Captain Marvel is one of Marvel Comics' most aspirational figures, and has inspired a passionate
fanbase.
But when a character has been around for this long, there are bound to be some unknown corners
to their history - even for longtime fans.
It's hard to find a superhero identity that hasn't been held by multiple people at some
point.
From Batman to Thor, it's just part of the territory when it comes to shaking up the
status quo.
So it's no surprise that Carol Danvers is far from the first person to bear the mantle
of Captain Marvel.
The first Captain Marvel was an alien named Mar-Vell, a member of the Kree species who
was initially sent to Earth to observe it as a spy, disguising himself as a human scientist
named Walter Lawson.
He eventually took up the identity of a superhero to protect the very people he'd been sent
to observe.
But Mar-Vell died in 1982, succumbing to cancer as a part of Marvel's first graphic novel.
After the death of the first Captain Marvel, the name was passed on to Monica Rambeau,
a New Orleans native who developed a variety of powers after being exposed to extra-dimensional
energy.
Despite having little to do with the original Captain Marvel, she spent some time using
the name as a member of the Avengers, even serving as the team's leader at one point.
After Monica, the name made its way back to two of Mar-Vell's descendents, a man named
Genis-Vell, and then a woman named Phyla-Vell.
All the while, Carol Danvers was working in the wings as Ms. Marvel, with an origin story
that tied her directly to Mar-Vell and his power set.
It wasn't until 2012 that she advanced to take the name Captain Marvel for herself,
putting her in the company of a rich legacy of heroes.
From as far back as the earliest days of Clark Kent, it's been tricky for superheroes to
balance personal relationships with their professional responsibilities.
Look at Peter Parker, whose life has constantly gone downhill thanks to the balancing act
he has to play as Spider-Man.
Carol Danvers' situation was even worse.
For a period of time, Ms. Marvel wasn't so much Carol Danvers' secret identity as it
was a completely separate, independent personality.
After an encounter with a Kree device called the Psyche-Magnitron fused her human DNA with
the alien Mar-Vell, she developed superpowers - but at first, she wasn't consciously aware
of them.
When her powers kicked in, Carol blacked out and Ms. Marvel took over.
It took some help from the inter-dimensional being Hecate to get her two identities under
control, but whatever it took, it was worth it.
It's way easier to be a superhero if you can remember what you did the next day.
"Prove you're not a Skrull."
"A Skrull cannot do that."
While she was introduced as working on the same Air Force base as Mar-Vell, Ms. Marvel's
solo series took her away from the military and into the slightly less-demanding field
of professional writing.
She quickly lands a position as an editor under J. Jonah Jameson, the Daily Bugle publisher
who's always giving grief to Peter Parker.
Carol is brought on by Jameson as an editor of a women's interest magazine, the content
of which the two butted heads over.
The cigar-chomping Jameson expected fashion tips and housekeeping advice, while Carol
wanted to push the publication as a progressive platform for women.
The plotline established Carol as a character with an agenda, and the confidence to pursue
it.
Her championing of women's rights reflected the era's ideals of empowerment and liberation.
Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, who introduced Carol as the new Captain Marvel in 2012, said
of the debut series,
"I'm struck now by how overtly progressive it was, even by today's standards."
It took decades for Carol to become a Captain, but she's been a superhero since the late
70s - and not always as Ms. Marvel, either.
Binary, Carol's second superhero identity came about after an encounter with Rogue,
a power-sapping member of the X-Men, who temporarily stripped Carol of her Kree powers.
She was later subject to experimentation by aliens known as the Brood, the results of
which left her able to get back into the superhero action by drawing on the power of a literal
star.
During this period she lost her emotional ties to Earth, leaving her free to venture
into outer space for new adventures, often as an ally of the X-Men.
But by the late 90s, she was angling back toward her original skillset, losing her connection
to her cosmic Binary powers and taking on the alias of Warbird and fighting as a member
of the Avengers.
But the loss of her Binary powers brought Carol to a personal low.
At her worst, she developed a drinking habit and became professionally unreliable, with
her conduct eventually leading to her suspension from the team.
Afterwards, she spent a few years as more of a background character before returning
to prominence - and her old name - with a second Ms. Marvel series in 2006.
But as dark as these years were for Carol, becoming an alcoholic and getting kicked off
the Avengers is far from the worst thing that's happened to her.
Superhero stories can take their characters to some weird places, but one plot turn from
Carol's past was so twisted that it nearly ruined her as a character.
It all took place in a single issue, 1980's Avengers #200, only three years after Carol
had made her debut as Ms. Marvel.
It's now widely considered to be one of the worst comic books ever written.
In the story, the Avengers discover that Ms. Marvel has become pregnant under mysterious
circumstances.
That in itself isn't a problem - just ask Carol's friend Spider-Woman.
The bizarre part is that the entire nine-month development of her pregnancy takes course
over just a few days, resulting in a child who ages at an impossibly fast rate.
The baby quickly grows into a man named Marcus, who explains that he was previously trapped
in an alternate dimension called Limbo, a world without time in which he was born.
He only escaped Limbo by being "born" again through Ms. Marvel.
Things turn from bizarre to frightening when Marcus reveals that he actually kidnapped
Carol, subjecting her to several weeks' worth of manipulation and mind control - after which
he impregnated her with his essence, and erased her memory of the event.
To call this development creepy is a serious understatement.
"That's illegal."
Instead of throwing him into the sun, Carol is written as developing romantic feelings
for the interdimensional sex criminal who is also her son, deciding to leave the Avengers
to go back to his world with him.
Making things even worse, Carol's teammates don't see anything wrong with any of it.
As writer and artist Carol Strickland wrote in an essay criticizing the issue,
"The entire plot is a deadly insult to every woman."
Fortunately for Carol's legacy, the bizarre story was effectively retconned the next year
by writer Chris Claremont, who previously wrote for the Ms. Marvel solo series.
Claremont took great pains to fix the mess this story left, making it clear that Carol
didn't fall in love with her attacker, but was instead brainwashed.
And when she's rescued from Marcus' clutches, she takes the Avengers to task with righteous
fury for standing by and doing nothing while she fell into the villain's grasp.
It's hard to imagine Netflix's Jessica Jones without Trish Walker, but Trish wasn't the
first character intended to fill this supporting role.
The original plans for the show included none other than Carol Danvers as Jessica's best
friend.
Considering Carol's history of intergalactic adventures, her inclusion would have made
for quite a different show - or at least a very stripped-down version of Carol.
Now that Netflix's Marvel partnership has come to an end, it's probably for the best
that Carol stayed on the film side of the equation.
After all, Captain Marvel once fought off an entire fleet of spaceships single-handedly,
and that's the kind of thing that begs to be seen in a movie.
Her powers are big-budget; what did Hawkeye ever do that compares to that?
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