TRANS-SCRIBE: Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Godds #4

Thursday, 27 April 2023

Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Godds #4 - Comic Review

The gods have turned against humanity. They're no longer content to be worshipped by those who choose to, and want everyone to worship them; even if that means making them do so through fear. After several issues (including the Wonder Woman tie-in's) our heroes have been through trials, Diana was made a goddess, Themyscira has come under attack, Billy's transformation into Shazam has been corrupted by the wizard, and Mary has given the powers of Shazam to Diana. We stand now on the edge of the final battle, where Diana and Hera will face off for one last time to decide the fate of the world. Get ready for an epic fight...that is over in about one punch.

So, last issue had Diana and Hera trading blows, Diana was almost beaten, the power of Shazam gave her a boost, Hera ran away to regroup, and it looked like things were set to explode into one big smack-down battle; but this issue really, really doesn't deliver at all. If the last issue had have ended with Hera all but defeated and Diana ready to land the finishing blow it'd be one thing, but it really made it seem like there was more to come; so for the fight to be over before the issue really begins is incredibly anti-climactic and disappointing. As a result, most of the issue is given over to wrap-up more than anything else.

With the battle done, Ares hands the job of policing the gods over to their children, the demi-gods; giving them a powerful artefact in order to help them. Back on Themyscira, Nubia and the patron goddesses continue to battle Hades, until the god of the underworld decides that continuing the fight is fairly useless, and takes his forces back to the afterlife. Unfortunately, during all of this no one thought to keep an eye on Hera, and the woman behind it all gets away to cause problems for them another day.

We also get some development for Billy and Mary this issue, stuff that seems to be setting them up for the new Shazam! ongoing series. The wizard essentially apologises for siding with the gods in the fight, saying that because of Billy taking the Rock of Eternity into himself he thought the kid had gone rogue, and was ready to prevent another Black Adam. Whilst this does mean that he never really joined the villains for a villainous reason, it does feel like a poor excuse. He could have checked in on what Billy was doing, or just talked to him to see if he had gone rogue; and he's acting like it's fine to help the gods terrorise the world and cause untold death and destruction because he was trying to prevent Billy from going rogue and causing death and destruction. He might be old and powerful, but he's clearly not smart.

Anyway, it seems like the wizard is forgiven, and is on the side of the heroes again. As such, he grants Billy his powers again, and Billy gets his new Shazam costume. He goes to do the same for Mary, but Hippolyta steps in (probably because she's realised the wizard is a complete dip shit) and using the goddesses Artemis, Selene, Zephyrus, Minerva, Aurora, and Hippolyta, grants Mary the powers of the goddesses, re-powering her as Mary Marvel. I really like this touch, and love that she's not just getting a portion of Billy's powers, but has her own, granted by other women. I'm also interested to see that if the rest of the Marvel Family are able to get a group of gods with the right initials if they could re-power themselves too.

Overall, this issue was a bit of a let down after the build-up from the penultimate one. I enjoyed a lot of the wrap-up stuff that was done here, especially the stuff for the Shazam characters, but the end fight being one page was a huge letdown that left a sour taste in my mouth. It was also weird that Mary had the shirt and artefacts that she was given at the end of the last issue in the back-up feature, but didn't for the main story. It made it feel like the back-up was completely separate to the main story, and that there was little to no communication between the teams working on the book. Still, we've got new eras for both Wonder Woman and Shazam starting soon, off the back of this series, and I'm looking forward to both of them.