The Power Of Shazam One Million [1998] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

The Power Of Shazam One Million [1998]

This is a one-shot published between #43 and #44 of Jerry Ordway's 1995 to 1999 THE POWER OF SHAZAM series, published to tie in with a DC crossover that deals with characters in the 853rd Century. It's by the regular team of the series at the time, Jerry Ordway writing, pencilling and doing the cover (over a poorly aged computer art background) and Dick Giordano inking.

I'm pretty unfamiliar with the crossover except for a handful of  issues of other series I read, and I only recently got the other issues of this series around this issue and haven't read most of them yet, so a lot of it isn't something I can follow, but Ordway does a pretty decent job of making it as clear as possible. Suffice to say the story involves the far future, about one million months from now, and the return of various heroes in different forms.

The art is much more interesting than the writing.  Ordway had launched this run with a painted "graphic novel" in 1994, but had mostly just written (and painted the covers) for the subsequent on-going series.  He returned to the art for this last half-year of the series, and really just has one of those timeless styles, with classic elements but still feeling modern in the 1990s and not looking dated at all almost three decades later.  This particular story premise also gives him a chance to do some design work on the one-off characters and future architecture and technology.

Mildly recommended more as a diversionary part of the entertaining full series than as a standalone.