Shazam! U

 

Personally, I love this figure because I love the character. However, I find it difficult to use him effectively in competitive games. Captain Marvel is one of my favorite members of The Justice Society, simply because he’s like Superman, but cheesier and more golden age-like.

 

Sculpt: I think it looks good. I personally would have liked him to be in his classic “hand on his hips” pose with the Cheshire Cat grin on his face. However, what I don’t like, aside from the fact that the gold portions on this were painted yellow to make the Kingdom Come version more marketable to people obsessed with shiny objects, is that the cape looks and feels really flimsy. I feel that I’m going to break it whenever I bring old Billy to a friend’s house to use him. That, and none of the ones I’ve seen have had the eyebrows or the button on his costume painted, but those are minor quibbles at best.

Playability: Well, he has the dreaded activation click. I hate these simply because most of the figs that have it are never caught in a battle situation in their alter ego forms. It’s just annoying to have, and most figures that do have it, if there is a comparable form of that character without it, cost more than the ones that don’t; they actually charge extra for activation clicks... look at the Captain Atom figure compared to his LE version; the LE costs more for an activation click, but otherwise the powers are the same.

He’s straight up brick. He flies, and that’s great. HSS makes him annoying if you use hit and run tactics, but then you won’t get to use his Exploit Weakness during combat like that. After he loses HSS, he gets outwit, making him annoying even after he’s lost his best offensive power. The main problem that I have with him is that his stats become pitiful late dial. 2 damage with 8 AV six clicks into his lifespan isn’t really worthy of the character, who tends to hit for so much more, even defeating the likes of Superman (although who hasn’t defeated him recently?).

Also of note is that his hypersonic speed doesn’t work with any of the powers he has at the beginning of his dial; you can’t quake or exploit weakness with hypersonic speed. He loses Quake two clicks in to gain Super Strength, which is good, and which works with HSS, but then his damage drops from four to three, which is not good. When he takes four clicks of damage and loses HSS, he then gains outwit, at the cost of EW. I honestly would have liked it the other way around…

Recommended Feats: only two - three really come to mind:

Damage Shield looks good, as he’s going to be mixing it up a lot in close combat, since he has no range powers.

Double Time will save you some time getting him off of that activation click. I found it annoying when I used him that I kept healing him to his powerless Billy Batson click. I highly recommend this if you have a medic, and want to keep him on his HSS clicks, or if you want to really press the attack at the beginning of the game.

And, to a lesser extent, Fortitude. However, fortitude seems like a huge waste of points if your opponent didn’t feel the need to use any outwit or exploit weakness. I never liked it, preferring to use the points on a fig that’s more annoying than outwit is alone.

 

So, as much as I like Captain Marvel here, I think his power combinations (none of which work) cost him at way more than he’s worth point wise. For theme teams, he’s great, but usually for those people gravitate towards Black Adam for the JSA themes since he’s easier to use there.

 

So I’d have to give him a 3.25 out of five for casual play, since he is still a threat when he gets to his HSS clicks. I’d give him a 3.75 for theme team play because he usually gets overshadowed by the cheaper, more easily played Black Adam on JSA teams. And the JSA doesn’t need two figs with activation clicks (I’m looking at you, Hourman…).