Since I’ve been doing fic planning in this dope journal I got a few weeks back, I’ve been thinking more about my Billy fic concepts.
I’m not sure yet how to characterize Teth in The Prince of Kandahq or Ben-Adam, but I feel like the Teth of Welcome Home, Uncle Teth! would be very,,,,,mercurial, I guess. He’s indecisive in regards to what he plans on doing to these children whom, yes have usurped his place as Champions of the Wizard, and yes would likely be considered his enemy given the fact that Shazam has forsaken him, yet also seem genuinely pleased to see him and already speak to and about him as if he were some long lost relative back from beyond.
The kids would likely be excited about what he could possibly teach them. What he could show them. He was Champion of Shazam for years and years, and he’s an adult besides. There must be so much they could learn from him. But more than that, they would be excited about him. Someone they can talk to. Someone they can relate to. Someone like them.
It’s been so long since Teth’s had anyone that actually cares about him as a person than a savior that he genuinely has no idea what to do about it, and wildly swings between distrusting it and basking in it.
I really like @mismagireve‘s thoughts on Black Dad-am. Here’s my take on how Black Adam might help out Billy with homework.
Since it was a nice day out, Billy Batson was completing his homework in the park, rather than at his current home in the subway or at WHIZ radio tower. The subway was usually too dark, and the radio tower had too much going on for Billy to concentrate. It was almost a 60-page reading tonight, since he had missed the past few nights due to schemes from Dr. Sivana, Mr. Mind, and even Sabbac.
Still, even in this quieter part of the park, he was finding it hard to concentrate. There wasn’t even any birdsong in the background… Or bugs chirping…
Billy looked up. Black Adam was floating in the air not too far away, arms crossed, glaring down Billy.
Billy shouted in surprise and fell backwards off of the picnic table bench, hitting his head. He rubbed it, annoyed, “What do you want now?”
“Hmph. This is truly pitiful. A true warrior is always on guard, with perceptions heightened to detect any foe. Pathetic child!”
Black Adam had been on one of his ‘better-than-you’ crusades for a while. Billy guessed that Khandaq was probably getting too peaceful or something. This would’ve been the fourth time this month that the ex-champion picked a fight with Captain Marvel. At least since it was a fight based on pride, Billy could usually count on Black Adam attacking Captain Marvel, not Billy.
Billy rolled his eyes, and sat back down on the bench, “Well, this ‘true warrior’ has history homework to catch up on, so you’ll just have to wait.”
“I’ve been waiting five minutes! Your studies can wait.”
“You’ve been floating there for five minutes? Are you really that bored?”
“Insipid child! This conflict of ours is a serious battle. I expect you to regard it as such. Say the word, and meet me in combat. I have made sure there are no ‘bystanders’ around to suit your childish stomach.”
Billy sighed, looking up from the book. He hated fighting for the sake of fighting, even more so to suit the arrogant ruler’s boredom and desire for conflict, “Look, you’re like 6000 years old, right?”
Black Adam was taken aback by the question, “Yes. What does this matter?”
“These chapters are on ancient Egypt, including the region of Khandaq. Help me finish these chapters and my worksheet, and then Captain Marvel will fight you.”
Black Adam groaned, floating down to the ground. He peeked over Billy’s shoulder at the textbook. “I don’t have to negotiate with the whims of a child.”
“Believe me, it’s not my whims! Miss Wormwood always assigns extra homework whenever I’m late. I can’t exactly use ‘fighting crazed supervillains’ as an excuse.” Billy looked at Black Adam pointedly.
“Whining isn’t going to solve anything, you should respect your elders. Scoot over, let me look at this…” Black Adam read the first few pages of the book quickly, aided by the powers granted to him by Zehuti, the Egyptian god who invented the alphabet, “This book is complete garbage!” Adam threw it against the ground, into the mud.
“Hey! I have to return that at the end of the year.”
“Hmph! You can return it now. Let me tell you how things really went down circa 4000 BC…”
Although Billy later confronted Black Adam about his failed history exam, Black Adam insisted that the answers he gave were correct. It was only through a quick bit of diversion that Billy prevented the villain from heading to Billy’s school himself and barking sense into the history teachers there.
For those who don’t check my WIPS/Drafts/Concepts page (and why wouldn’t you, beyond listing all my current/future projects and ideas, I also update all the listed word counts on stories as they get written), Ben-Adam is one of the three stories I have listed for the Black Dadam Initiative. Its listed summary is thus:
Ben-Adam—In accordance to ancient Egyptian belief, it takes, on average, 3,000 years for a soul to be able to reincarnate in human form once again. But perhaps in certain special cases, a soul may choose to delay its return to human form. When Black Adam returns to Earth after 5,000 years away, he finds one of his children waiting for him: Billy Batson, a child living on the streets with the power of Shazam and no memory of his past life.
So Ben-Adam was an idea that started with this conversation with @achilles-ikea about the various AUs in which Billy is revealed to be the bastard son of Bruce Wayne. I’d tossed around an idea where Billy somehow reminds Teth of his son here, but this conversation was where the idea more sort of solidified. If the links aren’t working, the first is an Anon positing that Billy as a Wayne, or Billy as an amnesiac Damian is the Broke to Billy as Teth-Adam’s time-traveling/reincarnated son’s Woke, and the second is a conversation I had that kind of kickstarted the whole Black Dadam Initiative.
Achilles-Ikea and I then started talking about the reincarnation idea, as well as joking about it. I particularly like this bit:
billy, drinking a slurpee while lost in thought during a meeting:superman/batman/someone: have something to add, captain marvel?billy, without thinking: nah. like yesterday i found out i’m the reincarnation of one of my enemy’s sons, and i’m still trying to process that.
and then there’s dead silence at the meeting table as billy asks whoever was talking to continue
I picked the title Ben-Adam specifically because it means “Son of Adam”, but more broadly it means “Son of Man”, which I quite like, since the thing that makes Billy (and by extension Mary and Freddy) heroes is the fact that they’re people, not superpeople.
The basic idea of Ben-Adam is that some time after already facing Captain Marvel as an enemy, Black Adam suddenly becomes aware that the child hero that opposes him is actually one of his sons reincarnated (and later finds that the other son was reborn into Mary), which, while it doesn’t immediately change their relationship, it does result in Teth needing to think about things for a while. The whole reason he went mad and started killing people in the first place is because his family was killed. While he’s certainly done a lot of horrible things for a lot of horrible reasons since then, their deaths were the catalyst for everything he does after becoming Black Adam.
So if he’s now fighting to kill one of his sons, where exactly does this leave him? It sparks a lot of reflection and reconsideration in Teth, especially since the only reason that Billy is opposing him in the first place is that Teth is usually the one to fire first. Shazam might’ve told Billy that Teth was his enemy, but Teth didn’t have to prove the wizard right by trying to kill him just for being Shazam’s Champion.
(speaking of Shazam, the wizard swears that Teth’s kids reincarnating into his champions was totally not planned and is the universe’s biggest coincidence, but no one believes him)
Meanwhile on Billy’s end, a lot of things are going to start making sense. When he was younger, occasionally Billy would have dreams of his past life that he later dismissed as just kid stuff. If he dreams about a past life in ancient Egypt, clearly it’s because his parents were archaeologists doing a dig in Egypt and it got his imagination running. If he dreams about his dad being a superhero, well, what kid from a happy and healthy home not idolize their parents? If he dreams about his dad being a tall man that’s strongly built with black hair and sun-tanned skin, that’s literally a description of C.C. Batson so nothing’s wrong there.
It’s going to be awkward for them, and it’s going to be weird, since Teth has no idea how to reconcile the son he lost with the boy who carries his spirit, and Billy is understandably less than keen to acknowledge Teth as any kind of “real” parent when he's still cherishing C.C. and Marilyn’s memory. It’s going to require something big enough to drive them to work together in order to deal with all these issues and reach an understanding, but I haven’t yet figured out what that thing is since god can you imagine something so bad it requires two Champions of Shazam to deal with?
Other people: Billy as Batman's son/ Billy is Damian - Me, a fool who need sleep: Billy as Teth Adam son that got send to the future by the wizard/ Billy is a reincarnation of Teth Adam's son and\or Nephew (52)
it took me a few reads to get thisbilly as batman’s bastard son? interesting, but sad since it leaves cc out of billy’s gene pool. would greatly prefer billy to be batman’s godson, since bruce is allowed to be friends with marilyn and cc without fucking either of them.
billy as amnesiac damian? nah son. damian is his own thing and billy is too sweet to ever be that little murder gremlin. plus there’s kinda the whole, uh. medical rape thing. that lead to his creation.
billy as teth adam’s son sent to the future i have to admit to disliking for the same reason that i dislike billy-the-bastard-wayne. it also kinda makes him EVEN MORE similar to superman since now he’s a strange child adopted by caring people in a strange world not his own.
however.
billy as the REINCARNATION of teth adam’s son though? perfect, 5 stars, sign me the fuck up. let’s get this black dadam train going and start up as many found family fics as physically possible.
Au where instead on sealing/ banish Teth away. The wizard could stripped away his powers and then later gave Billy Teth's power but also lock Teth's spirit in the boy.
an ancient egyptian king with a murderous nature is sealed inside a lonely teenaged schoolboy, which grants him a transformation and incredible magical powers that he uses to dispense justice upon the the everyday evildoers he encounters.
where have i heard that before?
in all seriousness, shazam has made some terrible decisions before, but “locking the spirit of my murderous and charismatic ex-champion inside of my morally pure and inexperienced current champion where any manner of corruption can take place” is probably his worst.
like i get that black dadam is a great concept but let’s not forget the fact that teth is a villain first and an antihero second
So I recently fell down the Captain Marvel rabbithole and I love your Black Dadam tag because honestly, Ressurected Magical Murder Obama going out to destroy his replacement only to end up dad-ing is my new fave trope. I wish I could see that conversation where Adam basically informs Billy that he's his new Dad because clearly this child has no preservation instincts.
Black Adam would probably explain his reasoning behind the decision before telling Billy hey, you’re the next in line to the throne of kandhaq now, no take backsies, because that’s kind of a huge bomb to drop on someone and he wants Billy to understand that this wasn’t just some spur of the moment decision, this is something he’s thought long and hard over
This is not the overly complicated plot of a villain to dispose of an enemy; this is Black Adam extending an olive branch.
Billy would almost certainly disbelieve him at first. Like okay Billy is a good child who sees the best in everything and everyone, but he is also a homeless neglected child who has had the shit beaten out of him by Black Adam and also beaten the shit out of Black Adam in return. He’s probably very familiar with offers that seem to good to be true, and considering this is an offer which will make them allies instead of enemies as well as solve his food and shelter problem forever, Billy certainly has a right to be disbelieving.
Except.
The more he thinks about it, the more it kind of makes sense. Billy knows why Black Adam turned to villainy—he knows about the happy family that once was, and he knows all too well what that must’ve been like to lose it. He knows the throne of Kandhaq only has a King to sit on it, no Queen, no Prince or Princess, no anything in case something happens (and lets be real, something is always happening to kill people off in comics) and the country must be without its King for a while. As much as Black Adam holds himself as a god and looks down on everyone else, who else would he trust to look after his people than someone he know is just as invulnerable?
Billy asks for a day or two to think things over (at which point black Adama scoffs because this is not something he’s going to allow Billy to say no to, but still allows anyways because this child is stubborn) and goes to talk things over with the Marvel Fam.
Eventually he agrees to Black Adam’s proposition (which prompts more scoffs) on one condition:
He’s not gonna be separated from Mary and Freddy. They’ve got the magic, they have just as much of a claim to the throne as he does. If he goes to Kandhaq to be a prince, they’re coming with him to be princes and princesses too.
becoming more and more sold on the idea of black adam, ruler of kahndaq, publicly and legally adopting billy batson as his heir instead of just my original idea of black adam, former hero of ancient egypt and just now returning to earth to wreck captain marvel’s shit, just kinda dealing with billy and having to work with him in enemy mine situations and eventually seeing him as a kind of family member to look after and do battle with sometimes
because while the original idea lends itself nicely to billy having a family again and the shenanigans involved in making sure people don’t find out teth isn’t actually his legal guardian
fucking imagine being in billy’s shoes, sitting in class and preparing for a test you have next period, and being told to come to the office because your dad, magic murder obama, is checking you out early for Reasons
imagine billy, mary, and freddy protecting fawcett city as the marvel fam for a while and when black adam returns from his 5000 year journey through space they instantly recognize him as long lost family and treat him like an estranged uncle who lost his way and it actually kinda works to a degree
like the league visits fawcett at some point to talk to the marvel fam about joining and they’re making the introductions like
hi im mary, this is junior, that’s cap over there and the guy in black he’s fighting with is uncle teth—don’t worry about uncle teth by the way, he gets mad sometimes and tries to wreck the city, but he means well for the most part and we all still love him, *faint explosions in the background*
