Mary (Batson) Bromfield is our hero's twin sister, she first appeared in 1942, in issue 18 of Captain Marvel Adventures.
She also, is wielder of the power of Shazam, but in the pre-Crisis era, she was powered by a different set of gods and heroines. When her parents died, the nurse of the wealthy Bromfields puts Mary in the place of their dead baby daughter, and gives each of them, a half of a broken locket that Mary always wears.
Years later, Mary appears in a radio show hosted by Billy Batson, and he notices that she's wearing that other half of the locket that he has. He follows her as Captain Marvel and stops a kidnapping attempt, transforming back into Billy after this, the young man reveals to her lost sister who he is, but most importantly, who she is. But the kidnappers recover, and when Mary looks at them, being his brother as Billy, she desperately utters the word 'Shazam!' and the magic lightning falls over her for the first time, transforming her into the World's Mightiest Girl, Mary Marvel. After Mary stops them, she and Billy go to the Rock of Eternity to find out what is happening.
When they arrived with the wizard, he explains that 'although' she is a woman, the word works with her because there are feminine counterparts to each god and hero that bestow their abilities to Bill, but in her case, Mary has the following attributes:
Selena's Grace
Hippolyta's Strength
Ariadne's Skill
Zephyrus' Fleetness
Aurora's Beautiness and
Minerva's Wisdom.
One of her best friend was Bulletgirl, in reality, Susan Kent. A comic relief effort in the form of a country girl named Freckles, who from time to time, dresses herself as Freckles Marvel.
The post-Crisis origin isn't very far from this one. This time, Mary's nanny, Sarah Primm, is half sister to Theo Adam, so he trusts her in her charge, after he takes the girl with him after killing her parents in Egypt (she went with them this time) and Nema, her nanny in Egypt. Sarah, in turn, gives her to the Bromfields who are unable to have kids of their own. The Bromfields are now, indeed, rich, and Mary is taken into a loving place, forgetting everything of her previous life.
One day, she and Freddy Freeman, go to WHIZ radio as contestants of a Spelling Bee radio, Billy seeing her recognizes her and goes with her to meet her. Once more, he stops a kidnapping attempt against the girl, and reveals his identity, but this time, she goes back to her house, where the Bromfields live, of course, along with Sarah. This time, she goes with her lost doll, Tawky Tawny, because Bill used it as a way to remember her true identity.
Mary thinks of how amazing everything has turned out when I riot explodes inside the house; Sarah is injured trying to protect the girl after revealing why she did what she did. Mary, seeing herself alone and in danger, follows the advice of an stranger that talks to her (this stranger is no other than the very same Mr. Tawky Tawny) in saying the magic word that transforms her brother into the World's Mightiest Mortal. Mary did so, and this way, Mary Marvel was reintroduced into post-Crisis continuity.
In the first days of her adventuring career, Mary makes herself to be called, Captain Marvel, just as her brother, some people even remark how curious is to see Captain Marvel dressed in a mini-skirt, as time passes, the people begin to differentiate both siblings as Captain Marvel and 'the female' Captain Marvel.
In one of her early adventures, Mary makes contact with the post-Crisis Supergirl, and even have a misunderstanding, after a cop tries to molest her. Mary faces Supergirl when the Maid of Steel, doubts what Mary was telling if it were true, but even being this the case, she says that its not in Mary's hand to punish the man, that it has to be via a legal way... (must say that having Mary's the wisdom of Solomon, once she was Mary Marvel, or rather, the female Captain Marvel, everything should have cleared in her mind.)
By the way, this time, in post-Crisis continuity, the source of the powers of Mary are the same as the one her brother has, what I mean, is that both share the powers of the same mystic sextet (presumably to power down Captain Marvel, as some Captain Marvel fans such as myself, think, so Superman and other characters remain on top of the scale), so each time we see Mary flying as Captain Marvel, we know that both Captain Marvels are half their full powers... and wait until you read the Captain Marvel Jr. part.
Mary's costume changes radically after the story 'Family Reunion' that was presented from issues 25 through 27. In this adventure, Sivana has changed the timeline, trying to avoid the mistakes that lead him into loosing everything after the first adventure of Captain Marvel by taking control of the Rock of Eternity and traveling to the past giving himself instructions to avoid the mistakes. In doing so, both, the Batson couple isn't killed by Theo Adam at Abu Simbel in Egypt, so in turn, they receive the power from Shazam.
Lady Marvel, as her mother is known, this time dressed with a variant of the original Mary's costume but instead of red is white, is the World's Mightiest Woman. Both, Bill and Mary do not share the power, being both of them, two happy children, sons of the celebrities of Fawcett. One day, some of the enemies of the World's Mightiest Couple tried to kill the kids, Lady Marvel stops Ibac just after Billy and Mary, dressed as Captains Marvels cheat him into believing they are super-powerful too.
At the end of the adventure, Bill is adopted by the Bromfield matrimony and goes to the same house to live, after many years, with Mary. The next time we see Mary in action as Captain Marvel, she wears the same costume Lady Marvel wore in that alternate timeline, Mary faces Patty-Patty Bang-Bang, two villainesses that fused into one in metal liquid form.
Mary seems to be in love with Freddy Freeman, also known as, Captain Marvel Jr., being her idea this time, to share the power of Shazam of both, Captain Marvel and hers, to the crippled boy to save his life. The result, each Captain Marvel when empowered are just 1/3rd as powerful as the other (yuck!) After this decision is taken, Shazam remarks that he believes that Mary is more prepared to use his power than Bill. This, infatuation, makes that Bill and Mary have a problem, because Bill thinks that he must protect her sister from Freddy, who is very popular among young girls, and thinks he's just trying to play with her sister's feelings.
Bill suffers another bad moment, when Dudley, after being contacted by a mysterious evil entity known as Mr. Finish (who looks as a werewolf), and who is taking the place of Mr. Tawky Tawny as his friend, tells him that he has only 3 days of life, but that he can avoid that, if he could think of seven persons that could take his place. Dudley, thinks of Mary among those seven, thinking that since her apparition, Billy and him aren't as good friends as before, although he didn't wished harm to Mary. When Cap finds out this, he feels that his friendship with Dudley may be over, since Cap recalls him, that Mary is her sister, and that he loves her too much.
After this, the Godwave makes difficult for both Captain Marvels to transform back into their secret identities, as a consequence of this, they reveal their adopted parents their heroic personas, which makes the Bromfields to feel very worried, and wonder how could they raise two meta humans.
In the middle of the crisis, Mary is part of the team of heroes who enter the Source in an attempt to stop the destruction of the universe as we know it. Evidently, they succeed, and Mary and Billy travel back to Earth, leaving the old Wizard in New Genesis, and bringing with them two Mother Boxes, given to them to channel the powers of the gods, who, ultimately, really come from The Source.
Days later, when Mr. Mind attacks, and nobody believes Captain Marvel (The Big Red Cheese) that the intrusive worm from Venus is the responsible, Mary takes an active role in resolving the crisis going to enlist the aid of Dr. Bibbowski to prove that this evil beast is behind the destruction of Fairfield. Mary, then, proceeds to attack Mr. Mind, who's in the White House trying to get the body of the president of the US of A, and manages to make him run, but he escapes. The worm is able to put in trouble to the World's Mightiest Mortals using an ancient extraterrestrial armor that gives him enough physical power to fight toe to toe with the wielders of the power of Shazam! After a terrible battle, they manage (with the aid of two Green Lanterns) to stop Mr. Mind.
Mary meets The Mist in a case where both girls stop the Black Hand, being the participation of Mary of importance in the resolve of this case.
Shortly, the whole Marvel Family (in their secret identities) suffers a terrible accident. With the help of their powers (and a little luck, on behalf of Bill and Mary), they manage to get through, before Bill recovers, since he was the most injured in this accident.
Mary has appeared since in some crisis, recently seen in the Sins of Youth affair, in the attack of Circe to New York City, in Our Worlds At War crisis, and is going to be shown prominently in some issues of Supergirl.
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