First, some background.....

The 70s Shazam revival title was winding down around '77-'78. E Nelson Bridwell came on board the title with #25 to join with artist Kurt Schaffenberger. The last few issues prior to #25 were mere reprint issues of Golden Age Fawcett tales but in hopes of boosting sales, it was decided the comic should mirror the live-action TV show of the time. Thus Billy and Uncle Dudley (with new nickname Mentor) set off on a cross-country trip across America in a Winnebago (even the gods that powered Billy were started being referred to as the Elders).

Fun ensued of course, as the pair ran afoul of a host of his rogues gallery from Sivana to Mister Atom (even a fight with Superman). But the plot changes failed to stick and the title wound down with #34-35 which featured some dramatic changes.



#34 saw the first appearance of Captain Nazi since the Golden Age. Freed from the same Suspendium that had entrapped the Marvel Family before, Capt. Nazi takes over the Sears Tower In Chicago and erecting a force field around the city that blocked all outside signals including the magic lightning. Freddy becomes enraged over seeing his grandfather's killer once more and Cap must talk down/face his partner before Freddy does the unthinkable. It was a strong tonal switch from the fun stories previously as Freddy must contend with his emotions and rage over his most hated enemy. It also marked the first time apparently where Shazam is not drawn in the style of CC Beck. Newton along with inks by Schaffenberger gives a new dramatic appearance to the characters.




#35 with art by Newton and Schaffenberger finds the Family in New York on their way to see Sterling Morris at Station WHIZ. Uncle Dudley left an ominous message that Morris and the station may be in some financial straits. However, Cap and Junior find time is reversing as NYC and it's inhabitants are regressing more and more into the past. When the pair find Mary, she no longer recognizes either one and has even forgotten that she is Mary Marvel. Fearful that if this continues, they will move beyond the point where Billy acquired the magic powers or was even born, the trio head off to the Rock of Eternity to learn more of this happening (Junior was able to convince Mary to say the magic word and upon transforming, her memory returned).

At the Rock, the Wizard informs them that this is all the plot of King Kull, the Beastman. Unknowingly freed from his imprisonment upon the Rock by events of last issue, Kull engineered a device to rewind time in hopes of bringing about his prehistoric past where his Beastmen ruled a primitive humanity and thus prevent their uprising and secure his own people's power instead. Kull fled down of one of the portals he came across on the Rock, the portal that leads to Hell.

With no hesitation, the Family descend to Hades to find Kull and encounter all sorts of demons and foes. Their victories over them though strengthen their power of good allowing them to dismiss more of these agents of evil in their quest to find Kull. But this boost won't last long as they finally encounter Satan himself. Junior is cocky in that he's faced Satan before but Satan forces Junior back as Cap realizes that all three of them must face him together. In doing so, they force Satan to retreat but it's a quick victory as Cap rushes to find Kull and his machine which they do, surprising him and thwarting his plans. With time being restored properly, the Family head back with Kull leaving behind Satan, enraged over their brazen intrusion into his realm and vowing revenge.

Back in NYC, Morris reveals to Billy and the others that to stave off financial ruin, he's being forced to sell the station to Ebenezer Batson, Billy's greedy manipulative uncle!

Bridwell begins introducing more mystical elements into the mythos here, the theme of Good triumphing over Evil, how the Marvel Family's victories in Hell re-enforce the overall Goodness of their actions and themselves. He also makes good reference to Junior's earlier encounter with Satan as part of the being Sabacc in Captain Marvel Jr #4 & #6 (which explains Junior's cockiness in facing him again).

The new art direction is engaging though and quite gorgeous to me. The use of ink tones in lighting effects, facial gestures and body movements, it's almost like a new type of grandeur has been added to these heroic champions. As seen in this full page shot of their descent into Hades



This was the end of his own title but he's set to return in WF #253.....



 

World's Finest #253

"The Captain and the King!"

Well, that didn't last long. Though he was recently imprisoned after his latest scheme to destroy humanity was thwarted by the Marvel Family, King Kull has managed to escape and in the process, let Captain Nazi escape as well. As the Family scour NYC for any signs of their foes, Captain Nazi comes across a safehouse of Doctor Sivana. Inside, Sivana is arguing with his two of his children, Beautia and Magnificus. Sivana is ready to unleash a device that will sap the will of the entire city and wants to exclude his children from the effects. However, the pair are tired of their father's schemes and want no part of it even being brazen enough to admit that they will tell the Marvels of his plan.

Capt. Nazi is struck by how much Sivana's children are like him, perfect examples of Aryan race with their physiques and looks (Nazi even considers Beautia as the perfect bride for a new Fuhrer). The children leave, their father enraged by their disobedience so he doesn't see Nazi coming up behind him and knocking him out. He sets up the machine to exclude types like himself (and Sivana's children) and activates the device. Having failed to find any trace of their foes, the Marvel Family returns to Station WHIZ and transforms just in time to be affected by the will-sapping device. The whole city is now under Captain Nazi's control.

Nazi has a made a mistake though when he encounters King Kull, now under his spell. Kull reveals that he's just unleashed three devices to destroy humanity (one of which has to work, right?). Realizing the peril, Captain Nazi issues a citywide broadcast for Captain Marvel to come to him (thinking that since Cap is not of the Aryan type, he too must be under the spell and thus he can order Cap to stop Kull's machines). Calling for Captain Marvel allows Freddy to change, breaking him free of the spell. Freeing Billy and Mary, the trio head to the source of the signal, surprising Nazi who tells them of the danger. Each Marvel heads to handle one of three threats (a satellite that will destroy the ozone layer, a sea machine that will destroy plankton and a device causing massive vibrations to set off all the faults on the planet). But as Mary leaves, she says that they need to hurry to save the planet and then come back to destroy Sivana's machine. Only hearing the last part Mary said of destroying the machine, Kull so ordered does exactly that! Quickly a fight ensues between Nazi and Kull.

Using their experiences, intellect (and yes, wisdom), each Marvel defeats Kull's machines. Upon returning, they find Nazi and Kull still fighting. The dark-haired Cap takes down the so-called Aryan superior man while the female Mary takes down the brute Kull.

In the epilogue, Ebenezer Batson waits to acquire Station WHIZ and deal with his petulant nephew only to find that his time may be up when Satan suddenly appears to lay claim to his soul per their deal!


Bridwell picks up his narrative from the previous title in good fashion. Captain Nazi's values are displayed as he sees qualities of himself in Sivana's children. But his supposed superiority isn't enough to save himself from Kull's machinations. (It's strange though, from these devices here to the device last issue which he used to bend back time, no explanation whatsoever as to how these machines did this or even how Kull was able to build them so quickly. No time limit was given between Kull's capture in the last story and his breakout here). The reappearance of Satan is definitely interesting as his involvement with Ebenezer is sure to attract Cap's attention.

Now, I've read elsewhere that instead of mimicking Beck, DC may have wanted Newton to mimic Mac Raboy instead. There may be some merit to that theory perhaps and you may even take to task the inking provided by Schaffenberger here. Does it make the art more cartoony? Less cartoony? For me it's distinctive and appealing, especially the facial shots. The subtle lighting created by the inking just makes such shots stand out even more to me.

The problem of Don Newton was timing. For the longest time, he freelanced, while working as a teacher. He did tons of fanzine work, some of the best out there. At Charlton, he got to strut his stuff on the Phantom, which helped get him work at DC. Problem was, his work tended to be in lower profile books, in an era when comic sales, as a whole, were way down. He drew Conway's Return of the New Gods and did some spectacular stuff, on some not so spectacular plots. He picked up work on Batman; but, in second tier title Detective Comics. He did some really beautiful stuff there, with stories from Denny O'Neil, like "The Curse of Crime Alley." Shazam was a dream come true.



That's Don Newton, as Captain Marvel, posing with CC Beck.

Shazam was a high profile Saturday morning tv series; it wasn't a high profile comic gig. Newton was living the dream though. Unfortunately, the bulk of his work was buried in Worlds Finest, which wasn't one of the bigger selling Dollar Comics. Shazam was also relegated to the Adventure Comics Digests, which were the final death throes for one of DC's oldest titles.

Newton was all set to take over Infinity , Inc, from Jerry Ordway, when he died of a heart attack, in 1984.

Timing.

Newton also had the roadblock of living in Arizona, which made it harder to get more high profile work in comics. In the days before faxes and Fedex, you pretty much had to be in the New York area, or within commuting distance, to get steady work. At one point, Newton, at the urging of Dan Adkins, moved to Pennsylvania, to be closer to the industry; but, hated it and moved back. He was also a widower, raising a son alone. If you look at his work for DC and Marvel, most of it is towards the tail end of the 70s and the dawn of the 80s, which was a big transitional period for DC. Newton was in his 40s, making him older than most of the newer artists coming on the scene. When things were turning around for DC, which was leading to more high profile gigs, Newton died.

It's a shame, really, that Newton is really only known to those of us who saw his work in the 70s and loved it. He brought atmosphere to his work, elements of humor, excellent figure work, and the ability to convey emotion. he could do quiet and he could do epic.. However, he also had an older style, which probably got lost in the louder styles of Byrne and Perez. He was more in the mold of Colan and Kaluta.

If you want to see art by Newton, here's the place to go.

I don't have to go too far. I own a piece of Newton original art; a pin-up of The Black Terror he did for a fanzine.

I don't know about an editorial edict to draw like Raboy, as that was pretty much Newton's style, to begin with. Here's a sample from Charlton's The Phantom...



By the way, this is one of the best Phantom stories, ever. It is one big riff on Bogart films, mixing in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The African Queen, and Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

World's Finest #253 the other stories:


Superman/Batman - The Third Face is...Death! by Haney, Schaffenberger & Chiaramonte.

Princess Portia of Moldachia (Julie Madison, an old love of Bruce's) is marrying Prince Jon of neighboring country Tybern, hoping to secure peace in that region of Europe. However, a Tybernian military general, Lazlo, is secretly working on plans of conquest instead including developing a neutron bomb. When Prince Jon learns of this, he seeks to stop Lazlo upon gaining proof of his reason. But Prince Jon suddenly disappears, threatening the upcoming marriage and union between the two countries.  A Tybernian Count hatches a daring plan when he realizes that Bruce Wayne is a near twin for the missing Prince Jon. Can Bruce save the Prince, stop the plans for conquest, and contend with an old love getting married? Can Clark Kent, sent to cover the wedding, help too?

The more I read of Haney, the more I like him. There are a wild amount of coincidences here that helps this con along but it doesn't stop Haney from telling a good yarn. (A popular misconception about Superman's abilities factors in as well). The art is straightforward and very good. My favorite bit - when following Lazlo, who is boarding a helicopter, Batman leaps right atop the tail rotor!

Green Arrow/Black Canary - I Die Screaming by Conway, art by Trevor Voneeden

Upon returning to Star City, Ollie and Dinah are attacked by strange faced creatures at the airport. The attack ends as suddenly as it begins as the creatures seemingly disappear as our heroes are able to fend them off. Returning to Ollie's apartment, Ollie puts his masculine foot in his mouth when he attributes Dinah's continuing desire to return to Earth-2 to learn more of her past as part of her ever-shifting biological moods. Pissed, Dinah storms off back to her apartment above her shop. Still stewing over Ollie's indifference, she's suddenly attacked again by the same strange faced creatures (who burst into her bedroom through her closet). They manage to swarm her and abscond with her through a portal in her closet. Ollie, mad at himself, arrives at her apartment to find her gone and signs of battle. With the help of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Ollie tracks the creatures down as they seem to be the inhabitants of a null void dimension that acts as another buffer between Earth-1 and Earth-2. Ollie fights his way through only to be captured and brought before the Hive King of these creatures who have special plans for Dinah....

I just had to snicker over Ollie's comments to Dinah here; she's wanting to find more about her past back on Earth-2, how her father's influence and obsession have carried over to her and Ollie just chalks it up to hormonal imbalance. Granted, I've never read all that much of GA but wow, that's quite insensitive. I've never heard of Voneeden but his art was passable here. The design of the strange faced creatures would like right at home in any magic dimension Doctor Strange would ever visit which is appropriate given who the creator of the next story is.

The Creeper - Beware the Creeper vs the Wrecker by Ditko

While Jack Ryder believes that he's maneuvered himself into his next cushy assignment (a star actress is coming to town), his compatriots end up covering a supposed bomb threat at a new building. The bomb threat turns out be a robotic machine fashioned like a wrecking ball with wrecking balls as fists on his arms. Created by a disgruntled person who feels cheated by the new building's existence, he orders his creation on the attack against the building and anyone inside it. The Creeper attempts to stop it to no avail until he gets the idea of how his compatriots can help him stop the wild machine.

This was an interesting story, the design of the wrecking robot was intriguing, some good drama as Creeper works on how to defeat it and a tad sad and strange for me when the robot's creator ends up being pummeled by his own creation. (Did he live or die? Don't know).

All in all, a fine fun issue  

I only know Shazam/Captain Marvel only in the Golden Age of Comics and the Art of CC Beck.