Captain Marvel first debuted in the comics back in Marvel Super-Heroes issue 12 in 1967.
That first interation of the character was an alien superhero, a Kree named Mar-Vell,
who came to Earth initially as a spy for his race, but takes a liking for humans.
Over the years, after Mar-Vell met his untimely end, others would take up the mantle, including
Carol Danvers, a character who is about to hit the big screen in the MCU as the strongest
hero we’ve seen yet in the cinematic franchise.
While the two have had some glorious moments in the comics, they’ve both had their fair
share of traumatizing and terrifying experiences over the years.
So today, we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 scariest Captain Marvel moments,
which includes the likes of multiple characters who have held the mantle.
So with that in mind lets jump into it!
10 Brain Damage Let’s start off our list by discussing a
pivotal moment in Carol Danvers’ comic history; her transformation from regular ol awesome
pilot human being to a Kree Human hybrid, Ms Marvel!
In the 1969 Captain Marvel issue 18, back when Mar-Vell was still the captain, he faced
off against Yon-Rogg (the character that there’s been a lot of debate over if Jude Law is actually
playing him instead of Mar-Vell).
Yon-Rogg, who was a foe of Mar-Vell’s prior, busted out something called the Psyche-Magnetron,
and Carol was nearby, which is what fused her DNA with Mar-Vell’s Kree DNA.
But it did something else, too.
It caused her brain damage in the explosion.
This is what would lead to her dealing with her initial split personality, and whenever
she would become Ms Marvel, it would be another identity, and cause her to black out, which,
as you can imagine, created a lot of problems for the character.
We’ll be discussing that in detail though later on in our list though.
9 Kidnapped Another Carol Danvers number here.
Carol has been kidnapped quite a few times over the years, but the first was particularly
traumatizing.
So back in the 1968 Captain Marvel series, in issue number 8, a villain by the name of
Cyberex was introduced.
He’s a homicidal robot that Mar-Vell actually created; he was ordered to build it by The
Organization, but ended up facing off against the hero.
Turns out he built it too well; it would use its self repair abilities to fix its broken
parts, and then show up at Mar-Vell’s hotel room, where it didn’t find Mar-Vell, but
instead, Danvers, who was trying to expose who Mar-Vell really was (at the time, he was
known as his human alias, Doctor Walter Lawson).
So what does any good villain do with a situation like that?
Cyberex kidnapped Carol, of course, effectively turning her into a damsel in distress; something
that Carol was not overly keen about, as you can imagine.
Mar-Vell ends up coming to the rescue and saving the day in the end.
8 Amnesia One of the theories surrounding the Captain
Marvel film is that Carol has lost her memories of her previous life on Earth.
It’s something that’s explicitly stated in the film’s trailer, although the why
and how remain unknown and privy to speculation.
Regardless of however Marvel Studios chooses to play that out, one thing is for certain;
Carol has a long history of amnesia in the comics, which was likely the inspiration for
integrating that aspect of her life in the revised MCU origin story we’ll see play
out on the big screen.
The first time we see Carol’s mind being messed with was in her 1977 solo series Ms
Marvel, in which her dual physiologies, Kree and Human, would conflict, making her almost
black out and not remember the things she did as Ms Marvel.
13 issues later, Carol would finally accept her dealing identities, with them becoming
one in the same during a fight against Hecate.
Carol would lose her memories again two more times, once thanks to fighting Rogue (more
on that later) and then again as Captain Marvel in the 2012 self titled series, issue 14,
when she flew into space to save the world, and loses years worth of memories in the process.
7 Fascism Carol has had many an impactful story arc
while donning the Captain Marvel mantle.
One of those is the more recent Civil War 2, a story event that came out at the same
time the MCU Captain America Civil War film was released.
While the film is a loose adaptation of the first Civil War story event, this second Civil
War in the comics is spearheaded by Captain Marvel and Iron Man, on opposing sides.
The whole plot behind that one is that there’s an Inhuman named Ulysses who shows up and
has visions of the future.
Carol wants to use Ulysses to prevent crimes.
Iron Man believes that’s wrong, despite the Inhuman’s initial prophecies panning
out to be true.
Of course, this goes to far, and she becomes a bit of a pawn for the government, and Hydra,
expressing some really fascist views on crime prevention.
This even causes Kamala Khan, the new Ms Marvel, to start to reject Carol and switch sides
after he mentor demands she lead a group of children soldiers not dissimilar to the youth
factions the Nazis had in World War 2.
6 Venom During the Siege story arc, writer Brian Reed
had penned various one shots that followed some of our favourite Marvel character around
during the build up to the event’s major climax.
One of these featured Peter Parker and Carol Danvers working together, in which the heroic
duo took on Venom.
And of course, what happens?
The Venom symbiote bonds with Carol.
Venom, whose host was Mac Gargan at the time, got his butt served to him but Danvers, and
she even managed to rip Venom off of the criminal in the process.
Venom, being a Klyntar, knows a potential powerful host when he spots them, tried Carol
on for size, and the outcome was a little terrifying.
A hybrid of Ms Marvel and Venom who flew around and had a grand ol time making things explode
and catch fire until Spider-Man managed to get Carol free of Venom’s grip.
5 Rogue Rogue has become one of the most iconic female
characters within the X-Men.
And, for those of you who grew up with the character in the X-Men cartoons or even the
2000 X-Men live action feature film, it may surprise you that she made her debut in the
comics as a villain.
Chris Claremont, her creator, initially intended to introduce her in the Ms Marvel series,
but that never happened.
Instead, she first appeared in the 1981 Avengers Annual issue 10, but still had a bit of a
kafuffle with Danvers, to the point where she stole not only her powers, but her soul.
She also tosses Carol off the Golden Gate Bridge, so all in all, not one of Carol’s
finer moments.
Ultimately, Rogue has difficulty with with she absorbed from Danvers, having to deal
with not only her own self, but Carol’s personality within her head.
4 Ruins Here we have a number about the OG Captain
Marvel, Mar-Vell.
But an alternate universe version of him.
In 1995, a series called Ruins was released.
It followed a former Daily Bugle reporter, Phil Sheldon, explore a dystopian Marvel universe
that is best described as “everything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
Those are his words, actually.
Of course, he runs into Mar-Vell at one point, in a Nevada Kree Concentration Camp.
Yeah, Ruins gets real dark at times.
Anywho, the camp has been placed in an area where the US used to test nuclear weapons,
which has resulted in all of the Kree individuals imprisoned there developing cancer from the
exposure to the radiation.
Sheldon interviews Mar-Vell, who tells him his story; he was on the Kree spaceships sent
to Earth with the intention of liberating the planet.
The ships were cloaked initially, but thanks to intermission from the radiation of the
Silver Surfer’s corpse, their fleet was exposed, and the countries of Earth worked
together to blast them with nuclear weapons.
Nine tenths of the Kree people in the fleet died, and the rest, including Mar-Vell, who
was the leader of the fleet, were imprisoned, with Mar-Vell no longer believing in Earthling’s
humanity.
He even tells Sheldon that few Kree are born here in the camp, and that they humans don’t
help with their dead; the Kree have to pile them up and burn the bodies.
3 MODOK’s Mind Control What’s one way to torment a character who
has had to deal with kidnappings, amnesia and split identities?
Well, why not add mind control to that list too!
Yikes.
Back when Danvers was still Ms Marvel, in her first solo series in 1977, she ends up
taking of a few big and small villains from the Marvel Universe, including MODOK, the
Mobile Organism Designed Only for Killing.
Ah, gotta love the 70s.
In issue 6 and 7 of the series, the villain ends up using mind control on her, tricking
her into believing that he’s a handsome and charming man, making her see him as tall,
and strong and beautiful.
She even shares a kiss with the hideous monster before she manages to break free of his control.
Nothing like swapping spit with the enemy.
Gross.
https://screenrant.com/captain-marvel-worst-things-happen-to-carol-danvers-tragedies/ - 13
2 The Death of Captain Marvel In 1982, Mar-Vell was killed off in a series
called The Death of Captain Marvel.
Penned by Jim Starlin, the fellow who brought you the Infinity Gauntlet story arc, Mar-Vell’s
death was caused by something very different than most other superheroes demises; he contracted
cancer.
His exposure to something called the Compound 13 nerve gas was the culprit, and while his
nega-bands kept the cancer at bay, they also caused his body to resist all forms of treatment.
The Kree Empire also abandoned him, not allowing him to seek any of their medical expertise
since Mar-Vell was considered a traitor.
The story follows Mar-Vell accepting his impending death, with many other characters in the Marvel
universe paying him their last respects.
His life ends with him seeing a vision of Thanos, one of his biggest adversaries, who
comes to him as a friend now, guiding him into the afterlife alongside Mistress Death.
It’s a heart wrenching story.
Mar-Vell is notably also one of the only characters in comic books to actually stay dead, despite
his spirit occasionally popping up in other stories.
1 Rape Carol Danvers has not had it easy.
If anything, that should be the take away from this list so far.
But there’s something that tops all of the other terrible things that have happened to
her and Mar-Vell combined; something that comic creators were conflicted on, and that
Chris Claremont chose to undo in his Avengers Annual issue 10 in 1981.
So let’s back track here for a second.
In The Avengers issue 200 from October of 1980, Ms Marvel is kidnapped (yet again) by
a character named Marcus, who claims to be the son of Avengers’ antagonist Immortus.
She’s taken to an alternate dimension, where she’s brainwashed (again) seduced, and then
impregnated.
She then gives birth back on Earth and the baby ends up rapidly aging into another version
of Marcus.
Ultimately, Marcus has used her to impregnate her with himself so that he can be born on
Earth.
Everyone in the Avengers just assume the two have fallen in love; something that Carol
later gives them shit for, since Marcus had so obviously brainwashed her.
Many a critic and creator had an issue with the storyline, including Comic historian Carol
A Strickland, who penned an essay on the event, calling it The Rape of Ms Marvel, in which
she cited a line from Marcus as constituting rape.
I quote, “Finally, after relative weeks of such efforts, and admittedly, with a subtle
boost from Immortus’ machines, you became mine.”
That’s f***ed up.
Chris Claremont also voiced that the storyline was inappropriate, and it’s what prompted
the whole Rogue absorbing her memories story arc we mentioned earlier.
Later, when Professor X did restore Carol’s memories, that’s when she lashed out at
the Avengers, confronting them about how they failed to look out for her and realize that
Marcus had brainwashed her.
Later, Dancers would enter the pentagon in Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men and delete all
records of herself as Ms Marvel, eventually adopting a new persona as Binary after an
adventure in space with the X-Men.
There we have it friends!
If that list didn’t make you feel real darn morbid, well, we have a whole other one we
just did on cannibalism, so if you want to get low, maybe check that one out.
All jokes aside, it’s great to see that Captain Marvel is finally getting the justice
she deserves in her upcoming adaptation, all things considered.
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I’ll catch you all in the next video!