Wed May 7, 2008 — by Aaron Rosenberg

Happy Birthday: Freddy Freeman

He's a Marvel!

Frederic Christopher “Freddy” Freeman was born and raised in a small New England fishing village. His parents drowned in a storm, however, and Freddy was sent to live with his maternal grandfather Jacob in Fawcett City in the American Midwest. Freddy was smart, friendly and a natural athlete, and by high school he was not only a star student but also a top-notch athlete.

Then disaster struck. While fishing in Fawcett Bay, Freddy and his grandfather saw a man fall from the sky. They rescued the man, discovering too late that it was Captain Nazi, propelled into the water by one of Captain Marvel’s mighty blows. Coming to, the Nazi supervillain attacked his saviors. Captain Marvel intervened, drove Captain Nazi away, and rushed the two civilians to the hospital, but the damage was done—Jacob died and Freddy was in critical condition.

Desperate to make amends, Captain Marvel brought the injured Freddy to the wizard Shazam, who revealed that Captain Marvel could pass some of his own power along to the boy. Thus Freddy became Captain Marvel, Jr. and part of the Marvel Family.

In his mortal form, however, Freddy had a limp, a permanent reminder of what had happened to him.
More recently the wizard Shazam died and the laws of magic were rewritten. Billy Batson became Marvel, the new keeper of magic, and Freddy underwent a series of trials before becoming Shazam, the new champion of magic.

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