Shazam! -- The Monster Society of Evil #4 (of 4)

One-sentence summary: How can Jeff Smith be so good?

I won't lie about it; I love Jeff Smith. I loved Bone since I was a kid and it was relatively new, and it's one of the few comics I'm pretty certain I have every issue of, even if a couple here and there aren't the original printings (that weird time period with wizard, you know), and it's definitely the only comic where I own the individual comics but have still bought all the hardcover trades. It's a beautiful story beautifully told. But this isn't about Bone; this is Shazam! And, as a sidenote, kudos to DC for giving Jeff Smith pretty much free rein on this; it shows, and it works.

Captain Marvel is the perfect character for Jeff Smith to do work on; someone who's a classic superhero, but possesses all the innocence of a child because, well, he is one. Reducing his age even further, or at least his height, Smith's created a version of Billy Batson who's being overlooked by society in every way, the only adult in the world who notices him (initially) the vile Dr. Sivana. Size plays a vital (almost said big) role in the storytelling in Shazam, and never is that made clearer than in the last issue.

This is the final chapter of the Shazam series, but I highly recommend the trade on this one, or just buying the issues. Seeing Smith's work with color is somehow even better than I'd think; he's just an artist who has perfected his style and can seemingly do anything with it. The final fight scene is, well, ridiculous and remarkable and reality-ripping. He has the right ingredients in it to make a good, anyone-can-enjoy-this superhero story. Are there explanations given? Sure, for some things; but they're not always good ones, and that's part of it. I don't need to know where Mr. Mind comes from, or how he built these machines, or anything like that -- it's happened, and now Billy Batson has to deal with it. Jeff Smith knows the right mixture of explanation and ignorance that makes it a magical superhero tale (literally, I mean). Simply fantastic.

This book's highly recommended to pretty much anyone. There's a lot to say about it, but suffice to say that it's very, very good.