If you've followed my blog in any capacity, you know I like to discuss those rarities I feel are largely ignored. Sure, I'm certain there are other people who could tell you if Sonic is way past cool, or how silly it is that Tim Burton's wife always gets similar roles, or how enrapturing Friendship is Magic is. But I always try my best to take the road less traveled, to finds those spots that most of the Internet missed, and to attack them.
So, I have found a case study so perfectly suited because she's tied to something fairly known, and yet so obscure even veritable sites dedicated to covering that completely ignore it, that I've decide to cover it throughly. I am, of course, talking about Freckles Marvel.
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| She's the bottom one, about to be dismembered. |
Freckles Marvel was a part of Captain Marvel history, and not a once off oddity either: During the height of Captain Marvel's fame, at which point, need I remind you, he was easily more recognizable than Superman, she graced several covers. She had a town for her to inhabit, supporting characters to her, and even a nifty apellation. And seemingly overnight, she banished off the face of the earth, never to be tarted up, or gritted up, or killed off. Just oblivion.But she won't stay forgotten for long, because, I'm covering all her adventures in my series The Lost Marvel.
But who IS Freckles Marvel? Well, we should first examine her origin. Let's do it, by going all the way to Wow Comics #35, the first and last Public Domain Freckles Marvel story!
First some slight backstory. Captain Marvel, as created by Otto Binder, presumably was in reality Billy Batson, a young orphan. Due to a run in with an old wizard he gained the power to become the Earth's mightiest mortal Captain Marvel(TM Marvel Comics) by yelling Shazam(TM DC COMICS). Later, he discovered he had a twin sister who gained the same power, Mary Marvel.His cast expanded to several enough related characters for them to call the group the Marvel Family. Then he discovered his "uncle", a world class shit head.
Uncle Marvel, Dudley H Dudley, an oportunist leach of a slob, who tried to cash in on Marvel fame. The Marvels humored his attempts to fool them into accepting this snake oil salesman as another inheritor of the Marvel Family legacy. Our story begins in one of his trademark attempts to find a quick buck on his company, Shazam Incorporated. Litterally.
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| We mourn the loss of money this company does every 3rd fiscal year. |
And that's when she bursts in. Mary Dudely. Mary claims to be Dudely's niece, though he must not have seen her in a long time.
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| (laugh track) |
Essentially, Mary strongarms Dudely into being another Mary Marvel, albeit one not imbued with any sort of power or even average human intelligence. However, since they can't both be Mary Marvel (because people would not be able to tell the one who can fly from the one who can't.), Uncle Marvel christens her Freckles Marvel. On account of her freckles.
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| Hey, you ain't exactly Hugh Jackman there, buddy. |
Her first quest quest: find the hidden inheritance of one Roger Cole.
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| He also glued this novelty teeth to my face. |
Following the clues, Fat Sheister Marvel and Bratty Psycho Marvel find...an armed thug also wants the money. Naturally, Freckles tries a time tested strategy.
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| She rolled low on intelligence. |
Lucky for her Mary Marvel litterally jumps out of the foreground and helps. But getting shoved off by a gunman has only made Mary dudely even more confident. She tries jumping, probably thinking that's a good trick.
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| Oh, wow, I've had so many oportunities tho shoot that girl...it's like the universe is telling me something! |
The ineptitude of Freckles Marvel is so great, she somehow crushes Mary Marvel under her weigh. Mary Marvel sweats off bullets and swords, but she can't magic her way out of this one. The thief make s his getaway. They get underway to the second clue, and find the thief yet again tries to get them, this time by vehicular manslaughter. But I bet Freckles Marvel won't do anything stupid THIS time.
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| Being fair here, throwing a hornets nest takes some guts. |
Uncle Marvel, who is only pretending to have powers to make money, thinks it's time for Mary to hang up her cape, but Mary Marvel is confident she's not over her head. That's when that stupid girl goes out and...wins against the thief.
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| "Hey, if YOU were an invinsible avatar of half a pantheon, you too would do things like allowing this to go on." |
So it's easy to see how Freckles Marvel's adventures could have ended right there. The character's whole joke, that she was as ineffective as she was deluded, was not the stuff of solo adventures. But something strange happend when Freckles Marvel moved to Mary Marvel's comic. Join me then, won't you?
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