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3. Freddy Freeman (Captain Marvel)

One of the earliest field missions of the campaign sent the team to Fawcett City, where they came across a Society cell run by Dr. Sivana and his twisted brood. After infiltrating a party (and doing drugs/having sex/becoming a dominatrix), the group found young Freddy Freeman being held captive and generally tortured by the family. The team rescued him, and he spent several weeks recovering in the Oblivion Bar, since the realization that he was a member of the Marvel family meant that his latent magical energy would be better concealed in a location off the grid, and away from the prying eyes of the Spectre. Soon though, Freddy had healed up, and he began to push for a restoration of his superhero persona, which started us out on a globetrotting expedition that continues to this day.

There are a few things its important to note about Freddy before I continue. First, on a surface level, you have the fact that Freddy is disabled and requires crutches to walk around. Not sure just HOW disabled he is from this, but I only bring this up because fact two about Freddy is that, going into the campaign, he was Captain Marvel, Jr., and he could freely assume that form and not only gain superpowers, but also gain the ability to walk unhindered. Now, I dont consider this the focal point of Freddys character, but I also feel like early on, there was a lot of self-loathing and a general feeling of impotence, as he was once able to shrug off the shackles of his disability and become a goddamn superhero, yet the events of the campaign have knocked him down and force him to have to regain what hed already grown accustomed to. But also, on the subject of Captain Marvel, Jr., not only is Freddy a legitimate superhero with the associated training, but hes also part of the Marvel family, and he has the connections with several other Marvels that color his desires to regain his powers in full.

Moving on, as I mentioned in my write-up for Jaime, early on in the campaign, I was playing Pepper as completely out of her depth when it came to superheroing. As such, she tended to gravitate towards whatever youths we brought back to Zonn Zorr, since that allowed her to create a sense of normalcy that had been missing in the wake of being ripped away from everyone she knew and held dear. More than that though, Pepper was a girl who had been sternly talked to by Hawkgirl in the wake of her more illicit activities and forced into the life of crimefighter, rather than crimecommitting. This didnt exactly paint the prettiest picture of Hawkgirl in Peppers mind, or of the superhero system at large, which is why it was vital that Peppers mentor be someone closer to her own age, who could at least relate to her a little more: Lagoon Boy. Its an odd pairing to be sure, but that colored Peppers perception when it came to forming bonds at Zonn Zorr.

Admittedly, a lot of Peppers attempts towards the ill-fated creation of the Zonn Zitans was about making a friend group more than anything else, but there was still a practical application to her mindset as well. If the youths sticking together and working together to bond and grow and form a genuine team would improve ALL of their skills, then having members like Freddy and Spirit would be immensely beneficial towards achieving actual success. However, despite being one of the more serious members of the group, even Pepper didnt take it seriously enough, and I think the beginning of the end really came when Zonn Zorr (not just the Zitans) had Superman Appreciation Day. This was the first time that all the youths (plus Traci at that point) really got together for a real meeting of the team, and it turned into a chance to kind of goof off and just hang out. For Freddy, that was definitely a no-go.

You see, up to that point, wed gone on a handful of missions with Freddy. His whole deal is that he lost his powers, but we knew where to go to find out what had happened. Brennus (an early friend with Freddy), and Pepper (eager to find out what was going on in Salt Lake City) accompanied him on his first quest, where we met up with Billy Batson, aka the former Captain Marvel who had since taken on the mantle of Shazam. With Captain Marvels considerable powers up for grabs, Billy tasked Freddy with assuming the mantle and undergoing the trials needed to gain all aspects of his power set. There was a catch though, in that a girl named Sabine was similarly undergoing the trials, and thus it would be a race to see who could achieve their goal first.

In Salt Lake City, Freddy got intuition from Shazam. At the Strait of Gibraltar, he got Wisdom from Chiron. And at an oasis in Tunis, he got Invulnerability from Ale. This was all handled pretty quickly, but its important to note two things: we did not really focus on Freddys next mission for about three or four months real-time, and while these three powers are helpful, theyre not especially useful in terms of aiding in combat settings. Even with those three powers, Freddy still largely needed to rely on the field teams to kind of carry him along. From personal experience with both early campaign Tali, and on-again/off-again Pepperits frustrating to feel like you cannot contribute to the same extent as the people who are carrying the heaviest load of work around you. This is where we were with Freddy by the time Superman Appreciation Day rolled around.