Billie Freeman: World's Mightiest Mortal

Just a tiny upload of an older idea, since I think I've finally decided on a color scheme for her.

Years back, just before the Flashpoint and the New 52 reboot, I "addressed" my complaints with the mishandling of the Marvel Family in the early 2000s with "Billy's Quest," a story made to parallel the then-recent "Trials of Shazam" that saw Billy and Mary Batson dishonored, disgraced, and discarded and the mantle of Captain Marvel bestowed to Freddie Freeman, previously Captain Marvel Jr.  Since, shortly after I posted the journal with the idea, the reboot happened, I decided to follow 's suggestion and "file the serial numbers off" and make the concept my own...which I did, by exploiting a loophole.

See, the Marvel Family is copyrighted to DC Comics, and the name "Captain Marvel" belongs to Marvel Comics...but the original Fawcett comics are in the Public Domain. My perverse little idea, then was to build on them instead...which brings us to this lady here: Wilhemina "Billie" Freeman, daughter of Freddie Freeman and Mary Batson-Freeman and niece to the original Captain Marvel, Billy Batson.

In the revised "Billie's Quest," time progressed from the original stories and the young alter-egos of the Marvel Family grew to adulthood, with Freddie and Mary growing closer and marrying, eventually giving birth to a daughter (whom they named after her uncle). Shortly after her birth, however, the wizard Shazam called his champions into battle against the Monster Society of Evil...only to have the combatants suddenly vanish into the ether. Fearing for the infant's life, her family's long-time friends, Uncle Dudley and his daughter Mary "Freckles" Dudley, took the baby and went into hiding, frequently moving from place to place to try and keep ahead of possible enemies.

By the time Billie was 12 years old, she had become a bit of a short-tempered tomboy, balanced by a strong sense of justice and fairness but still prone to getting into fights with bullies. Frustrated at the world seeming to favor "bullies, creeps, and jerkwads" over the kind and just, she is approached one night by Athena, Greek Goddess of Battle, who reveals that not only did the Marvel Family vanish that fateful night 12 years ago, but so did the gods that empowered them, including her father, Zeus. Sensing the spark of legendary power in the girl, Athena sets her on a quest to claim the gifts of new legendary patrons in order to rebuild the power of SHAZAM and become a new champion for the ages. She gifts her with the blessing of "courage and cunning in battle" and enchants her stuffed "Talking Tawny Tiger" doll to guide her on her quest, enabling it to teleport her as close as it can to Billie's first potential new patron, Zarathustra...

...whose last contact with the mortal realm was a temple in Afghanistan. Billie finds herself in the middle of a war zone and, after barely avoiding conflict with both soldiers and locals, manages to convince the spirit of the ancient scholar to bless her with "the gift of sense and wisdom" before she is found by American troops and taken back to their base. There, she's befriended by Lieutenant Bill Abernathy, nicknamed "Lieutenant Marvel" by his squad mates for his knack at surviving any situation. While he's initially skeptical of Billie's "mission," she somehow manages to convince him to let her go before he ends up pursuing her after she teleports into the area known as "the Fertile Crescent," former cradle of civilization and the resting place of Marduk, first of the Great Hero Gods and enemy of Tiamat. Unbeknownst to them, nearby an international arms dealer was showing an "interested party" some recovered technology he was looking to sell: Mr. Atom, the giant robot who once menaced the Marvel Family and who, upon activation, kills those present and goes on a rampage. With Abernathy's help, Billie is able to bring the robot down, but the soldier is nearly killed in the process; despite this, Marduk deems her worthy of his "gift of peerless might" before sending her on her way deeper into Africa, while Abernathy is rescued by his squad.

Arriving in Ghana, Billie manages to locate Anansi, God of Stories, who challenges her to a battle of imagination, a round-robin tale told by each in turn with the prize being his blessing of a "gift of matchless wit" versus her Talking Tawny doll. She barely manages to win, delighting the spider god with her story, before he reveals to her the truth about the "enchantment" on her doll: it's actually Hermes, Greek God of Messengers and Anansi's friend and rival, in disguise, acting on behalf of his sister Athena. Angry at his freedom being wagered by Billie, he refuses to aid her any further but is convinced by Anansi to bless her with the "gift of flight and boundless speed" if she manages to beat him in a footrace around the circumference of the globe. She agrees, but, with a little coaching by the Spider God, manages to outwit Hermes and win the race by a technicality. Impressed by her cunning, he "reluctantly" gives her his blessing and points her towards her last patron: Susanoo-Oh, Japanese God of Storms.

While these challenges go on, Abernathy recuperates in a military hospital, learning his spine has been severed and he has lost the ability to walk. Lost in his grief and pain and feeling abandoned by Billie, he is visited by a strange little man in a green suit and straw hat who introduces himself as "Mr. Banjo." The man sympathizes with the crippled soldier, commiserating about Billie's "betrayal" and offering him a chance to get back at her...all he needs to do is swear his allegiance to "the others in the shadows" and, so long as he swears to use their gifts to destroy the nascent Champion, he will be restored and given great power. All he needs to do is say one word..."SABBAC..."

With Hermes' gift, the trip to Japan takes no time, and Billie finds the gate to Susanoo-Oh's home in the heart of Tokyo. The god in question, however, is less than accommodating, making rash demands and insulting her, trying to get her to lose her temper and attack him, a situation aggravated by the sudden attack on Tokyo by a green-garbed mockery of her uncle calling himself "Captain Demon." She eventually sees through Susanoo-Oh's taunts, however, and manages to convince him that she has proven herself worthy of being the new Champion; he agrees to "permit" her to use "his" thunderbolt to save his people and protect humanity, but refuses to just let her use his name to call it like she's been doing with the names and blessings of the other gods and legends. When she asks him how she would be able to call the thunderbolt, he tells her she already HAS a perfectly good word passed down from her family...with a slow grin, she realizes the word in question and, with a joyous shout, yells to the sky "SHAZAM!"

As lightning slices through the air and the deafening crack of thunder echoes from the shattered streets, the reborn Captain Marvel appears in the sky above Tokyo.

Her battle with Captain Demon is fierce and destructive; he has the edge on raw physical power, bolstered by his devastating gouts of hellfire, but Billie has the edge in speed and agility. As their battle rages, she realizes Captain Demon is her friend, Lieutenant Abernathy, and she pleads with him to come to his senses, but he's lost in his seemingly pre-programmed hatred of Captain Marvel, so she does the only thing she can think of: she turns back into Billie Freeman, and begs her friend to forgive her for leaving him behind in his time of need. This manages to pierce the demonic battle haze and, with a bellow of rage, he screams "SABBAC!" again and, in an explosion of hellfire, turns back to Lieutenant Abernathy, collapsing to the ground as Billie, changing back to Captain Marvel, catches him.

As flashes from the cameras of the survivors around her light up, she swears to them she'll return to help them rebuild, then takes to the sky, carrying Abernathy home to the Dudleys in order to keep him away from the ones whose turned him into Captain Demon. Upon arriving there, she quickly apologizes to her guardians about leaving them and explains what happened, promising them that she'll keep her powers secret and they all can stay hidden just as they did before...to which they point out the international news coverage, on the TV and Internet, raving about "Billie Freeman, Savior of Tokyo and World's Mightiest Mortal!"

...another pair of eyes watches the news reports as well, rheumy and cold behind an impossibly thick pair of glasses. As a withered old hand clutches his bald, bulbous head, Dr. Sivana begins to laugh, an insane cackle that breaks into hoarse coughing, as he croaks, "I'VE FOUND YOU! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, I'VE FINALLY FOUND YOU!"


There's...a LOT of potential problems with this story, I feel, but I also think it has a lot of potential good. Part of why I had it end as I did was to circumvent the "Captain Marvel/Shazam" legal issues and just have the character go by her actual name; DC may own the rights to "Billy Batson," but not "Billie Freeman" after all. It's still a gamble, if I actually seriously wanted to do this, but we'll cross that bridge if I need to later. I still have a LOT of details I just sorta glossed over, mainly because of my own ignorance and, well, lack of faith in my writing skills. I mean, with all the shouting online about "cultural appropriation," how would people react to an African god lending his power to an American white girl, not to mention the fact that the first third takes place in the middle of the conflict in the Middle East..?

I do have a couple of ideas going on from here, though, such as my new version of Tawky Tawny: Tani, a tiger hengeyokai who passes herself off as a catgirl idol singer in order to feed off of a little piece of each of the souls of her fanbase instead of just soul-sucking a single human. Related, I also wanted to play off the connection between Japanese "henshin" heroes like magical girls and tokusatsu heroes and the gimmick of Captain Marvel, as well as exploring several of the OG Cap's knockoffs found littered through the Public Domain.

Anyway...I like the color scheme I gave her since it invokes her parents' uniforms (her mom's white suit and her dad's red cape) while also being an inverse of her uncle's red suit/white cape combo. It's distinctive, yet simple, and plays to her heritage without copying it.