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Post by dans on May 21, 2024 15:54:44 GMT
Do we know anything about the demon who is mother to Blaze and Satanus? Her name, her history with their father (who she claims was Shazam - and who may be Shazam...), the story of the romance?
I don't need to know any of that, but it sounds like it could be an interesting story.
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Post by DocQuantum on May 21, 2024 16:57:02 GMT
This is, of course, a Post-Crisis idea that has been imported into Earth-S history. I’m not sure I like the idea, personally. I’d be more inclined to Mazahs being their father, but I have no idea if Shazam has ever acknowledged his paternity in a story, so it might not work.
dc.fandom.com just says the mother of Blaze and Satanus was an unnamed Hellhound... which is very disturbing. Not only Necromancy but Bestiality involved now. I can't imagine the Old Wizard being involved in such practices.
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Post by DocQuantum on May 21, 2024 17:04:17 GMT
Personally, I think Blaze and Satanus cannot have had such a central role in Marvel Family history as they do in the Post-Crisis comics. There are just too many times when the two should have been involved at some point but just weren't at all involved (such as the story from Adventure Comics #491-492 featuring the Confederation of Hell -- seems like it should have been tailor-made for Blaze and Satanus, yet they weren't included). I consider them more sporadic foes of the Marvel Family who appear very infrequently rather than arch-enemies. They just seem to be more central figures because our stories have featured them several times. But putting our stories up against the majority of the Marvel Family stories published by Fawcett indicates how infrequently they have involved themselves in Marvel Family affairs. That's more evidence that their belief that they are the children of Shazam and a Hellhound could be false.
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Post by dans on May 21, 2024 20:33:18 GMT
I was very disturbed about Shazam being their father, and back on yahoo I tried to divert it. They could easily be lying; in fact, it would be surprising if they are not lying.
They DID appear regularly on our Earth S for quite a while, and did have major parts to play. So we can't write them out. Perhaps they are indeed the offspring of a demon and a human mage (NOT Shazam), but they were relatively isolated until recently. And during the Suspendium Interregnum, shortly after all the heroes (and villains and supporting characters) disappeared, they tried to take advantage of the lack of heroes - and they were stopped by Shazam, and so they decided that he was now their number 1 enemy. So they concocted their scheme to corrupt Kali, and when that failed, they set their sights on the Marvel family.
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Post by DocQuantum on May 21, 2024 20:41:46 GMT
Just to clarify, Blaze and Satanus do have a history with the Marvel Family that has been alluded to that predates the Suspendium incident. In an untold story, they were responsible for taking Mary's adoptive father to Hell for an indeterminate period of time. This is based on the Post-Crisis Power of Shazam series and has only been mentioned in a couple of stories written by Synthia Finnegain, so could be something that is easily written out. It's just that it's a plot point in the Summer Showdown story that is my attempt at continuing her Road Trip story.
Anyway, according to that untold story, Blaze/Satanus faced the Marvel Family sometime around 1950, possibly only once or twice, and for some reason targeted Mary Marvel's adoptive father much earlier for reasons that remain unclear. It's a muddled mess that needs explanation and possibly a revamp to make things simpler.
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Post by dans on May 22, 2024 1:30:18 GMT
we would have to pull the 'To Fly Again' story or rewrite it majorly if we were to remove the references to Mary's father being kidnapped. It would be easier to create a backstory for Blaze and Satanus and write the story of the rescue. The timing suggests that sometime in their original careers, the Marvels interfered with a plot by Blaze and Satanus and earned the #1 spot on their enemy list.
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Post by redsycorax on May 22, 2024 2:54:40 GMT
How about a Times Past story incorporating the Marvel Family and characters from Dante's Divine Comedy, in which they have to fight their way out of the Inferno* and in the process, inadvertantly cause collateral injury to a pregnant succubus, who turns out to be Blaze and Satanus' mother? That might give motivation for the couple to feel enmity toward the Marvel Family. As for boasting about their parentage, they might indeed be lying and trying to pull rank within the demonic hierarchy. It'd certainly feed into Fawcett's aspirations to provide historical and literary substance underpinning their adventures, which is one of the things I liked about some of the Golden Age stories.
*Which is the more interesting and historically 'densest' segment of the Divine Comedy anyway, given the character conflict and biographies of the characters Virgil and Dante meet.
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Post by dans on May 22, 2024 11:26:15 GMT
I never read the rest of the Devine Comedy, but there are a lot of places in the Inferno that would be tough for even the Marvels... I think this scenario would make Blaze and Satanus too young, but demons might grow to adults faster than humans (might even be born fully grown) or we might be seeing very young demons all along which might be one of the reasons they are defeated so readily... it might also explain why they reverted Atom Blake to 6 years old, if they were still around 6 years old when they encountered him.
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Post by DocQuantum on May 22, 2024 16:21:23 GMT
Time travel via the Rock of Eternity is a simple workaround to that issue, though I have a serious problem with the idea of demons giving birth to new life in Hell itself. Not possible according to any cosmology I'm familiar with.
As for the actual parentage, Blaze and Satanus would likely have been born thousands of years ago when Shazam was much younger, and when he could have conceivably become their father. It's likely that their mother lied about it, and that it was actually Mazahs (Shazam's evil twin) who was the real father. Demons are masters of deception.
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Post by redsycorax on May 22, 2024 22:23:50 GMT
As for the concept of demons giving birth in hell, it might be possible, but extremely difficult, with correlates like a high proportion of stillbirths, miscarriages, teratogenic births, death of the pregnant parent, and so on. Blaze and Satanus might therefore be relative rareties. If one wanted to pursue the Divine Comedy thread, might I point out that Virgil (Dante's guide through the Inferno) is a denizen of ancient Rome and therefore also thousands of years old. As for the motivation to get the Marvels there, let's say that someone in the Inferno setting has abducted a prominent character on Earth-S and is holding them captive. Accordingly, after they beg Shazam for help, the old wizard sends them down into the Inferno to rescue their friend, perhaps even with Virgil to assist them as in the original Divine Comedy.
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Post by redsycorax on May 22, 2024 23:01:34 GMT
Here are some names for their mother Abhora Negata Phobiana Avarica Vilanete Kruela Dolorosa
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Post by dans on May 23, 2024 16:13:41 GMT
It would be kind of cool if Mary, Billy, and Freddy encountered Virgil; perhaps Virgil and Shazam are old friends.
I don't know anything about the evil wizard Mazahs; while I did some copyediting on the Challenge of Shazam round robin story, that was the only time I encountered him. I had the impression that he was new on the scene; perhaps created during the Crisis? He must have been elsewhere in the 40s or it seems likely that he would have showed up in one or more Golden Age stories Fawcett published.
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Post by DocQuantum on May 23, 2024 18:41:09 GMT
Mazahs was specifically created for that Challenge story as Shazam's evil double. He has since been revealed to be the Earth-3 version of Shazam and may reappear in an Earth-3 story in the future.
He could easily have appeared in earlier times even if his presence was not known to any of our heroes. I propose Mazahs being the true father of Blaze and Satanus since it makes WAY more sense than some other random person in the past. This way, Blaze and Satanus are telling half-truths when they talk of Shazam being their father, since in a sense one version of him is. Demons love to cloak lies in the veneer of truth.
Of course, none of this needs to be revealed in any of the stories featuring Blaze and Satanus, since it's not relevant to the plot. It just might make for a good origin story focused on them someday wherein the truth is revealed. Currently, nobody knows what the truth is about them.
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Post by DocQuantum on May 23, 2024 18:48:45 GMT
As for the motivation to get the Marvels there, let's say that someone in the Inferno setting has abducted a prominent character on Earth-S and is holding them captive. Accordingly, after they beg Shazam for help, the old wizard sends them down into the Inferno to rescue their friend, perhaps even with Virgil to assist them as in the original Divine Comedy. This is basically what happened to Nick Bromfield, Mary Bromfield's adoptive father. He was abducted by Blaze and Satanus some years before Mary Marvel's first appearance in 1942 and was missing for about a decade before being rescued from Hell, not having aged during that time -- all referred to in published stories, but never told in full. The rescue mission around 1950 is the Marvel Family's first encounter with Blaze and Satanus, so it could not also be their origin story. The origin story doesn't really need to involve the Marvel Family at all, since it must take place long before Billy Batson ever said "Shazam!"
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Post by redsycorax on May 23, 2024 23:05:34 GMT
It doesn't necessarily have to be Nick. Perhaps someone like Uncle Dudley or one of the other supporting cast members.
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