March 6th may feel like an eternity away, but that hasn’t stopped fans of Captain
Marvel from getting really hyped about the character’s cinematic debut.
But for those of you who don’t know much about the Captain Marvel mantle – or the
7 characters who have held it – we’re taking a closer look at the character’s
history, and filling you in on why the hero has had such an iconic presence in the Marvel
Universe to date.
For starters, let’s examine how Captain Marvel came into existence.
Created by Stan Lee and Gene Golan in 1967, the first iteration of the character was a
Kree military officer by the name of Mar-Vell, who first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes
issue 12.
Prior to this, the name Captain Marvel belonged to another superhero – one owned by Fawcett
comics, who you all know now as Shazam.
DC had sued Fawcett for the character’s similiarities to their Superman, and Fawcett
was forced to stop publishing Captain Marvel.
In the late 60’s, Marvel would gain the trademark to the name, and in order to retain
the trademark, they had to publish a Captain Marvel once every two years, which is why
the character has had so many limited series, one shots and ongoing series, despite sometimes
being fairly unsuccessful.
Back to the character though!
Mar-Vell was sent to Earth to examine the planet since humans were developing technology
to travel into space.
Mar-Vell decides to align himself with Earth after growing tired of his superior officer’s
intents for the planet, and he’s branded a traitor of the Kree Empire.
The character would be revamped twice down the road – the first by Roy Thomas and Gil
Kane, who exiled Mar-Vell to the Negative Zone, where he could only temporarily escape
by exchanging atoms with Rick Jones via special wristbands called nega-bands.
The second time was by Jim Starlin, who revamped him when the character’s titles were wavering
in sales.
He’s freed from the Negative Zone and becomes the Protector of the Universe, a cosmic champion
appointed by entity Eon, working with Rick Jones to fight evil, including the likes of
Thanos.
In the 80s, Mar-Vell discovers that his previous exposure to Compound 13 Nerve Gas during a
battle with Nitro has given him cancer.
His nega-bands keep it at bay, but also cause him to resist any sort of treatment.
Unable to get medical help from the Kree Empire because he’s considered a traitor, he accepts
his inevitable death, and in Marvel’s first graphic novel, 1982’s The Death of Captain
Marvel, the character meets his end after his allies and even some of his foes pay their
respects to him.
When he dies, Thanos appears, and guides him into the afterlife along with Mistress Death.
The mantle wasn’t left empty long after that.
The next Captain Marvel to arise was Monica Rambeau.
Monica was born in New Orleans, where she was a lieutenant at the New Orleans Harbour
Patrol.
She was endowed with the Captain Marvel powers when trying to prevent the creation of a weapon
that left her exposed to extra-dimensional energy, which gave her the ability to convert
her body to energy.
This allowed her to travel at the speed of light, convert her body into any form of energy
within the electromagnetic spectrum and to travel through the vacuum of space.
She joined the Avengers and was briefly their leader, beginning in Avengers issue 279 in
1987.
She would retire from the team, later taking on the name Photon after the Captain Marvel
title went to Mar-Vell’s son Genis-Vell, which she resented him for.
Speaking of, Genis-Vell first hit the scene in Silver surfer Annual issue 6 in 1993, but
at the time used the codename Legacy.
He was the genetically engineered son of Mar-Vell, created from his father’s cell samples who
was artificially aged to physical maturity.
Similar to his father, he wore Nega-Bands and bonded with rick Jones, who, despite disliking
at first, became close friends with.
THEN Genis went insane because he couldn’t manage his Cosmic Awareness, threatens the
universe, dies and resurrects himself with the help of Baron Zamo, who syphons energy
from the beginnings and ends of time to do so.
THEN Genis gets into another name debacle with Monica because HE wants to use the codename
Photon after joining the Thunderbolts.
They talk, she gives it to him yet again, going with Pulsar for herself.
But, his resurrection complicated things, which starts to degenerate the universe.,
because, you know, linked to the ends and beginnings of time.
This results in Baron freezing him in a moment of time, then scattered parts of his body
all over the universe in order to prevent it from destroying all existence.
Keeping it in the family, next up was Phyla-Vell, Genis’ younger sister.
She was created by Genis when he ‘recreated’ the universe after he went insane and destroyed
it, and she was one of his few alterations.
She’s most well known for being a part of the Annihilation event, and for her romantic
relationship with Moondragon.
She would ditch the Captain Marvel title, taking up the Quasar mantle, and eventually
would become Martyr prior to dying when saving her Guardians of the Galaxy teammates.
After Phyla-Vell, there was Khn’nr, a Skrull sleeper agent who posed as Mar-Vell after
he bonded with the heroes DNA.
Mar-Vell’s persona became dominant over his, and his mental conditioning was erased.
And then the 6th Captain Marvel was Noh-Varr, who joined the Dark Avengers during the Dark
Reign storyline, but eventually would operate under the mantle of Protector.
If it isn’t overly obvious by now, none of the successors to Mar-Vell were overly
popular, until the 7th Captain Marvel was announced, and was a character already rooted
in the lore of the hero.
Carol Danvers.
Carol may be the most recent Captain Marvel, but she has a long history with the mantle,
having first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes 13 in 1968.
She was an officer in the US Air Force and the Security Chief of a restricted military
base, where she met Mar-Vell’s human alias, Dr Walter Lawson, and gets into an explosion
caused by a Kree device.
She disappeared for a while but resurfaced in 1977, where we find out that the explosion
caused his genetic structure to meld with Captain Marvel’s, making her a hybrid human-Kree,
and giving her powers, causing her to become Ms Marvel.
The character would often work alongside the Avengers, and her civilian persona would consistently
be in storylines where she vocalized the importance of fighting for equal pay for equal work.
In the 80s, in the Avengers #200, Carol had a bit of a rough period after she was infamously
kidnapped by Marcus Immortus to another dimension, was brainwashed, seduced and impregnated – a
storyline that critics have noted as being rape.
The Avengers at the time brushed it off as her being in love.
Chris Claremont, who had written Carol in the past, would go on to take the helm for
the title and make a point of ‘undoing’ the storyline when Rogue in Avengers Annual
#10 in 1981, permanently absorbed her memories, and Charles Xavier must restore them to Carol.
Upon getting them back, Carol is furious at the Avengers for letting Marcus get away with
brainwashing her and doing what he did to her.
She would go on to delete all government files in the Pentagon on the X-Men and herself,
which is seen as her symbolically breaking away from her life as Ms Marvel.
The character would take up a new mantle in the form of Binary, in which she was capable
of generating the power of a star.
In the 90s, she would still be Binary, but by the end of the Operation Galactic Storm
story line, her powers reverted to her Ms Marvel ones, and she would rejoin the Avengers.
In the 2000s, she would become Ms Marvel again, and was featured in many of the massive story
arcs between then and 2012, when she would officially become the character in Avenging
Spider-Man issue 9.
Since, she has been considered to be Marvel’s biggest female hero, and now, in her upcoming
MCU debut, has been said to be the most powerful superhero to exist in that universe, while
also being the very first female superhero to get her own solo feature film.
There we have it friends!
Whose your favourite version?
Do you wish some of the other Captain Marvels stuck around longer?
Let us know your thoughts in those comments below!
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In the meantime, thanks for watching!
Catch you all in the next one!