morgana when she is freed.

Centuries later, it's the present day* and Carla and her fellow Interpol agent Robert Rogers** are in India, searching for a terrorist named Gunga Khan by... asking around at a market? To be fair, having never searched for a terrorist on behalf of Interpol, maybe this is the way to go. Or maybe Carla and Rob are the junior varsity, and more experienced agents are searching elsewhere? That seems unlikely given that Carla is a black belt in something and so capable that Rob feels a little embarrassed to be her partner. At least, that's what he tells her to avoid confessing that he's in love with her.

They stumble onto a street magician, who is actually Merlin, wearing about as much as Morgana did all those years ago. His magic comes with a green-tinged mist, like the energy that factored into so many other Just Imagine origins. He's jumped by some masked men who demand to know his secrets, prompting Carla to intervene. Rob tries to help but is stunned by the blunt end of a knife.

Carla runs to get help for the dying magician, who begs Rob not to forget the name “Shazam” before dying and fading away in a puff of green smoke. His passing is sensed by Morgana, who is hanging out in L.A. at the Church of Eternal Empowerment with the wrong Rev. Dominic Darrk. She's wearing more fabric than the last time we saw her but still makes cover Carla look like a Puritan grandmother.

Having witnessed a murder and found no clues to the whereabouts of the international terrorist they're hunting, Robert and Carla decide to... dress to the nines and go to dinner at their hotel. He's wearing a tux and she's wearing the teal number from the cover when they're attacked by the masked men from the marketplace. One of them gets the drop on Carla with chloroform, then they tie Rob up and throw him into a lake when he won't reveal any secrets told to him by the dying magician.

As he's blaming his predicament on the magician's last word, Rob manages to think or maybe say it underwater, transforming him into a magenta monstrosity that apparently was Merlin's ace in the hole against Morgana. Confused, the beast lumbers around until it utters the word that triggered the transformation and turns back into Rob.

Carla has been taken before the masked men's leader, who turns out to be Gunga Khan, a Caucasian Bond villain type who is rather racist and chose the name to strike fear into “the hearts of my future victims.” His plot? To use a satellite to blast the United States with a shrink ray, reducing its populace to the size of insects. As evil plans go, it's more ambitious than time traveling to steal stuff.

Robert is stumbling around the city, testing out his new powers. We learn that Shazam can sprout wings when he needs them and has really thin skin, metaphorically speaking. He doesn't want people thinking he's a freak and gets so upset he refers to himself in the third person, turning back into Rob. This happens just in time for him to overhear a couple of Gunga Khan's flunkies talking, and he transforms back into Shazam to scare them into spilling the beans on their boss' location.

Shazam bursts into Gunga Khan's mountain base but is quickly subdued by... I guess it's a shotgun Taser? The electrical current so confuses the magic monster that he begins to do Khan's bidding, standing guard over the cell where Carla was just about to escape.

He's broken out of his reverie when a henchman drooling over Carla mentions Khan's plan to destroy America. Shazam doesn't like that and frees Carla. They rush into combat with Khan's men, Carol kicking plenty of butt with her unspecified martial arts skills.

Khan activates his shrink ray, but Shazam remembers he can fly. In a scene reminiscent of the finale of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, where (spoilers for an unreleased movie that, yes, I watched on a friend's bootleg copy) the Torch intercepts the world's slowest-moving laser, the magic monster outraces the beam and smashes the satellite. He comes back down to Earth in time to free Carla, who wasn't able to defeat all 12 of Khan's henchmen single-handedly, then redirects the shrink ray to miniaturize the bad guys.

When Carla asks her ally's name and he answers, he transforms back into Rob. On a subsequent train ride, she suggests they keep his transformation a secret, then reveals a secret of her own – the attraction is mutual. On the last page, Morgana references Darrk's master plan, but he says the emergence of a new player may cause a delay.

The On the Street entry features a number of nods to the classic Shazam, which was both the name of a wizard and the magic word that transformed young Billy Batson into the original Captain Marvel. This story focuses on a boy named Billy, the child of Peace Corps members who died while serving in New Delhi. Ambassador Batson tells Billy his parents were true heroes and assures him even people without powers can make a difference.

Billy takes the message to heart when his friend Zubin's village is raided by the soldiers of a warlord who steal all the villagers' food. The boys sneak into the warlord's camp, free a herd of elephants and bring back the food. The ambassador rewards them with special captains' commissions in the Peace Corps, making Billy, whose surname hadn't been revealed... Captain Marvel. It's a bit of a reach, but a nice nod to the childlike perspective of the source material, with Aragones' art fitting the tone well.

As for the main story, it's a mostly solid origin tale that flips the script on a convention or two. Carla is not a damsel in distress, and Rob is not a prototypical action hero. Stan had to throw increasingly larger numbers of henchmen at her to make Carla even need Shazam's help in the first place, although, to be fair, a lot of her scenes seem more focused on reminding readers she has breasts than displaying her fighting skills.

While I've been enjoying some of the more classic art in other issues, the contemporary style of Frank, who became even bigger after this, is a great change of pace, an excellent mix of exaggerated comic features with a dash of grit.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record but some of the dialogue crosses the line from amusingly melodramatic to cornily awkward. And there are some conveniences, like Rob stumbling onto Gunga Khan's men or Shazam flying past the shrink ray. But overall, like with Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman, there are building blocks for more stories. They even left a villain alive for future reference this time.

We'll take a week or so break on Just Imagine and return with a new take on Aquaman.

* - Well, 2002. It was the present then.

** - The first alliterative name that isn't an existing DC character's since the Flash. I thought Stan was losing his touch!