8FOLD: Victory #1

[Jeanne Morningstar]

LOOK OUT! HERE IT COMES! A STARTLING NEW ERA IN FOUR-COLOR EXCELLENCE!

8FOLD Comics Presents:
VICTORY #1 [8F-188]
"The Origin of Victory!"
by Jeanne Morningstar

****

CHAPTER 1: THE STARLIT TEMPLE!

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who lived in Golden City, the 
youngest of three daughters. Her name was Kate Aldrich. She had only 
admitted to herself she was a woman about three years ago. She was short 
and scrawny and never had much in the way of stamina. She had never felt 
like much of a man, and now she didn't feel like much of a girl.

She lived in an apartment she could more or less afford, with a roommate 
named Elinor who she was hopelessly in love with. The way she wore 
femininity naturally made Kate feel both awe and a tinge of jealousy. 
Kate worked in a series of data-entry jobs here and there, none of which 
offered much hope of long-term security and advancement. What she really 
wanted was to be a game designer. This, too, she had only admitted to 
herself not long ago, and she didn't know enough coding yet to make a 
job of it. She loved games like Bayonetta where she could be a woman who 
was both powerful and desirable, even though she didn't want men to 
desire her. She had a list of complicated and cranky opinions about 
popular culture as long as your arm. She was autistic, and her special 
interest was superheroes. And her favorite superhero of them all was Mr. 
Victory.

Mr. Victory had been the defender of Golden City in years long gone. He 
flashed across the sky like a comet in the 1940s. No one really knew 
where he had come from. The story that was told was that his powers were 
magic--he was a mortal transformed by a magic word written on a stone 
that had fallen from the heavens. He could be anyone. That made people 
believe in him all the more--every child hoped in their heart that one 
day they could become him.

And then, in the 1980s, it all ended. No one quite knew why. There was a 
great battle between him and an enemy of titanic power, a man who might 
once have been one of his sidekicks. The exposés came in and the world 
found that his origin was all a lie, that he was created by a government 
experiment, and the stories of wonder and strangeness that were told 
about him were nothing but cover for more simple and sordid truths.

But some people never stopped believing in him. Kate was one. Her high 
school English teacher, one of the few people who'd ever supported her 
back then, had told her about how Mr. Victory had talked her out of 
killing herself when Kate had thought about doing the same. The memory 
of Mr. Victory had kept her through awful times. She read the old comics 
that were made about him over and over again, believing in her heart 
they could still be true, even as she knew in her mind they were not.

One night, she was forced to work late, taking unpaid overtime. She made 
her way grumbling home to find that the sky had turned dark. She knew 
that she was unsafe in the night, that the city held many dangers, human 
and perhaps otherwise, if the old stories were true. But she didn't 
really believe in them, did she?


Then she saw another woman walking home alone by night, and three men 
following her. They were bulky men in leather jackets who walked with 
ill intent. In the streetlights she caught glimpses of their faces. They 
were faces of toads. She found herself doubting her vision. For the 
soldiers of the Toad King had fought Mr. Victory in the foxed and 
brittle pages of the old comics she'd read. They were not real. Yet here 
they were.

She wanted to run and hide; she hoped desperately to wake up. Yet she 
knew she had suffered enough, had stood back and watched too often. Her 
heart clenched in a hard certainty and she knew she could no longer 
stand by. "Hold it!" she said to them. "You leave her alone!"

"What's it to you?" croaked one of the Toad Men. He licked his filthy 
face with his tongue.

Kate put up her fists. She knew she couldn't win--she knew the death 
she'd felt looming over her all her life ever since she'd realized what 
she was had come. But she was going to meet it fighting. She swung her 
small fists at the Toad Men, staggering them with her unexpected 
strength. But she could not fight for long. Under their blows she 
collapsed to the cold, wet pavement in exhaustion. The Toad Men closed 
in on her.

"Excuse me," said another voice in the night. "Haven't you something 
better to do with your time?"

The voice belonged to a stuffed polar bear, six feet tall, in a blue 
suit. That would be me. My name is Cornelius. I am a stuffed toy imbued 
with the spirit of an elemental. My story is a long and complicated one, 
and now is not the time to tell it.

Kate, of course, recognized me from the comics she'd read. She burst out 
laughing; the Toad Men did not. They hissed and charged at me. I made 
short work of them. I see myself first and foremost as a protector and 
guide for those who are called by magic but have not yet the strength to 
protect themselves. I'm not proud of my capacity for violence, but there 
are times when it comes in handy. Kate did not see the form I wore in 
that fight, only felt the cold wind blow above her and heard their dying 
croaks. It was probably for the best.

I helped her up off the ground and she gripped my plush hands tightly. 
"Who the heck are you?" she said.

"I am Cornelius," I truthfully replied.

She laughed. "Sure. Pull the other one. Are you taking me to the Starlit 
Temple?"

"As a matter of fact," I told her, "yes, I am." I took her hand in mine 
and led her through the secret paths, through the foldings of time and 
space. She beheld a temple of towering columns, made of silvery stone, 
upon an empty landscape where alien stars shone, their constellations 
telling of heroes past. In the temple stood statues of the Star-Gods, 
before the glowing silver stone. And upon a throne, just above that 
stone, sat Mr. Victory in the blue and gold caped costume she knew so 
well. His unblinking deep blue eyes were staring off at a far distance.

"Welcome," he said.

"I'm dreaming," said Kate, "right?" But she would have heard the wind 
and felt the stone around her and known that if anything, it felt more 
real than the world she had left behind.

"No," said Mr. Victory. "This is the Starlit Temple and I am Mr. Victory."

"Sure. That's exactly what a dream would say."

"You're just as stubborn as I thought." Mr. Victory laughed, not 
unkindly. "That is part of why I chose you. I sealed myself and the 
power I wielded here, so the world would be safe from my failures--"

"Hold on, I thought--that whole thing was just a government conspiracy. 
There is no Star-Stone. There is no Starlit Temple."

"And yet here you are." Mr. Victory winked.  "That's just what they want 
you to think."

Kate crossed her arms. She did her best to hide her awe and terror of 
facing the hero of her youthful dreams. "So what do you want with me, 
exactly."

"An old enemy of mine has awakened. The Toad King."

"I noticed."

"I cannot return to the world I left behind. But I can choose another to 
wield my power and take my Word."

"And that's me?"

"If you want. I must warn you--the path of a hero is never an easy one. 
There will be much joy for you, if you take it, and much grief. Whether 
it's worth it or not--that's for you to decide."

She thought of her fears and her needs, of the helplessness she felt in 
the face of the evil in the world and the longing to do something 
anything to stand against it. "Yes," she said.

"Then speak the Word," said Mr. Victory.

She read the Word written upon the stone and spoke it. (I'm not going to 
tell you what it was, by the way. That would be irresponsible.)

And she was transformed.

CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST FLIGHT!

Kate was caught up in a whirl of stars. When they faded away, she was 
back in her own apartment. It was just the same as it had always 
been--the comics and books about programming scattered all over the 
room, the action figures of heroes like the Green Knight lined up on her 
shelves. But she was not the same.

The woman she saw in the mirror was tall, buxom, and powerfully built, 
with broad shoulders and noticeable muscles. She wore a blue and gold 
costume not dissimilar to that of Mr. Victory's own, a cape bound to her 
costume by clasps in the shape of stars.

She stared into the mirror, taking in the person she was now and trying 
to comprehend the fact that this was her. She gripped her breasts. "Holy 
crap," she said. "Now those are boobs. I never could have imagined in my 
wildest dreams I'd ever get boobs like this." She flexed her muscles in 
front of the mirror. "Hel-LO gorgeous. Okay so... I'm a superhero now, I 
have a cape..." She picked up her golden cape and trailed it through her 
hands. "...can I fly?"

She opened out the window and flung herself out and found the answer 
was, as of yet, no.

"Nnn," she said, pulling herself out of the dumpster she'd fallen into. 
"Well, at least I'm invulnerable, I guess. So let's see. I've got to be 
able to fly, right? Here goes..." She pointed her hands up in the air 
and flung her cape behind her, making the best heroic pose that she 
could. "By the power of Victory, I am... Victory!" she declared. It 
needed a little work, she knew.

She felt herself almost about to rise. Almost. And then somewhere in the 
distance, she heard a cry for help. One of the powers given by the Word 
was to know when and where you are needed.

She raced off to answer it, and before she knew it, she was flying. It 
was an astonishing feeling. She'd dreamed of it all her life, ever since 
she was a girl, freedom from a life that did its best to weigh her down. 
She had never imagined it would be anything like this. She laughed and 
whooped as she flung herself through the air.

On the ground, people felt the rush of wind above their heads and turned 
up to see. Taxi drivers and business people and street musicians and sex 
workers and tourists all looked up as one. They couldn't be seeing what 
they thought they were seeing, could they? There hadn't been a hero in 
Golden City since Mr. Victory died. That streak of blue and gold in the 
air was nothing but a half-believed story which older people told. They 
turned away and went on with their lives, but they knew in their hearts 
those lives would never be the same.

Meanwhile Victory flew to the source of the cry and saw: a construction 
worker dangling off the bridge, part of the drawn-out and much-delayed 
construction effort to repair the city's once-great Tarkington Bridge. 
She grabbed him and hefted him in her arms.

It was then that she realized that, while she now knew how to fly, she 
didn't exactly know how to stop.

She dropped the man on the bridge, hoping it wouldn't hurt him too much, 
and rocketed faster and faster, right into the lake where the river 
emptied. Hacking up water, she floated back up to the top. For a while 
she stared up at the sky, letting all the feelings from the last few 
minutes wash over her. She knew, at some point, that she needed to get 
out of the water and get back home, but she hadn't the slightest idea 
how. One couldn't exactly call a cab in the middle of the lake.

Her mind drifted back to her childhood, to the first time she had ever 
swum. She'd had a lot of trouble swimming at first, but her older sister 
had told her to just let go of her fear and agitation, let it flow into 
the water and let it bear her up. She did so and imagined herself 
floating not in the water but in the air. And when she opened her eyes, 
she saw that she was.

She made herself move through the air, slowly and hesitantly at first, 
but within moments picked it up as if she had been born to it. Whatever 
powers she was given seemed to guide her back to her home. This time, 
she could take in the sight of the city flashing by. And when she came 
in through the window, she only landed with a slight thud.

Ready to collapse on the bed, she spoke the Word again. Now she was Kate 
again, with mercifully dry clothes. Even though she'd exerted herself 
far more than she usually dared to do, she was surprisingly refreshed. 
It was as if transforming had reset her spoons.

Still, she was overwhelmed by everything she'd undergone in the last 
half hour. She was a hero now, and she had a new life and a new body 
that was everything she could have hoped for. It was, she thought, 
infinitely preferable to the lousy, flimsy body she had been stuck in. 
But it would take some time before she was fully used to it, before she 
could think of that body as her own. And she wasn't sure how she could 
explain all of this to Elinor. And she still needed to eat, and for that 
you needed money, and she didn't quite know how to make money as a 
superhero. So she still needed her old job, her old life and all of 
that. She was stuck: half in her new life, half in her old.

Still, at least she had something to look forward to now.

She collapsed onto her bed, ready to sleep through the weekend. And 
while she lay down, rumors made their way throughout the city; blurry 
photographs were shared and argued over endlessly. Did Golden City 
really have a hero again? Some felt hope and others fear.

And elsewhere in the city, another woman made her plans. For she had 
always dreamed of being a villain, but never had a hero to fight. Until 
now...

But that is a story for another time.

****

AFTERWORD:

This story originated from years ago, sometime around 2014-2015. Back 
then I was working on and off on a new reboot for the DCU. I am 
basically always coming up with pitch/revamp ideas, sometimes I make 
them into original stuff (like here), sometimes I write fanfic, 
sometimes it just goes into story limbo or mutates into something 
unrecognizeable.

Originally, this was going to be a new version of Power Girl. I decided 
to go from the angle of, what kind of person would . I also wanted to 
connect her to something other than Krypton that still felt appropriate 
for the character, so having a Shazam-based origin made sense. There was 
always a lot of discourse about the infamous boob window, so I decided 
to go from the angle of, what kind of person would want to present that 
way? It immediately made sense for her to be trans; the core note of her 
character is defiance so in that context the boob window is partially 
"Fuck you, I'm a woman."

Amazingly, I had no idea I was trans at the time. I just... had an 
extraordinarily vivid idea about what it would be like to be trans and 
want to create an identity that's closer to your ideal self. I also 
really, really loved Ranma 1/2 as a teenager. Anyway.

Most of the other ideas I dropped or folded into other things. This one, 
though, stuck with me enough I decided to pull it out for an attempted 
Medley revival which, sadly, everyone was too busy for. There's a Shazam 
movie out now, of course. (which I am just about to see after I post 
this, since I always put off everything to the absolute last minute...) 
This made me a bit hesitant about posting the thing, but then I read 
through a bunch of Milestone comics and the discussion from Worlds 
Collide about Superman and Icon and how the world needs both stories 
inspired me to finally post it. "Each myth is incomplete without the 
other," as Dwayne McDuffie wrote back in the day.

I also folded in elements of a vague idea i had for a continuation of 
Miracleman/Marvelman (like I said, I'm always coming up with useless 
revamp ideas.) That's another side of the myth. There is a dense web of 
intertextuality of superhero concepts, and now I'm going to extend that 
further, bringing in new forms of experience and new sources of inspiration.