The first issue of Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods didn't really feature much of the super hero Shazam, with his alter-ego Billy Batson getting to appear in about two panels of the entire book. Thankfully, the second issue starts to bring the Shazam characters more into the central narrative as both Billy and Mary get some stuff to do this month.
The last issue saw the ancient gods of the world declaring war against humanity, using fear and intimidation in order to frighten them into worshipping the gods once again. Under the direction of Hera, who has murdered Zeus, the gods plan seems to be working. Wonder Woman went to challenge them, and was turned into a god herself.
This issue picks up back on Earth, where Billy is left trying to figure out what's going on as everyone else in town is under the magical effects of the gods, and monsters seem to be running amok. Turning into Shazam, Billy fights a number of giants that are attacking his school, getting some help when Mary arrives. Leaving Mary to battle the monsters alone, he heads off to figure out what's causing all of the chaos, where he gets a mysterious message to head to Washington D.C. to find his guide to Mount Olympus by an ethereal glowing figure.
Arriving in D.C., Billy meets the mysterious hooded figure that was knocking around last issue (confirmed to be a man in the last issue of Wonder Woman), before coming across Wonder Girl (who all of a sudden doesn't like the name Wonder Girl for some reason). The two of them head to Mount Olympus and try to confront Hera. However, the Wizard Shazam interferes, and strips Billy of his powers. Now Billy is left as an old, wizened version of Shazam, and the Wizard is young and buff.
In some ways it still kind of feels like the story is still in set-up mode, putting pieces in place by making Diana a god, and stripping Billy of his powers. Which is odd as we're technically halfway through the event. I say technically because the Wonder Woman title is taking place within this story and is filling some of the gaps in, so we've got a bit more than the four issues for this particular title in which to deal with everything.
The team on this book are good at writing Diana, and I enjoy the way that Hera is written as just openly evil and unapologetically cruel, but this issue has me unsure about some of the other characters. As mentioned earlier, I'm not sure why Yara is suddenly against her super hero name; I'm pretty sure that I've read ever appearance she's had since she was introduced, and unless I forgot something, this hasn't come up before. Her suddenly being against the title Wonder Girl feels kind of odd.
At the same time, Billy acts a bit weird at times too, when he leaves Mary to deal with the giants in order to find out what's going on he doesn't go off as Shazam, but ends up running around the streets as Billy. I don't know why he'd do this, as surely he's faster and safer as Shazam. It kind of ended up looking like Billy just wanted to run away from the situation. He was also incredibly chatty when on the buss with the hooded man, basically just giving up all of his mission and is rundown of the situation, telling a complete stranger loads of important info. Billy doesn't really seem to have a very consistent way of being written because a lot of different writers have been handling the character for the last few years; but this does feel like an odd way of depicting him.
The art on the book looks really good, and there are several action scenes and cool moments scattered throughout that look really cool. We get both Shazams fighting mythological monsters, Yara taking down hydras and giant beasts, and her and Billy storming the doors of Mount Olympus. It's a visually fun and engaging book, with a few moments that will make you smile at just how awesome they are.
Overall, this was a pretty decent issue, though one that wasn't perfect. The event opened very strong, but now seems to be losing steam a little. Hopefully this is just a blip, and things will pick up a bit now that Shazam has been put into a new situation to get out of, similar to Diana. This could be a very good event with some long reaching repercussions, but right now it's kind of up in the air as to how that's going to go.
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