Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder Review (Judd Winick, Joshua Middleton)

First Thunder is about Superman and Captain Marvel/Shazam’s first encounter. Their nemeses Lex and Sivana team up to fight them. The usual bullshit ensues. Still awake? Not for long if you read this book! 

Judd Winick and Joshua Middleton’s book is an unimpressively generic superhero comic. Winick is on autopilot hacking out a dreary by-the-numbers script while Middleton’s art makes it look like a cheap Saturday morning cartoon.

The one exception is towards the end when Billy suffers a major loss and, being a kid, has trouble dealing with it, revealing to Superman that Captain Marvel is secretly a child. That one aspect of the story was interesting but the rest of it was the usual dull “superheroes punching stuff” ad infinitum.

Superman/Shazam: First Thunder is a bland, unmemorable team-up between these two Golden Age characters – I wouldn’t bother.