Pallas Athena – Queen of Olympus, Deity of Wisdom, and Castrator of Zeus – has recently discovered that Russian bellicosity, the rise of ISIL, and the cancellation of Selfie are all the doing of that Asgardian wanker Odin. Being a responsible god she plans to deal with her malevolent rival, but in the meantime she needs a champion on Earth to deal with all the shit Old One-Eye has been stirring up. She’s chosen you for that. If you agree, she’ll set things up so that, if you say a certain magic word, you’ll be transformed into a 6’6" tall, athletically formed version of yourself with the strength of Heracles, guile of Hermes, flight of Zephyrus, senses of Artemis, and light of Apollo, and then you can go about righting wrongs and singing songs. Repeating the magic word will turn you back to normal. After being informed of all this, you ask Her how long you can stay in your Captain Marvel analogue form, to which she responds:
[QUOTE=Zeus’s firstborn, currently keeping his balls bronzed as a trophy]
Practically speaking, there is no limit to how long you may remain in your flying brick incarnation. The question you SHOULD have asked is whether you should change back and forth regularly, or assume the hero’s body as the default. That I will leave to your own judgment, but I’ll also make a few observations. If you go on this hero’s journey you are likely to accumulate enemies. Your hero’s body is nigh-invulnerable, but of course your mortal form is not; you and your loved ones will be SAFER if you retain your power at all time. But there are reasons to change back regularly as well. If you live as an demigod all the time, you risk losing the common touch, the ability to understand and empathize with ordinary people’s concerns. Alienation from normals, in other words, is a real danger here.
[/QUOTE]
Assuming you take the hero gig at all, do you remain in the super body all the time, or remain a mortal as a default, using the magic word only as necessary?
Question: does staying in “Marvel” form have the risk of the powerful personalities of the Gods gradually altering my behavior?
Gods are Gods, after all, and come with obsessions & egos the size of Montana. I might be overwhelmed by the “feedback”. :eek:
If so, I’ll use the Big Red Cheese only as necessary.
Not in the case of Heracles, Apollo, Artemis, and Zephyrus; you just go]et a bit of the same mojo that makes them physically formidable, but your mind does not become like theirs. (Except perhaps in the sense that having Heracles’ strength & durability might cause you to reflexively discount most dangers as negligible.)
Hermes … maybe. I hadn’t thought of that, but given that guile is pretty much a way of looking at the world, … yeah, that might be something you have to guard against.
So…what was the reason given in the original CM comics for him to ever want to revert back to Billy Batson? Was it just the need, in those days, for every hero to have a secret identity?
Story-external, so the (presumably child & young teen) reader could identify with Billy. I’ll lay odds that that feature was why Captain Marvel was more popular than Superman for a long time.
Barring the previously mentioned potential mental effects, I’d stay in superpowered mode permanently.
He probably felt that “Billy Batson” was the real him, and “Captain Marvel” wasn’t. Especially given the difference in his apparent age between the two modes. Being Marvel meant that he was “on stage” at all times, having to try to pretend to be much older than he was.
Well, I think it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to switch back and forth on even a semi-regular basis and not be picked up by someone intent on finding your super version’s secrets, especially in our NSA Super Surveillance Society.
And unless you’re going to spend significant amounts of time in your mortal form, cover stories for your frequent inexplicable disappearances are going to be a problem.
Before I got too big on the Super’ing, I’d have to ‘close out business’ so to speak on my mortal life and arrange for that World Tour I just never return from.
Anyway, I liked Erik Larsen’s take on the Billy Batson problem. His ripoff character (I think he was called Mighty Man) had the issue that if he didn’t turn back into his mortal form, his host would eventually atrophy, starve to death, etc. I think there were even bladder concerns if he didn’t turn back to pee (though that might have been because his host at the time was a woman, and might not have been familiar with using his equipment).
The close cognate, Thunder Bunny, explained that staying too long in the super-powered form meant the risk of losing one’s actual identity.
Perhaps if BB remained CM too long, he’d lose out on the process of growing up. He’d lose out on Christmas and birthdays, and first love, and getting an A on his geometry test, and so on.
ETA: for me, personally, I’d happily stay Thunder Bunny for life, and give up my personal life and identity forever. But…that might not be exhibiting the Wisdom of Solomon.
The OP posits my usual absurd hypothetical; the Captain Marvel thing was merely for the sake of brevity in the thread title. (Which is not to say I’m complaining.) Anyway, the powers being offered don’t include Solomonic wisdom, but rather Hermesian guile.
I’d stay. Going back would only lead to situations where I get taken out while in vulnerable form (like the way Dr. Blake was always getting his cane nicked, back when that mattered)
When Captain Marvel was in the JSA during Geoff Johns’s run, it was clear that he retained the emotional maturity of a teenager, even when powered-up. In this interpretation, he probably reverted to Billy in order to have a normal teenage life, date teenaged girls (he was attracted to Stargirl, and Jay Garrick, not knowing his secret, greatly discouraged any relationship between them. Stargirl did know, however), and eventually grow up in the normal course of events. That depiction also had the “wisdom of Solomon” being as much a burden as a help, and he probably longed to spend time without that extraneous voice in his head.
Huh. And I figured it was because C. C. Beck was a better artist than Joe Shuster and later Wayne Boring (though neither of those was a slouch). Or just better writing and marketing than National had.
As much fun as flight and Hermesian guile (?!!) sound, at this point in my life I think maybe I’d switch back to my usual stature at least occasionally. I would likely get tired of being that tall, and I’ve had a long time to get used to my normal height. If I were younger, hard to say.
On the other hand, if Mighty-Me were to lack my tinnitus, switching back to my messed-up mortal ears might be annoying enough that I’d just try to get used to ducking more and such.
Because Billy was the real person; Captain Marvel was just a kid in a grownup body. It’s clear that the Captain had the mind of a smart 12-year-old. Billy was more comfortable being in his own body most of the time.
He was a kid. He needed to play, have formative years, etc. Capt Marvel wasnt really mature, even with the Wisdom of Solomon, in fact that just made him realize he needed to really grow up.