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Captain Marvel Holiday Special ’09



DC Universe Holiday Special ’09 (Captain Marvel)
“Home for Christmas”
Writer – Steve Horton
Art/Colors – Afua Richardson
Letters – John J. Hill
Editors – Adam Schlagman & Eddie Berganza

Today we look at the second (of two) single-page offerings in this Holiday Special.  Man, this ish is the gift that keeps on giving, innit?






It’s Christmas, and Captain Marvel (actually not Shazam this time out!) is duking it out with Ibac.  Their battle sends them both crashing through a Mission… which gives them a measure of pause.  They know they just messed things up for everyone who stays there!  Well, that’s sort of the “best case scenario” here… let’s just hope there weren’t any families inside at the time of impact!


Cap and Ibac reflect on their own pasts… and their connections to homelessness.  And so, they decide to put their differences aside for a time to rebuild the joint they’d just destroyed.


Once that’s done, Marvel offers Ibac amnesty… or, they can go back to fighting.  Although he’s certain he can take the Big Red Cheese in a fight, the baddie takes Cap up on his offer.  We wrap up with Billy Batson volunteering at the Mission… and he’s working next to an old fella who is wearing some very familiar armbands.  Hmm…




This is another one of dem “of two minds” sort of stories.  In a vacuum, it’s pretty touching.  Two enemies putting their differences aside for the greater good… Christmas spirit, all that jazz.


The fact that Cap and Ibac actually stopped fighting to rebuild a place they’d just destroyed has the unfortunate side-effect of reminding us (or me) that hero/villain battles often result in quite a bit of property damage… and almost never do the fighters stop to both reflect and pick up the pieces.


Probably the most interesting thing about this story is… the fact that our hero is called “Captain Marvel” and not Shazam!  It just feels like they’ve been trying to change that forever at this point… but, I suppose in the pre-Flashpoint DC Universe they weren’t so hard-and-fast over it.  He’s even called “Captain Marvel” in the Table of Contents page… because, yes, even though this was only a single page… it got a spot on the list.


Overall… decent enough little story… really nice art.


Tomorrow: Deadman vs. the Scarecrow?

2 thoughts on “Captain Marvel Holiday Special ’09

  • Chris U

    Billy Batson will ALWAYS be Captain Marvel.

    Reply
  • Grant Kitchen

    Good story but I could've sworn Freddy Freeman was the new Captain Marvel by this point as Billy had taken over for Shazam. Or did that happen later?

    Reply

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