Mary Marvel
Mary Marvel is a female comic superhero who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Fawcett
Mary Batson was born to the Batson family as the twin sister of Billy Batson. Her parents had died at the time of her birth leaving Mary and her brother as orphans. The pair were under the care of the hospital nurse Sarah Primm. She was worried about the future of the two newborns. At the time, the rich Bromfield had a baby girl who had died unknown to them. The nurse Sarah Primm decided to substitute Mary for the dead Bromfield baby so she could live with the rich family. Meanwhile, her twin brother Billy was given away for adoption leading to the siblings being separated and unaware of the others existence. The only clue to her brother was half a broken locket that the nurse had left with Mary. (Captain Marvel Adventures v1 #18)
One day, she heard a call from help and found the Gingerbread Man who had come from Fairyland to Earth. He had come with three wishes and wanted to become human but his wish never manifested. Mary came to save him from dogs that tried to eat him and she later took him to shelter when it rained as it could his body to fall apart. Left along with one last wish, he faced the choice of returning back to Fairyland but instead used it to save a child who fell into the bay and was drowning. The Good Fairy then manifested revealing that the condition for him to become human was that he had to perform a good deed and thus Mary Marvel witnessed as the Gingerbread Man was turned into a human being where he lived the life a baker. (Marvel Family v1 # #16)
She later pursued Diavlo who was a master of black magic that attempted to flee capture by her. To do so, he went to a nearby town and cast a spell making everyone appear as him preventing Mary Marvel from knowing who the real Diavlo was allowing him to conduct crimes. This was until she queried each town member on their real name and compared them to the list of names in the town register whereupon she captured Diavlo. (Marvel Family v1 #58)
Mary was with Billy and Freddie when they were all invited to the home of Sterling Morris where he decided to have a joke by scaring them in a suit of knight armour. The armour though was enchanted and sent Morris back into the past when a bright full moon's light touched it. Transforming to their superhero identities, the Marvel Family went back into time to 1400 years ago to the time of King Arthur in order to find and save Mr. Morris. Arriving in that time, they made their way to Camelot only to find Sterling Morris at the head of the Knights of the Round Table with Merlin revealing that he had created the enchantment to bring a person from the future to their time. Merlin revealed that King Arthur and his knights were away fighting in the Crusades but in that time the villainous Black Wizard had struck Camelot in order to claim the throne for himself. This saw Queen Guenivere being captured and to help rescue her Merlin used his white magic to send a suit of armour to the future in order to bring back a descendant of King Arthur. Thus, it was revealed that Sterling Morris was in fact a descendant of the heroic King of Camelot. Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. then worked to help defend the kingdom from the Black Wizard's attacks. (Marvel Family v1 #70)
She came to be invited to a party at the Falcon estate who were an old honored and wealthy family. Whilst there, she met the family heir the young Hubert Falcon who was spending the money away. The party was interrupted by the ghost of a family ancestor namely the infamous Sir Hubert Falcon who operated as the pirate Black Falcon in the year 1680. Black Falcon and his descendant Hubert Falcon both tried to rob the guests at the party but were stopped by Mary Marvel. However, Mary was unable to stop the ghost who promised to return to ensure his descendant fell down the path to villainy. To top this, Mary decided to reform the ghost in his life where she went back in time after beseeching Father Time who allowed her to travel back to that era. (Wow Comics v1 #19)
Mary came to attend the Whiz Kids radio program that was being hosted by Mr. Andrew Answer where she met Pinky who was also taking part in the quiz. During this time, they received strange questions on how to commit seemingly hypothetical robberies. The two later turned to their heroic identities to investigate the home of Mr. John Pinchdime whose residence resembled the scenario in the question card. Once there, they found a masked criminal by the name of Mr. Question who was using the solutions of the Whiz Kids to commit crimes. Despite the heroes presence, Mr. Question fled and the next day the Whiz Kids received a new hypothetical crime scenario with Mary giving an answer in order to confront the villain. Despite this advantage, he once again escaped but she found some of his blank cards and substituted one for her own. The following day, the Whiz Kids gathered for their quiz again with their host reading out the card that Mary had substituted thus concluding that Mr. Question was in fact Andrew Answer. Mary then helped in apprehending the villain thus allowing for the authorities to arrest him. (Wow Comics v1 #28)
She later received word that Georgia Sivana had seemingly been rehabilitate and was operating at the knitting club. In her civilian guise, Mary went to investigate only to find Georgia's rehabilitation to had been an act and that she had acquired a magic yarn with which she could knit constructs from it to enact her will. She then sought to target the ruler of the nation of Skeptomania but was stopped by Mary Marvel. Afterwards, she responded to an incident over the sale of a cursed book whose fairy tale characters seemingly came to life to attack the purchaser. Mary came to learn that this was an elaborate ploy by the auctioneer Arthur Archer who sold the book at high value then stole them back in the guise of the curse in order to repeat the cycle with him being arrested as a result. (Mary Marvel v1 #2)
Mary heard that Slippery Slyke along with Hugo were on a crime spree, and confronted them. However, when she said the magic word she found that she did not turn into Mary Marvel. Shazam's spirit told her he lost his powers one day in every thousand years, so she couldn't become Mary Marvel for another 24 hours. Mary made a costume and lured the crooks into a trap. She tried to convince them she had powers by launching bricks at them, but they were wise to her. They tied her up and shot at her just as the 24 hour limit expired, and Mary turned into Marvel and defeated the crooks. Mary captured Dangerous Dan, who had disguised himself as the wealthy Pierpont J. Vanderpool in order to rob his house. Mary knew he got his disguise from Mr. Beest's mask shop, but when she got to the store Beest was in disguise, baffling Mary. Beest gave a beauty disguise to a girl so she could win a beauty pageant. Mary awarded the prize at the pageant and saw Beest trying to take the prize money from the winning girl, so she apprehended him. Mary pursued a mugger into Mr. Goodhart's candy store, but the kindly shopkeeper got a promise from the crook that he'd reform and hid him from Mary. Mary stayed in the shop and watched Goodhart be generous to children and a homeless man, but noticed people took advantage of his kindness. Mary stayed outside the shop, and saw the crook Goodhart protected try to rob him. Mary apprehended him, but when Mr. Goodhart's landlord tried to evict him for falling behind on rent the crook paid the difference. Goodhart's goodness rubbed off on him, and he turned himself over to Mary. Mary witnessed Gus Gaylord and his trained troupe of seals get evicted by their landlady, and promised to find them a new place to live. The seals got into all sorts of trouble, causing traffic jams and stealing from a fish-peddler, but Mary kept anyone from getting hurt. She saw the good in the seals when they helped her foil a bank robbery, and she found an apartment willing to rent to Gus. (Mary Marvel v1 #4)
One day, she went to the store to do some grocery shopping when she spotted Elmer Perkins. He was on some errand for his father where he purchased a jar of what was claimed to be magic seeds. Later that night, Mary came to spot him running away from a guard that was arresting him by the freight tracks. Using the magic word, she became Mary Marvel and saved him where she learnt that Elmer had run away from home after his father scolded him for wasting their money on magic beans. Taking the youth back to his farm, they came to find magically sprung trees bearing fruit rapidly growing on the farm. They quickly came to learn that these trees bore fruit that were made of jewels and gold. Around this time, a tramp came upon the farm and attempted to steal some of the fruit from these trees but as chased off by Mary Marvel. However, he came to tell Blaster Burke and his gang who looked to take the trees by force but Mary Marvel fought them off. It was then that the Perkns family looked to donate the gold and jewels from the trees to charity as well as to help other farms in the area. (Mary Marvel v1 #15)
Her foster mother came to open their home as a place for lodging during the housing crisis with one roomer was a man named Henry Stibbs. Unknown to her at the time, the man was actually a master criminal known as the Nightowl who used his enhanced vision and Darkflash to rob people in pitch darkness. During pursuit of him, he managed to capture her as Mary Bromfield where in fear of his identity being exposed he left her in a compactor to be killed. However, Mary awoke and used her magic word to become Mary Marvel again where she escaped and pursuit the criminal. She tracked him to her home and determined that his true identity was Henry Stibbs where she apprehended him with the villain taken into custody. (Mary Marvel v1 #24)
Later on, Doctor Sivana came to steal the magic of the wizard to empower himself as Captain Sivana. He came to battle the Marvel Family where he tricked Mary Marvel and Captain marvel, Jr. into being lost in the timestream. They only returned when Sivana's greed led to him attacking another Earth and its champion Superman who teamed up with Captain Marvel to defeat the villain. It was then that the wizard Shazam was freed where he stripped his magic from Sivana and returned him to normal. The Marvel Family then thanked Superman who then returned to his Earth in the Multiverse. (DC Comics Presents Annual v1 #3)
DC
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Mary Batson was the daughter of Clarence Charles Batson V and Marilyn Batson with her being the twin sister of Billy Batson. (The Power of Shazam!)
She came to attend Tomlinson School in Fairfield where she was invited by Sinclair Batson to attend a contest at WHIZ Radio Station. He greeted Mary Bromfield and her nanny Miss Primm at the Schaffenberger Airport where he had a car take them to radio contest. (The Power of Shazam! v1 #3)
During the Day of Vengeance, the Spectre went on a mad rampage after being convinced by Eclipso to destroy all magic after convincing the Spirit of Vengeance that it was responsible for evil on the Earth. This saw the Shadowpact calling all mystical heroes together to help in the crisis with Mary Marvel being among them. (Infinite Crisis Special: Day of Vengeance v1 #1)
Her search took her to Gotham City where she found Black Adam in the remains of the Kahndaq embassy. She was looking for a return of her powers with the furious Teth-Adam lamenting of how hope was gone in his life and it seemed that he was willing to kill Mary. However, he uttered the magic word "Shazam!" and turned himself mortal whilst his powers were transferred to Mary thus restoring her as Mary Marvel. Teth-Adam departed but asked Mary to deliver a message to her brother namely that he was sorry about what would happen now in the future. (Countdown v1 #47) With her powers, she witnessed five pregnant woman use a piece of the Rock of Eternity in a ritual where they sacrificed their lives to free the demon Pharyngula, the Harvester of Stillborn Souls. (Countdown v1 #46) She was then summoned into the Rock of Eternity where she was reunited with Billy Batson who now possessed the powers of the Wizard. He revealed that he had been entrusted in taking over his mentors role and was helping Freddy replace him as Earth's Mightiest Mortal. However, he had grown concerned at Mary's new power and how aggressive she had become with Billy stating that it was perhaps her destiny to lose her powers. Mary decided to hear none of this and instead claimed she would use Black Adam's powers to do good and left the Rock of Eternity. (Countdown v1 #44)
In the search for a mentor, Mary sought out Zatanna who was heading a show on a cruise ship when it seemingly came under attack from Slig of the Deep Six. In reality, Slig was attempting to escape pursuit from the New God Killer who had killed his comrades. This resulted in a battle with Mary Marvel and Zatanna with Slig mutating some of the human crew to serve as shields from his pursuer. Despite his efforts, he was killed by his attacker who disappeared with Mary using her powers to help turn the mutated passengers of the cruise ship back to normal. (Countdown v1 #38) She was taken to Zatanna's home at Shadowcrest where she showed an affinity for learning about magic. However, she quickly grew bored at the mundane learning and simply wanted to progress to using more advanced magical relics but Zatanna kept denying her. This led to Zatanna telling Mary that she was heaving like a child causing the young hero to snap and unleashing her magic. She then attempted to forcibly take a magical relic after being consumed with a lust for power with Zatanna attempting to stop her. Mary in her paranoia believed that Zatanna had betrayed her and was one of many people trying to take away her magic. (Countdown v1 #36) Zatanna was able to turn Mary back to her mortal form and then banished her from Shadowcrest with the young hero being mystically barred from ever finding it again. (Countdown v1 #35) Afterwards, she met with Klarion the Witchboy who said he would tutor her in magic though he attempted to drain her of her power. Mary then heard a call that took her to Turkey where she met Eclipso who had possessed the body of Jean Loring. (Countdown v1 #32) Under her tutelage, Mary came to learn more of her powers that she could achieve various effects as she unleashed them in an isolated region in Turkey. (Countdown v1 #29) Mary then began to recklessly use her magic to punish those she deemed as guilty where she turned poachers into animals or plants whilst using the magic to age murderers in prison to death. Her rampant use of magic was deemed a threat to a mystical balance and strayed from the path of justice with this being seen by Madame Xanadu. This led to her calling upon the Shadowpact where she tasked the superhero team with ending Mary Marvels rampage. (Countdown v1 #28) They confronted her at the Oblivion Bar but were seemingly unable to match her power until the heroes revealed their ambush. To prevent their capture, Eclipso transported both herself and Mary away thus denying the heroes their victory. (Countdown v1 #27) Eclipso then took Mary to Apokolips where she presented Mary to Darkseid as the newest supplicant of darkness with the New God welcoming her into the ranks of his warriors. (Countdown v1 #26)
However, Mary refused and she attacked Darkseid whereupon she fled Apokolips. (Countdown v1 #25) Eclipso followed her in order to convince her to return when they were attacked by a Dominion armada. (Countdown v1 #23) Mary came to find that she had been saved by Eclipso but despite that she was still angry with her for giving her away to Darkseid as a present. It was then that Eclipso urged Mary to vie for Darkseid's attention as a concubine and once she had attained his power then together they could kill him. This angered Mary Marvel who attacked Eclipso and took the diamond from her for herself. (Countdown v1 #22)
They later travelled deeper into Apokolips where they found a device that served as a prison for the gods of Olympus. Mary then used the magic word thus freeing them and restoring her as Mary Marvel. The Greek gods then empowered Harley Quinn and Holly Robinson as they fought against Granny Goodness's forces. After pursuing Granny Goodness, they found the Apokoliptian being murdered by the mysterious New God Killer which departed the scene. It was then that Mary was met by Donna Troy, Kyle Rayner and Jason Todd who requested her aid. It was then that Apokolips was taken over by Brother Eye who had begun to assimilate the entire planet. (Countdown v1 #10)
Still under the dark influence of Darkseid, Mary was corrupted and turned into a vessel for one of Darkseid's servants. She was in Blüdhaven just before the Apokolitian forces spread the Anti-Life Equation worldwide, and she was instrumental in turning Wonder Woman into a "plague vector" for a new strain of the Morticoccus virus. (Final Crisis v1 #3) During the superhero's attack on Bludhaven, she was part of the force that defended Darkseid's fortress. She clashed with Freddy, Tawky Tawny, and Black Adam. Almost immediately, Adam tried to kill her, telling Freddy that it was not Mary who was in control — just "a leering old man" as Adam put it. (Final Crisis v1 #5) As the battle continued, Mary focused on Supergirl, flying across the city and damaging the remaining buildings. Finally, Freddy managed to grab a hold of Mary and shouted "Shazam", transforming them both back to normal and suppressing or removing DeSaad's influence from Mary. She broke down crying over what she had done, as Freddy reassured her that it wasn't her fault. (Final Crisis v1 #6)
Afterwards, she tried not to change back and remained in her corrupted state where she decided to align herself with the Black Marvel family. At this time, Black Adam had claimed the Rock of Eternity for himself after deposing Billy Batson from his position as custodian of the site. He then used the power there to bring Isis back to life but his actions drew the attention of the Justice Society who wanted him to relinquish his claim to the Rock. However, Black Adam refused and Isis even wanted them to use their newfound power to cleanse the world of sin and bring balance to nature. A fight erupted with Courtney Whitmore staying by Billy Batson's side only for the pair to be interrupted by Mary Marvel. She attacked the two as she intended to corrupt Billy and turn him over to the Black Marvel family. (Justice Society of America v3 #24) She forced Billy to say her name and he was empowered by dark magic where he joined her. Later on, Black Adam could no longer go with Isis's plans for the world leading to her, Mary Marvel and Billy Batson attacking him. Their fight was interrupted when Jay Garrick brought back the wizard Shazam from his imprisonment in the Rock of Finality. Restored, the wizard was angered at recent events where he took back his magic from all his champions and turned the now mortal Black Adam and Isis to stone as punishment for their actions. He then sent everyone away from the Rock of Eternity with Billy and Mary no longer possess their powers though they now looked for the soul of their father who had helped guide Garrick in freeing the wizard. (Justice Society of America v3 #25)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Mary lived with her parents who were abusive to her and regularly beat her up. This was until one day she decided to run away from home and lived on the street where she was taken into custody. She was eventually adopted Vasquez family where she was introduced to her foster sibling Freddy Freeman. Initially, she did not speak to him but kept to the rules of the family routine. This was until one day she visited the pet store and heard of a rabbit that was going to be sold off for experiments. Upon seeing this, Freddy decided to help Mary by triggering the fire alarm so she could take the rabbit to safety where she named it Hoppy which became the family pet. (Shazam! v3 #1)
This saw her being the oldest kid living in the Vázquezes' foster home with her foster siblings including Freddy Freeman, Eugene Choi, Darla Dudley, and Pedro Peña. (Justice League v2 #8)
She along with the rest of the Shazamily battled the Monster Society but were overwhelmed by their foes. It was also revealed that Mister Mind had taken possession of C.C. Batson's body in order to be empowered by the champion. Using Billy's father as a hostage, he forced Shazam to read from the Book of Champions in order to break down the barrier between the different Magiclands. This caused them all to merge into a single land with Mister Mind intending to rule it and attain complete mastery of magic in the process. (Shazam! v3 #13)
Afterwards, Billy came to lose his connection to the magic lightning from the wizard leading to his connection becoming unstable preventing him from becoming Shazam. Due to this problem, he was unable to share the power with his siblings thus preventing Mary from transforming. During this time, Billy cut contact with his foster siblings as he wanted to find a way to restore his powers and went to Titan's Academy. In this time, Freddy's health had gotten worse leading to him being hospitalised with Mary tending to him where she tried to get Billy to visit him. This saw her travelling to Titan's Academy in order to confront him about the matter but he still refused to do so. (Shazam! v4 #1)
After losing the power, Mary decided to devote her time to living a normal life and got accepted to Vassar College that was 8 hours from Philadelphia by bus. She decided to stay at the dormitories there and during her free time she could visit her foster parents. Whilst at college, she became acquainted with her roommates and her new class fellows where she believed she would have a fresh start at life. However, she came to find her roommates rabbit Hoppy being enchanted with magic by Billy who still remained trapped in the Rock of Eternity. Whilst there, he had become aware of threats to the world that required a champion to fight them. Thus, he used his magic to enchant the rabbit to be able to deliver the message and also empowered it to help her in Mary's mission as the new champion. Mary though refused to take part but Hoppy used his magic to teleport her to Philadelphia where a bank was being robbed by a superpowered criminal called the Disaster Master. Forced to change, she used her newly returned magic to easily defeat the criminal whereupon she returned to college and looked to put the life of a hero behind her. (The New Champion of Shazam! v1 #1)
Overview
Personality and attributes
She did say that she did have a bit of a temper. (JLA Classified v1 #5)
An incarnation of her was the daughter of Clarence Charles Batson V and Marilyn Batson with her being the twin sister of Billy Batson. (The Power of Shazam!)
Polite and well-mannered, Mary act as the unofficial 'den mother' with her looking after her foster siblings. (Shazam! v3 #1)
One of her friends was her schoolmate Magnolia Blossom. (Mary Marvel v1 #2)
Powers and abilities
Fawcett: Even before getting powers, she was noted for her high intelligence. (Captain Marvel Adventures v1 #18)
Similarly, she was empowered by a number of deities that gave Mary her power.
These included; Selena goddess of the moon who gave her grace, Hippolyta queen of the Amazons who gave her strength, Ariadne spirit of skill who gave her skill, Zephyrus spirit of the West Wind who gave her fleetness, Aurora goddess of the dawn who gave her beauty and Minerva goddess of wisdom who gave her wisdom. (Captain Marvel Adventures v1 #18)
She had noted that she was as strong as Captain Marvel. (DC Comics Presents Annual v1 #3)
As her other self, she gained both the knowledge and wisdom of ancient goddesses such as Minerva. She could speak to the goddess even and learn of secrets such as the means of going back in time by beseeching Father Time. (Wow Comics v1 #19)
It was shown that as Mary Marvel if in the past was compelled to follow the events set by history. This meant that she was forced to speak out the magic word and return to her normal self in order to prevent changes in history. (Wow Comics v1 #19)
DC: By saying the word 'Shazam!', she was empowered by magic and had superhuman abilities. (The Power of Shazam! v1 #4)
As Mary Marvel, she was impervious to bullets. (The Power of Shazam! v1 #4)
She also gained the power of flight. (The Power of Shazam! v1 #4)
After losing her powers, she came to be empowered by the energies of Black Adam after he relinquished them to her. This caused her to appear in a grown up form and wearing a dark uniform of the Black Adam Family. (Countdown v1 #47) Under Eclipso's tutelage, she learnt to command the lightning thus creating storms and other weather related phenomena. Through this means, she could cause intense storms and rains that flooded entire barren areas that were experiencing drought. Furthermore, she could use this power to transform living beings from one state to another such as when she turned cows to be turned into fish. (Countdown v1 #29)
Sufficiently powerful electrical attacks such as lightning could cause her to revert back to being a mortal. (The Power of Shazam! v1 #14)
The New 52: Billy Batson came to share the power of the living lightning with Mary and her foster siblings after using the secret spell. This gave them all access to the power of Shazam that had been split between them. Upon saying the word 'Shazam', she was transformed by magic into a superpowered being with increased strength, invincibility and the power of flight. (Justice League v2 #21)
At one point, she came to wield the power alone as she was the lone champion of magic. This made her far stronger than she normally was as she was not sharing the magic. (The New Champion of Shazam! v1 #1)
For a time, she came to be assisted by a magically empowered rabbit called Hoppy. Magic allowed the rabbit to communicate with her though only she could hear it speaking. Hoppy also had access to several low level spells such as teleportation in order to help Mary. (The New Champion of Shazam! v1 #1)
Notes
- Mary Marvel was created by Otto Binder and Marc Swayze where she made her first appearance in Captain Marvel Adventures v1 #18 (December, 1942).
- In Superhero Comics of the Golden Age: The Illustrated History (1992), Mike Benton wrote, "Rod Reed, the executive editor of Fawcett comics at the time that Mary Marvel was created, recalled that, originally, the letter 'S' in Shazam was to have stood for Sappho. Rather than give his young heroine the questionable powers of a Greek poet from the isle of Lesbos, Reed suggested that Selene, goddess of the moon, might be a more wholesome choice."
Alternate Versions
- In Kingdom Come v1 #2 (1996), an alternate version of Mary Marvel appeared in the world designated as Earth-22 in the Multiverse. She came to marry Freddy Freeman where she took the name of Queen Marvel as the pair had a son that became a masked magic empowered superhero called the Whiz.
- In DC Comics Bombshells v1 #17 (2016), an alternate version of Mary Marvel appeared in the DC Bombshells universe. Miriam Bätzel was born to a Jewish family that lived in a German ghetto during World War II where she came to learn that she was a descendant of the sorceress Shazam. She eventually came to become the era's new Shazam after reciting the names of past heroes in a story.
In other media
Television
- In The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!, Mary Marvel appeared in the Shazam! segment of the 1980s animated television series where she was voiced by actress Dawn Jeffory.
- In Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Mary Marvel appeared in the animated television series episode "The Power of Shazam!" where she was voiced by actress Tara Strong.
Films
- In Shazam!, Mary Bromfield appeared in the live-action film set in the DC Extended universe where she was portrayed by actress Grace Fulton whilst actress Michelle Borth portrayed her as Mary Marvel. She was shown as being the eldest of the foster children that were adopted by the Vasquez family at their home in Philadelphia. It was said that when she was younger that she on multiple occasions had left the home but later returned where she accepted the family completed. Mary was a noted diligent student who was at Fawcett High with her looking to get into Caltech in California. Though this was her dream, deep down she was upset about leaving her home along with her family.
Video games
- In DC: Legends, Mary Shazam appeared as a playable character in the setting of the mobile video game.
Appearances
- Captain Marvel Adventures v1: (1942)
- Marvel Family v1:
- Wow Comics v1:
- Mary Marvel v1:
- The Power of Shazam! v1:
- JLA Classified v1:
- Infinite Crisis Special: Day of Vengeance v1:
- Trials of Shazam! v1:
- Countdown v1:
- Justice Society of America v3:
- Justice League v2:
- Shazam! v3:
- Shazam! v4: (2021)
- The New Champion of Shazam! v1: (2022)
External Links
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