Cordwainer says,

"You know New York City better than anyone."

The Shadow replies,

"Well, Billy Batson knows the subway system better'n me but I know everything else, that's for certain."

That's a reference to Billy Batson, the alter-ego of the best-selling comic book hero of all time, Captain Marvel, whose adventures were intially chronicled by C. C. Beck and Bill Parker....and C.C. Beck stayed with the character until the book's cancellation, and beyond.

Even more than most, this comic book was subject to fancifal exaggerations and outright fictions, and considering the source of the tales is a young boy, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Still, unless you want to say Kent Allard was delusional (blasphemy!) the serious student of the Wold Newton Family needs to accept the existence of Billy Batson, his "special knowledge of the subway system" (which is where the wizard Shazam granted him his powerful alter-ego) and all that implies.

Billy Batson is not a member of the Wold Newton family in the sense that he is descended from the carriages full of English nobility who were affected by the ionization caused by the meteor. He is a member in the same sense that Allan Quatermain is...by sharing many of their ancestors (such as Solomon Kane and Manuel of Poictesme, as you will see...) as well as having some other interesting relatives.

"Interesting" may be an understatement.

The earliest descendent mentioned for Billy is in 1692. William Batson was a pilgrim, a farmer and part-time church deacon. He got very caught up in the witch-hunting fever that infected Salem. It was he who captured the evil witch of Salem, Margaret Crabbetson; she casts a curse upon his descendants as she is burned at the stake, saying that the seventh generation shall perish in flames. Her descendant, a gangster, unknowingly does his best to make it so, but is stopped by Captain Marvel Junior. His descendent "to the seventh generation"---is Billy Batson. (Actually, she must have been counting William's children as the "first" generation, given the length of time between William Batson and his namesake, Billy Batson.)

I'm not sure if it's the witch's curse or not, but oddly enough, after that, the Batson family seemed to be often at least marginally involved with matters involving the occult.

William, unfortunately, seemed to have been involved in various instances of witch-hunting. It was he who betrayed to the witch hunt his own cousin, which caused Edmund Carter to flee Salem for the back hills around Arkham. Carter was Batson's cousin---William's mother had been a Carter, and they were both descended from Sir Randolph Carter, who practiced magic in Queen Elizabeth's day, as did other prominent Elizabethans, like Dr. Dee. (Edmund's descendent was Randolph Carter, that H.P. Lovecraft wrote about in stories like THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH, "The Silver Key", and "Through the Gates of the Silver Key". Like Billy, he meddled in the affairs of gods---yet such gods as Nyarlathetop and the gods who danced on Kadath.)

Under the influence of preachers like Cotton Mather, William reacted with horror when he found a maternal ancestor practiced magic, and overcompensated by taking part in the Witch Trials in Salem in 1892, which resulted in 19 deaths and 150 people jailed, under the judgeship of Samuel Sewall. Three years later, after the witchhunting craze in Salem had died down somewhat, he led a superstitious mob to Crabbetson's hovel. They burned her, making her the only witch burned (as opposed to hanged or pressed) in Salem, and perhaps the only witch who might have really had some supernatural powers-- that was killed in Salem. Yet the tide was turning against the witchhunters (two years later Sewall would publicly confess how wrong he was) and they hid evidence of the witchburning.

William married relatively late in life, in his mid-thirties, to the daughter of an English trader, called Medea Blood. Her father was not related to Rafeal Sabatini's Captain Peter Blood, but instead was oddly young-looking, and looked amused at the wedding between his daughter and a witch-hunter...for her father was Jason Blood.

For those who have read Jack Kirby's THE DEMON know, Jason was the alter ego of a demon named Etrigan, who was summoned with a chant, had superhuman strength and magical powers. Whether Jason was a transformed demon as Kirby maintained, or a human possessed by a demon, as later writers maintained, is still being researched. He served the Arthurian magician of legend, Merlin, as Captain Marvel later would Shazam. There are hints by later writers---since according to the earliest stories about Merlin, he was the son of a demon and a nun, and got his powers from his half-demon parentage---that Etrigan the demon and Merlin were half-brothers of the same demon father. Again, this is unclear, but that suggestion is intriguing...it would be interesting if we could put Merlin on the Batson family tree....

Despite her odd parentage, Medea was a good wife to her older husband, and bore him, among others, Daniel Jason Batson.

Daniel Jason Batson was more understanding than his witch-hunting father. He married Janice Franklin, who was a first cousin to Benjamin Franklin. (Like Billy, Benjamin Franklin started working at a young age, becoming a printer at age ten, apprenticed to his brother. At 16, under the pseudonym/secret identity of "Silence Dogood" he wrote a series of brillant letters that attracted attention. As a publisher, Franklin was eminently connected with broadcasting the news, as Billy would be. Franklin was also involved in matters of lightning, using a key on a kitestring to capture the lightning's power and discover electricity.)

Jason became a pioneer, exploring new territories, and helping to found a new town. He was going to send for his wife (still in Salem) from the new town, but the entire township was built over a large cave, which collapsed under the added weight, and the "sinking township" was never heard from again. (See Wow Comics #36 for more details.)

Daniel Jason and Janice's son was named Franklin Batson. He became a privateer/smuggler captain out of Salem during the Revolutionary War. Franklin married Sarah Swift, who was the granddaughter of Dr. Lemuel Gulliver by his daughter Betty. Dr. Gulliver was made world-famous on the publication of his travels by Johnathan Swift. His ancestry on his father's side was touched on here at "The Magnificent Gordons and their Swift Kin", yet how he travelled to lands no one else discovered...indeed, which violates the cube-square law, or at least indicates he might be in other continuums, where the cube-square metric is differently proportioned---is not really explained.

Yet the answer is that his mother, Sarah's, maiden name was Corey---and that she was the daughter of Carl Corey---

Who, although he was suffering amnesia at the time, was really Prince Corwin of Amber, as chronicled by Roger Zelazny. (Corey's wife was an aunt of the explorer Dampier, as mentioned as Gulliver's cousin in the Travels.)

As readers of the Amber series know, the Amberites have the power of walking among the Shadows of what they consider the Real World, Amber---Earth and its universe is just one such Shadow. To travel at will to other planes of existence. The Amberites are immortal, or at least extremely long-lived, and Corwin spent centuries on Earth, before he regained his memory. Amberites can rarely have children outside other Amberites or members of the Courts of Chaos, but in over four hundred years, he did have a very few children.

It appears Gulliver had inherited his grandfather's ability to shift between worlds, albeit only in times of great stress, such as when he is tossed off-ship. Hence his visits to other-dimensional worlds and shores not able to be reached by any other ship.

Like many of Captain Marvel's adventures, Gulliver's travels were edited by Swift for satirical or humorous purposes. Like Corwin, Billy has a strong sense of family, and often deals with matters of magic. Like Johnathan Swift, Donald's cousin, he had a strong sense of humor.

The aforementioned article mentions some other descendents of Gulliver. We will be returning to at least one of them later.

Franklin and Sarah's son was also named William Batson, and became a newspaper reporter, then editor, for a small paper. He married a Jessica Clarke, descended from Micah Clarke through his son Gervas. (Her sister married into the Shawnessy family...see RAINTREE COUNTY.) Through her, the Batsons are descended from Solomon Kane, Micah's ancestor. Solomon Kane, like so many in Billy's family tree, dealt with matters of magic. Like Billy, Kane had a magical mentor in many of his adventures---in his case an African witch doctor. Like Billy, Kane felt it was his mission to fight evil.

William Batson moved from Salem to New York City. He had four sons....Randolph, Solomon, Gervas and Micah.

Randolph stayed in New York City. Solomon travelled west and became the ancestor to "Tall" Billy Batson, also known as Tall Marvel, of the Three Lieutenants Marvel.

Gervas travelled South and became the ancestor of "Hill" Billy Batson, also known as Hill Marvel, also of the Three Lieutenants Marvel.

Micah stayed in the New York area and was the ancestor of "Fat" Billy Batson from Brooklyn, who was also Fat Marvel, also of the three Lieutenants Marvel.

His son, Randolph Batson, was a newspaper columnist. He married Dorothea Bulmer, of the Virginia Bulmer family of Lichfield. She was a granddaughter of Lord Gaston Bulmer and sister to Felix Bulmer, who was to become the father of Marian Butler and grandfather to Felix Kennaston. Both Felix Bulmer and his grandson, Felix Kennaston, were somewhat interested in mystical matters, albeit in a genteel way. Felix Kennaston became a bestselling author, somewhat against his will, after an obscenity trial. His MEN WHO LOVED ALISON, though, was far more than a mere "obscene" book, talking of matters of chivalry and honor and a man's hapless love for a woman.

Felix Kennaston also, like his remote cousin's son, Billy Batson, had a mystical other identity with strange powers in another body---the mystical Horvendile, who travelled through time and through mystical realms, a travelling demiurge who appears in many of the legends of Manuel of Poictesme and his descendents.

Interestingly enough, Dorothea Bulmer and Felix Kennaston are both descendents of Manuel of Poictesme, a hero of the Middle Ages and ruler of a small area of France, where he was a duke, albeit born a swineherd. (Doc Savage was similarly descended from Manuel, through Lord Tiverton.) Manuel fought many monsters, as his descendent Captain Marvel would...and like so many who are ancestral or related to Billy Batson, he had a mystical mentor, a member of the immortal Leshy called Miramon Lluagor who was an accomplished wizard.

Felix Kennaston's story is told by James Branch Cabell's CREAM OF THE JEST, and several of his other books, notably FIGURES OF EARTH, deals with Manuel of Poictesme.

Randolph and Dorothea had two surviving children. One was Brian Bulmer Batson. The other was Dorothea Batson, who married---ran off, actually---with a man named Gale.

In fact, the Gale family Bible reads that "Carl Corey Gale" was the husband of Dorothea. He and his brother Henry were poor farmers in the Midwest, and Dorothea left her family, running away to be with the man she loved.

Carl and Henry's mother, Henrietta Gale, was never formerly married. She lived with as a common-law wife for a few years with a former soldier who decided to try farming for a while, named...

Carl Corey.

Alias Corwin of Amber. Despite the many women he had lived with in his amnesia, Henrietta Gale was only the second woman to bear him children in all that time.

Dorothea was distantly descended from Corwin, via Lemuel Gulliver, but Carl Gale was his son. Lamentably, both Carl and Dorothea died in a fire at their farm. Their one daughter, Dorothy, was then taken to live with her uncle, Henry Gale, and his wife, Emma.

Readers of Frank Baum's WIZARD OF OZ know of her story. Those who read Farmer's A BARNSTORMER IN OZ know some of the exaggerations and fictionalizations that Baum brought into that story, and how the other Oz books, although many were based on details Dorothy related to Baum, were fictional. Farmer proposed a "split-level continuum"---an entrance to another world that pops up occasionally at high altitudes. Of course, that explanation is valid. Otherwise, the Wizard of Oz could have never entered there. But I suggest that Dorothy had more to do with her entrance to Oz and leaving than Glinda let on. That, like Gulliver, when she was in danger, she instinctively shifted through Shadows---and reached Oz's home continuum. As befits a Batson, who often gets involved in mystical matters, she subconsciously picked a world where magic is more common than here.

Dorothy, like her grandfather, Corwin, had green eyes, a tough, practical, resilent spirit, an affinity for magic, and most importantly, the power to shift between planes of existence. I suspect the magic slippers that supposedly carried her back to Oz were just an aid. That if she had been trained in her Amberite heritage, she wouldn't have needed them.

Dorothy married Lincoln Stover, and had a son, Hank Stover. His story was told in A BARNSTORMER IN OZ.

Dorothea's brother, Brian Bulmer Batson, ran a telegraph service in his early years. Later in life he became curator of a museum. He married an Englishwoman named Fanny Pensevy. Her father was Fred Pensevy, the nephew of Ebeneezer Scrooge, as chronicled in Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Ebeneezer Scrooge, as most of the world knows, had a supernatural visitation or hallucination one Christmas Eve, and changed from a miserable miser to a philanthropist. (He consulted with his partner's ghost and the Christmas Spirits the way Billy would consult the shade of Shazam.) Fred was the son of Fanny Scrooge, Ebeneezer's sister.

It was that family connection that caused Brian to name his eldest son Ebeneezer. Unfortunately, that son would more than live up to his namesake...and would never reform.

Fanny Scrooge married a Jerome Pensevy, descended from an illigitimate son of the Earl of Pevensy, a Bulmer, and thus a descendent from Manuel of Poictesme. Their son was named Fred Pensevy. (Thanks to Mark Brown for doing the research concerning the Pevensies...)

Fred married Elaine Farragut, a Spanish-American and a younger first cousin to the first Admiral of the United States, David Glasgow Farragut. It was he who said,

"Damn the Torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

Like Billy Batson, Farragut had adult responsibilites and a job at an early age...during the war of 1812, he commanded a captured British ship---when he was twelve.

Fred's other daughter Joanna married a Freeman, a cousin to R. Austin Freeman who wrote the Dr. Thorndyke stories. This Freeman was a fisherman, and they decided to move to America. His grandson was Freddy Freeman, who later became Captain Marvel Junior. Hence his exclamation,

"If Billy has a sister, she must be my cousin, or something!"

He knew of the distant relationship between himself and Billy.

Brian Bulmer Batson had two sons and a daughter. The oldest child was named Ebeneezer Batson. He grew up to become a miserable miser, and when his brother and his sister-in-law died, threw young Billy Batson out on the street so he wouldn't have to surrender the inheritance Billy was due.

Ebeneezer married once when in his forties, to a Stephanie Strange. The marriage was unhappy, though---Ebeneezer's selfish nature was hard to live with---and Stephenie divorced him. They had at least one son, Stephen Strange-Batson, born about 1920. Stephanie later dropped the "Batson" in her son's name, not wanting to be reminded of Ebeneezer.

Stephen grew up to become an extremely talented surgeon, but like his father, an extremely selfish and avaricious human being. He was, like his father, only interested in money. However, he suffered a car accident in the fifties', and the nerves in his hand were damaged, where he could never do surgery again. Unwilling to accept a lesser position, he drifted into alchoholism and despair.

Then he heard of a Tibetian mystic, called the Ancient One, who might be able to heal his hands. He journeyed to Tibet, and became the Ancient One's disciple. He moved back to America in the early sixties, and from a sanctum santorum in Greenich Village, defended Earth against other realities, as the Master of the Mystic Arts. His adventures were chronicled by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. Of course, they exagerrated many of his adventures...

I hope.

Stephenie Strange's brother, Dr. Hugo Strange, went mad and fought the Batman several times, but his medical genuis (and sometimes sinister manner) was inherited by his nephew, Stephen. A third sibling was the father of Adam Strange, whose exploits were chronicled by Gardner Fox.

Back to the Batson family. There was a middle child, Fanny Batson. It was rumors of her that caused the artists of the Captain Marvel comics to fill the margins of the stories with cheesecake pictures of "Aunt Fanny Marvel".

Finally there was the youngest son, Merrill C.C. Batson. He followed in his father's footsteps as a museum curator. He married Jocelyn Marilyn Cochrane.

Brian Bulmer Batson was more pleased with his youngest child than the disgusting greed shown by his oldest, and the fact that Merrill followed in his footsteps was a factor in his favor. So he left his money to Merrill. (ENB called Billy Batson's father Merrill. Later revisionists called him C.C., in honor of C.C. Beck, and made him a museum curator. Since C.C. Beck nor Bill Parker gave the names of Billy's parents, I'm compromising.)

Merrill and Jocelyn Batson died in an auto accident soon after Billy and Mary were born. Sarah Prinn, their nurse, also cared for a rich woman's baby, and switched Mary for the dead infant who died of crib birth.

Evidently she didn't even know of Ebeneezer at first, and took Billy to an orphanage. Then he was claimed by his uncle. He stayed with Ebeneezer for a few years, but was kicked out when he was old enough to fend for himself---in Ebeneezer's opinion.

Billy and Mary's mother was Jocelyn Cochrane, the youngest of three siblings. They were first cousins to Elizabeth Cochrane, better known as Nellie Bly, one of the most famous reporters in the world, and one of the first famous female reporters. Around the turn of the century, she faked madness and wrote of being in a madhouse, and later imitated Phileas Fogg's eighty-day trek around the world.

The eldest sibling, Ella Cochrane, married Sam Lane. Of their three daughters one would follow very much in Nellie Bly's footsteps, determined to become a famous reporter....their daughter Lois. Lois Lane, like Billy, and their mother's cousin, Nellie Bly, was a reporter who often took extremely reckless chances. (Lois was often saved by her alien paramour, Superman.) Billy was saved by his own alter ego, Captain Marvel. Billy worked in the new medium of radio rather than newspaper work, but they both had a passion for getting the story, no matter what the risks. Billy was much younger than Lois, which makes sense, since his mother was the youngest of the three children. Lois' story, of course, was told by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. What other stories by those who followed those trailblazers are actually true is still to be determined.

The middle child, Peter Cochrane, I'll touch on in another article.

Lewis Cochrane, the father of the three siblings, married Angela Brownlow, an Englishwoman. Angela's mother was Lucille Swift, and was descended from Donald Swift, Lemuel Gulliver and Corwin of Amber. Her father was Oliver Brownlow---once known as Oliver Twist. Oliver didn't marry until he was in his fifties.

After Lewis died, Angela married a teacher named Shea. To their surprise, even though Angela was in her late forties, she had a final child by her new husband. Their son, Harold Shea, became a student of psychiatry. Yet like his ancestor Corwin of Amber and Lemeul Gulliver, he crossed over into other planes of existence....but that's to be expected, since Professor Alex Shea's mother was Sarah Gale, the daughter of Henry and Emma Gale, and first cousin to Dorothy Gale. She fled the dreary life on the farm to better conditions before Dorothy came to live with "Uncle Henry" and "Aunt Em". So Shea was doubly descended from Corwin of Amber, and the dimension-hopping Amber family.

Shea, like his half-sister's son Billy Batson, often had humorous misadventures involving magic. His adventures were chronicled by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague De Camp.

Oliver Twist was the illigitimate son of Edwin Leeford and Agnes Fleming. The story of his childhood was told by Charles Dickens. Oliver was adopted by the kind Brownlow, and many of the things that Billy underwent as an orphan on the streets is echoed by what his great-grandson Billy went through when he was tossed onto the streets. Like Billy, he never lost his essential innocence and purity of heart. In his later life, like his adoptive father, he became a lawyer.

Alex Shea, Corwin of Amber's great-grandson, had two sisters. One married into the Pensevy family of England, marrying a teacher who was Ebeneezer Scrooge's nephew, Fred Pensevy's grandson. Her children were Peter, Susan, Jill and Edmund Pensevy, whose exploits in the alternative world of Narnia were narrated by C.S. Lewis. There, like Dorothy Gale in Oz (and Billy Batson, if there is any truth in the Tawky Tawny tales) they encountered and befriended talking animals. They also dealt with magic in that world, and while they were there, found they aged to near-adulthood....although when they returned to the normal world, the differences in time between the two worlds would cause them to revert to their normal ages.

Thus there are many similarities between Captain Marvel/Billy Batson and Peter, High King of Narnia, and his siblings.

The youngest sister was named Helen, and married twice. Her first husband was a half-Swedish archeologist named Sven Nelson who she married very young. (Sven Nelson's mother was Inga Stjarnhelm, sister to Sven Stjarnhelm, who was Matt Helm's grandfather.) Their child Kent Nelson was born in 1918, his sister Helen in 1920.

She grew bored with his constant rounds of archeological digs in the Valley of Ur, and divorced him. However, Sven got custody of young Kent.

Sven died in the Valley of Ur, in 1930, releasing the mage Nabu (who was also an ancient god to the Sumerians). Nabu tried to make it up to young Kent by teaching him "the secrets of the universe". As it turned out, Nabu was a "Lord of Order" who imparted his essence into a golden helm to be worn by Kent, to gain mystical powers beyond mortal ken. When Kent Nelson donned the helm, he became Doctor Fate.

Doctor Fate battled many elder gods and menaces. He was also a founder of the Justice Society of America, founded by FDR. His earliest adventures were chronicled by Gardner Fox.

Helen Shea's daughter Helen Nelson was married to an Englishman named Paul Dakar. Their son was John Dakar, who lived a very ordinary life, seemingly happily married with a child, but was plagued by dreams. Unknown to himself, he was a facet of the oft-incarnated Eternal Champion, whose other "lives" include Erekose, Elric, Hawkmoon and Corum in other planes of existence, and whose cursed existence always involves battle.

Or at least so his visions told him. Erekose, at least, searched again and again for the peaceful city of Tanalorn. Michael Moorcock took John Dakar's troubled visions and dreams and made them into a series of fantasy novels.

What, you say you don't believe in magic? Goodbye, SHE. Goodbye, Zikali, The Thing-that-could-not-be-born. Goodbye, Manuel of Poictesme. Goodbye, Solomon Kane.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth then dreamt of in your philosophy..."

Open your eyes like a child---like Billy Batson...and believe.

PARTIAL LIST OF SOURCES:

"The Amazing Lanes" about the Lane family, by Win Eckert.

"The Magnificent Gordons and their Swift Kin" by Dennis Power about, among other things, Lemeul Gulliver and Harold Shea.

"The Earth-S timeline" highlights many of the events of the Captain Marvel stories.

"The Carters of Virginia: A Tragedy" by Jess Nevins.

"The Mysterious Case of the Carters" by Todd Rutt and Arn McConnell.

Of course, also TARZAN ALIVE and DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE by Philip Jose Farmer.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at...
E-Mail:al.schroeder@nashville.com

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Speculations Copyright © Al Schroeder. "Captain Marvel", of course, is currently owned by DC Comics Inc./Warner Communications...who says life isn't full of ironies? All other characters copyrighted by their respective owners.